Find the story that names your problem.
Thirty short stories from nearly forty years across the table from owners, executives and professionals. Each starts with the problem, and ends with one move for this week.
Each story starts with a problem you may be living
The loan you keep applying for. The key employee who left. The one customer who is most of your revenue. The marketing spend that produced nothing. Each story opens there, in business terms, with no illustration yet.
Then comes the read: what I see in the market that the person in the story missed. One illustration, usually from aviation, makes the read stick, and I tie it back to the problem in plain words. Then the bridge, the order that closes the gap, with one tool from the book named. Then one move to run this week.
The people are composites with the details changed. The markets are real. Most stories take four to five minutes.
Four phases, four ways in
Market
These stories follow the money: where it lands, who the flagship is, which gap is open, and what the market will trade for. Start here if sales have stalled, the loan is not coming, or one customer is most of your revenue.
Mission
These stories ask whose dream you are living and which career fits the life you described. Start here if the business works and still feels heavy, if you left a large system and the plane is heavier than it should be, or if you are building with a partner.
Method
These stories cover the workflow, the roster, the scoreboard and the move out of the star player’s seat. Start here if the business stops when you stop, or you cannot find good people.
Loop
These stories begin where one loop closes and the next aircraft comes into view. Start here if you want the bigger plane and want to be rated for it before you fly it.
Start with the letter
Join the EEThinkers. One idea a week, five minutes, no noise. Each note carries a market read, a story and a question to take into the week. Connect with me on LinkedIn too, where most of these conversations start. If you would rather have me read your situation, the second step is the assessment at /start/.
A good product, decent marketing, and no sales
For the owner whose product gets praise and whose sales stay flat. Find which of three gaps is holding the sale before you pay for another fix.
Seat: Good product, decent marketing, no salesWhere the money in your town actually lands
For the owner of a small service company chasing customers one at a time. Learn to see where your region's money lands and how to stand where it arrives.
Seat: Chasing customers one at a timeWhat a million dollars would do by Friday
For the owner who wants a loan and has a number, but cannot say who the money would reach. One question shows what is real in your plan and what was gear.
Seat: Loan sought, use of money unclearYou don't grow loans. You grow customers.
For the founder on another loan, grant or pitch application. See what capital is for, and test your next ask against the customers it would buy.
Seat: On the umpteenth loan applicationRead the water before you sign the franchise agreement
For the leader about to buy a franchise or a second location on a good feeling. Read the market before you spend on the system, the lease or the build-out.
Seat: About to buy on a feelingIdeas are cheap. Opportunities get vetted.
For the owner who came home from a workshop with a notebook of ideas and no way to pick one. Five written questions turn the pile into a short list.
Seat: Drowning in ideas after a workshopOne customer is not a market
For the owner whose biggest customer is most of the revenue. Anchor to the industry and the fleet around it, so one decision cannot sink the shop.
Seat: One big customer is most of the revenueRead the money before you pick the offer
For the owner planning next year's offers in their own town. Three readable properties of money in motion tell you what to sell, and when the window closes.
Seat: Wants to know what to sell next year in their own townWhat "too expensive" is telling you
For the owner who keeps hearing "too expensive" and keeps cutting the price. Affordability is a perceived trade, so the fix is to change the trade.
Seat: Keeps hearing too expensive and discountingOkay, but it's just you
For the founder whose pitch deck opens with a trillion-dollar industry. Count the channels, workers and fans you can reach, and you get a number you can run.
Seat: Pitch deck opens with a trillion-dollar industryWho knows you matters more than who you know
For the owner or executive with a full contact list and an empty pipeline. The shift is from collecting names to being known for what you bring.
Seat: Has the network, deals still do not comeThe bottom of the top beats the top of the bottom
For the executive or owner invited into rooms above their level and tempted to dress the part. What opens those rooms, and what closes them.
Seat: In rooms above their level, tempted to look the partSell where the money already lands
For the small company selling to other small companies and getting discounts, delays and maybes. Where to point the same effort instead.
Seat: Small company selling to other small companiesCompanies don't sign. People do.
For the seller who keeps losing deals on paper-perfect proposals to a rival with a relationship. How to read the person who decides.
Seat: Selling to a company, losing to a personYour business is one cell in a larger body
For the owner whose pipeline dropped while the fixes stay inside the company. A monthly habit that turns market surprises into forecasts.
Seat: Thinks the market is a departmentYou left the system. Its goals came with you.
For the executive on severance whose new plan reads well and feels wrong. What shifts: you find out which of your goals you chose.
Seat: Left big system, plane feels heavyYour old chair is still doing the diagnosing
For the finance, clinical, engineering or sales professional about to run something of their own. What shifts: you see the lens before it writes your plan.
Seat: Seeing the whole business one wayThe movie you would produce and direct
For the professional weighing stay, climb or start. What shifts: you stop collecting opinions and screen your own picture for the people in it.
Seat: Stay, climb or start?The business works. You are tired anyway.
For the owner with a healthy business and an empty tank. What shifts: you set a fixed point and read where your time, money and energy actually go.
Seat: Business works, owner burned outSomeone else's dream with your name on the door
For the owner running a business to meet a family's or a mentor's expectation. What shifts: stepping away becomes a decision you can make on purpose.
Seat: Running a business for others' expectationsThe business stops when you stop
For the skilled owner working eighty-hour weeks whose crews run the jobs but whose phone only rings for them. Here is what shifts.
Seat: The talent working eighty-hour weeksGet a yes with money before you build
For the owner about to sign for an app, a lease or a hire on applause alone. Test with an ally's customers first and let money answer.
Seat: Building before anyone has paidDraw the workflow before you hire
For the owner about to post a job, or let someone go, to fix a problem that has not been drawn on one page. Draw the map first, then decide.
Seat: Hiring to fix an undrawn problemThe people you can't find got up at five
For the owner who says people don't want to work anymore. The drive exists. What shifts is whether your business gives it a championship to chase.
Seat: Can't find good peoplePick the scoreboard before the next growth dollar
For the owner whose growth stalled after year three. Choose profit or equity on purpose, read your market, and the next dollar knows where to go.
Seat: Growth stalled, unsure which numberNinety percent done is not done
For owners with a pad full of half-finished initiatives. Pick the one nearest a paying customer and land it first.
Seat: Initiatives stuck at ninety percentThink like a pilot before you buy the AI
For owners who bought three AI tools and see no change. Write down the process you own first, then decide what runs it.
Seat: Buying AI before the workflow existsYou have the title. Your father has the authority.
For a successor handed the president's title while the founder still decides. How to earn the authority by learning what the business really holds.
Seat: Successor has the title, not authorityTwo operating styles, one business
For couples and partners building one business with different wiring. Read the market together first, then assign the seats.
Seat: Two partners, two operating stylesYou get rated before you fly the bigger plane
For owners eyeing a second company, a fund, a board seat or a public role. Get checked out on the new aircraft before you strap it on.
Seat: Ready for a bigger aircraftAre these stories real people?
Each story that uses an owner or a client is a composite. The industry, the town and the numbers are changed, and the pattern underneath is one I have watched many times. Public companies appear only as examples of how a market works. Nothing in a story identifies a real person.
Which story should I read first?
Pick the title that sounds like your problem this week. If you are not sure, use the phase filter. Start with Market if sales are the worry, Mission if the business works and still feels heavy, and Method if the business stops when you stop. The assessment at the end of the page is the other way in.
How long does a story take, and where does it connect to the book?
Most take four to five minutes. Each one names the chapter of The Method Trap where the idea is built in full, along with the assignment for that chapter. You can read the stories in any order, the same way you can enter the book at any chapter.