#134 I’m Done Playing Small, Are You?
Justin and I traveled to Louisiana this week to spend Thanksgiving with his Dad. I was boarding my plane to New Orleans on Monday when I was texting my friend that I felt like I haven't been trusting my intuition lately and my vision felt so unclear.
I spent the entire flight journaling – my (big, audacious) vision for Affinity, community product predictions for 2026 (coming soon!), and how I want to show up.
Today I'm sharing a page from my journal. If you need a kick in the butt, or to be reminded to trust yourself, this one is for you.
Let’s get into it –
I’ve been playing so small.
I’ve been on “Strategy & Innovation Teams” since 2015. That means my job was to go into a business (big ones like Google, Berkshire Hathaway, and RE/MAX Real Estate), talk to their customers, and identify opportunities for new or updated product experiences that were designed for the future. It was a big job, and I was paid really well to solve problems and run experiments every day.
This work started even when I worked in architecture – we went into companies, talked to employees, observed their workplace patterns, and redesigned the space for efficiency and productivity (of course, ha).
Early in my tech career I watched technology shift to the cloud… we brought fortune 500 companies out of the on-site server age and into the cloud partnering with AWS, Google, and Microsoft.
At age 28 I was a level 9/12 principal at our consulting firm… and in most cases the youngest at my level by 10+ years.
A few years after taking a UX Design certification program from General Assembly, I started teaching the same program for them.
I’m incredibly strategic and I know my shit... but recently I stopped trusting my intuition and I gave all my power away.
I worried about stepping back into custom development after working on out of the box platforms (Kajabi, Circle, Mighty, etc.) and Wordpress. I started doubting myself. I asked coaches and friends for permission to update a line of text even though I’ve been blogging for over a decade.
I’ve been watching technology shift from the sidelines thinking I will never be able to catch up. I’ve been trying to “fit in a box” by partnering with one platform to make my business “simple” and “easy” … it sounds so stupid now reading this back to myself.
I’m telling you this because I want you to know that if you have stepped to the sideline and have been playing small, then you’re coming with me – get back into the game.
You didn’t build a business to create an average member experience or worry about entry-level pricing. You saw a gap and you built your business to have the best solution on the market for your people.
Here’s how I’m done playing small:
I’m stepping back into my innovation seat. We’re going to create the best micro-product experiences you can imagine for people products. Think: personalized learning journeys, apps based on frameworks, member matching, custom GPTs, and more.
We’re creating a testing ground. We’re launching a membership for Affinity next year, and it’s going to help you scale your program or membership. But we’re also launching all of our micro-products here so that our members can test and use them first.
We’re going to build a lot of cool sh*t. We’re going back to basics – solving real problems with today’s technology. That means we’re increasing time to value for our members, and we’re giving them really fun experiences that feel personalized.
I’m going to talk about all of it. I’ve tried to keep my topics more simple because everyone tells me that people don’t understand when I use product language… but I’m done holding back the kind of education I want to share. If you want to have the best products on the market, you need to learn these skills.
My vision for Affinity in 2026 is that quantum leap I’ve been waiting for… and I don’t even mean the money, I mean the game we’re playing is next level. We’re going to solve big problems, change lives, and do it with the most modern technology and AI available. Hop in!!
If you want to build some really cool sh*t with me, book a discovery call here and share your vision. Turning a vision into a strategy and development plan is kind of my superpower.