Vol.1, Ed. 34 Jan. 4, 2026 - ✨Stop Showing Up With the Answer

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” — Zora Neale Hurston

Dear Brilliant Community,

This week, my messages vanished into the void. No "yes." No "no." Not even a "sounds good." Just radio silence.

After sitting with that quiet for a moment (and resisting the spiral), I decided to try something new: treating silence as data.

Because silence can mean a hundred things—wrong timing, wrong person, too busy, not clear, not compelling, or yes, an actual no. The point is, I don't get to know unless I learn to ask better questions.

Here's the part that made me laugh at myself. I realized I've been doing the very thing that used to drive me crazy when I was a product developer.

Back then, clients arrived with solutions already picked, not because they were wrong, but because they’d lived with the problem so long the workaround started to look like the answer.

The trouble is, when you start with the solution, you skip the most important part: the space that reveals what's actually broken.

And it hit me: I'm doing the same thing now. I've been showing up with answers when what owners really need first is the space to name the mess out loud—without feeling judged, sold to, or overwhelmed.

So I'm practicing a shift. I'm leading with questions, not fixes.

One question changed how I think about all this. My coach asked: "If you could go back to when you started the company, what would you do differently knowing what you know now?"

Most owners have never been asked that. And the answer usually points straight to what needs fixing now.

Here are a few others I'm starting with:

Where do decisions get stuck or bounce back to you?

What breaks when you're not in the room?

What problem are you "living with" that you shouldn't be?

So here's my ask: Hit reply with one sentence about what you've been tolerating so long you've stopped questioning it. Or book 15 minutes and we'll start there: Book a Clarity Call here

No pitch. Just the conversation that should've happened first.

P.S. If the silence continues, that's data too. It means I'm still learning.