Sometimes, you hit a ceiling in your business, and it’s got nothing to do with the market, the team, or the model. And everything to do with you.

Talie Smith has spent 25 years leading organisations through complex change. When COVID hit, her business came close to going under, and the personal work she did first is what turned it around.

We got into her Design Therapy methodology, which surfaces the misalignment sitting inside an organisation before any brand work can begin. We covered where partnership ends and transaction starts, and what scarcity cost Talie in 2020 against what possibility has opened up since. At one point I brought a live client dispute into the conversation, one I'm working through right now, and we unpacked it together in real time.

This is a forum-level conversation about the real work of building something that matters.

Key takeaways:

• A business can’t outgrow the person running it. Growing yourself is the growth strategy.
• Connecting your personal purpose to your business is a structural, commercial advantage large competitors can’t replicate.
• There’s a line between a partnership and a transaction. The best revenue comes from knowing which side you’re on before you sign anything.
• The mindset you bring to disruption determines whether you ride the wave or watch it from the shore.
• The gold is almost always already inside the organisation. An outside perspective trained to find it is the difference.

More about Talie Smith

Talie is co-founder and CEO of Smith & Connors. She is an EO Portland member and serves on the EO Regional Council as Director. Find her at http://www.smithandconnors.com/

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