Brewed From Within

Waiting Rooms

The waiting room is that season where you’re not where you used to be, but you’re not yet where you want to go. It’s the in-between. The pause before your name gets called. The place where you’re preparing for what’s next, whether you think you know what’s next or not.

If we can move our egos out of the way long enough, we’d see the beauty here. The waiting room is where character develops. Where preparation happens. Where we create, reflect, and release what no longer serves us.

But we want to bypass it. We grow impatient and intolerant. We think our will—our force—can push us through faster. It doesn’t work like that. You’ll only exhaust and burn yourself out.It’s easy to watch others get called before you. The mental chatter starts: “When will it be my turn?” “Will I ever be ready?” “Why them and not me?”

The problem with watching others is that you have no idea where they are in their journeys. You don’t know where they’re being called to next—or what’s waiting for them when they get there. Their timeline is not a reflection of yours. It never was.

Everyone gets called at exactly the right time for their highest good. Not a moment sooner. Not because the universe is withholding opportunity, but because love doesn’t set us up to fail. The waiting room keeps us from walking through a doorway we’re not ready for. It’s protective. We wouldn’t hand a six-year-old the car keys just because they felt ready to drive. Your higher wisdom knows better. That child stays in the waiting room until they’re actually equipped for what’s next.

EXTRA SHOT

Watch Vanessa narrate this riff on-stage!

No one wants to be in the waiting room. But everyone has to pass through it. These built-in pause points aren’t punishments—they’re where we catch our breath, integrate what we’ve learned, and prepare for what’s coming.

We take the wait personally. Like it’s evidence we’re not good enough, not ready enough, not deserving enough. We get frustrated. Resentful. Sometimes we give up right here.

But your job is to learn to sit in the tension of not being where you want to be without making it mean something’s wrong with you. When we are able to loosen the grip, the pause can be strategic. You can recalibrate here. Gain mastery here. Rest here. The waiting room is the bulb that leads to the flower—fertilized by your patience and who you choose to become while you wait.

EXTRA SHOT

This contribution was written by Vanessa McNeal. Vanessa is a social architect and keynote speaker who transforms the nervous system to lead through love.

Life is full of waiting rooms. When the time comes, we move forward and eventually, we find ourselves in another waiting room. We create suffering if we believe we’ll arrive one day at a place with no more growth, no more waiting.

That’s not how it works. What would we learn by skipping the journey to reach the destination? How would we develop patience, self-trust, or resilience?

Right now is transitory, but micro-moments add up and coalesce into the story of our comprehensive progress. Waiting rooms are where we become the person who’s ready and open to what comes next.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Diplomacy Disrupted

The world stands at a crossroads where traditional diplomacy has ceded ground to a more dynamic force.

Entrepreneurs have emerged as the new diplomats of our era, boldly leading where established institutions falter and distrust prevails. For centuries, diplomacy belonged exclusively to statesmen and ambassadors, their negotiations cloaked in formality and protocol. Today, that order is being profoundly reshaped by visionaries who reach across divides, not through treaties but through the universal language of solving, building, creating, and sharing.

In a fractious world marked by de-globalization and nationalism, entrepreneurship has become the great common denominator—a calling that transcends borders and unites disparate communities around shared purpose.​

EXTRA SHOT

This contribution was written by Jonathan Ortmans. Jonathan has visited 150+ countries around the world and leads the Global Entrepreneurship Network.

National boundaries, once formidable barriers to commerce and culture, have become remarkably porous to innovation and startup culture. The seamless flow of talent, capital, and ideas continues to define entrepreneurial ecosystems that connect and outperform those that isolate. This porosity represents more than economic opportunity; it embodies a fundamental shift in how value is created and distributed across the globe. Entrepreneurs operate comfortably in this fluid environment, recognizing that the greatest innovations emerge when diverse perspectives collide and collaborate. From rural villages to capital cities, startup culture spreads with viral intensity, carried by digital platforms and sustained by communities that refuse to accept geographic limitations on their ambitions.​

Yet disruption—the defining characteristic of our age—carries a paradox that demands understanding. Disruption is not destruction; rather, it is alchemy that turns uncertainty into opportunity. This transformation requires both courage and vision, qualities entrepreneurs possess in abundance. They are bold, thriving precisely where others see only chaos, spotting cracks where new possibilities emerge as governments and societies shift the rules.

Just as storms clear the air, refresh the water, and renew the land, moments of disruption force examination of old assumptions. These breakthroughs release complacency to push the boundaries of what is possible. The danger lies not in disruption itself, but in our response to it—whether we view upheaval as an ending or a beginning.​

Entrepreneurs understand that constructive rebellion is not just healthy; it is essential to keeping ecosystems vibrant and societies progressing. Without creative rebellion, without founders willing to risk failure for solutions that choose forward over left or right, stagnation becomes inevitable.

This willingness to occasionally stir up turbulence reflects an entrepreneurial mindset that questions the status quo, challenges outdated models, and refuses to accept that the way things have always been is the way they must remain.

Bold global leadership—rooted in vision, grit, and collaboration—transforms chaos into progress. Rebels who lead this progress for good deserve celebration, for in entrepreneurship as in diplomacy, the bold change our world.

Brewed From Within
#33 📖 Entrepreneurship

By Ben McDougal, ago

Landing

The energy of anything new is easy to like. Along the way, while momentum creates ease, attention can slip.

Arriving at our destination took work, but the task is not complete until we stick the landing. To see this in nature, watch how birds take off quickly and fly around with ease. As they land, a final moment of attention is required. Another example is how climbers most often get injured on the way down a mountain. Fatigue and reduced focus make an impact, but beyond physical factors, accomplishments invite complacency. Whether it’s a tiny task or epic exit, a strong finish may take more than everything leading to it.

Extra Shot

Every moment is the end of something.

When it’s time to finish, make no assumptions. Stay detail-oriented to complete the sequence. Once the landing is executed, let the experience inspire renewed vitality as we shift gears and remain open to next.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Momentum Mountain

From the moment we decide, a force is required—action geared to find and then maintain momentum.

Extra Shot

Everyone has a creative spirit. When an appetite for (calculated) risk is applied, the entrepreneurial spirit emboldens.

Meaningful momentum is awakened in endless ways. Early propulsion can mean showing up at an event for the first time, researching the competitive landscape, testing an early hypothesis, leaning into customer discovery, considering potential co-founders, building product, and eventually activating a launch sequence.

Once a project is launched, the need for momentum gets stronger. There are a world of examples, but growing the business, achieving milestones, and celebrating progress are all forms of momentum.

Even in later stages of a company, momentum drives activities like succession planning, navigating exit paths, and considering how your human, financial, cultural, intellectual, and network capital can be recycled back into the startup community.

If momentum is maintained long enough, the result can be a flywheel effect that feeds on itself. Most things you want to grow require attention, but with less friction, momentum delivers bonus time and valuable understanding. Space for new activity emerges and that keeps things interesting.

The tough reality is that if momentum is melting, it’s difficult to recapture. Once something melts, it’s never quite the same. These dips are moments to consider when and what to quit. If there’s enough energy to keep going, there may be a way to keep building.

The longer stagnancy lingers, the further you get from momentum. Tactics to maintain kamiwaza, even when momentum is melting, start with communication.

Honest communication spells out the pace. Reducing the weird by exposing the why also keeps different stakeholders on the same page. By reducing the tension that quietly brews in silence, teams can run at lower speeds, even during lethargic times. If left unattended, however, this can devolve into a lack of urgency that brings another set of challenges.

At lower speeds, perhaps less movement is needed to regain the sense of shared momentum? That’s true, but also lame. When it’s time to thrive, here are climbing tactics to awaken the mountains of momentum:

  • Say yes to unlock adventure.
  • Say no to create space.
  • Travel to expand the mind.
  • Share premium human time.
  • Revisit customer discovery.
  • Experiment with new ideas.
  • Onboard new customers.
  • Build a fresh feature.
  • Add to the team.
  • Consider a pivot.
  • Alter your routine.
  • Embrace continual learning.
  • Expand your engaged network.
  • Attend a new startup community event.
  • Revisit an activity you once enjoyed.
  • Stay centered on any descent.

    Momentum is crucial to playing long-term games with long-term counterparts. Find the proper pace by recognizing the momentum you’ll need to move through different stages of the quest. This awareness helps us quit chasing momentum and frees us to forge better art at a sustainable speed. Continue to multiply mass and velocity, which equates to momentum when, where, and how it’s needed to stay wild.

    Brewed From Within
    📖 Entrepreneurship

    By Ben McDougal, ago

    Feedback is Data

    Customer discovery paves the path to profitability.

    This really is the work for entrepreneurs starting a new business. Customer discovery requires trust in your early moves, obsessive curiosity, patience, thick skin, humility, an interest in being wrong, discernment, and a willingness to adapt. No problem, right?

    For many entrepreneurs, impartial feedback can be scary. Customer discovery puts ideas on the hook, and colliding new conversations may contradict past assumptions. That’s the point! Interacting with the market you seek to serve allows us to learn from no in a way that gets us to yes.

    As you collaborate with those who criticize what you’re building, learn why naysayers debate your hypotheses. Be humble. Either attack the massive lift to change the product and even the target customer or make your concept more compelling to win over those who care.

    The more you learn from others, the more you’ll recognize supply and be able to meet true demand. Collecting real-world data is human and intellectual capital that attracts more network and financial capital. 

    Beyond the psychology of it all, customer discovery can feel like a drag because it is often a protracted process. The time commitment is real. This market exploration can be slow at first and may seem less necessary as signals of traction emerge. The potential need to rethink ideas makes feedback scary too. As always, if the entrepreneurial lifestyle was easy, career nirvana would not be so fleeting. Knowing this, we can seek honest feedback that strengthens our value proposition to eventually go further in the right direction.

    When learning from the perspective of others, it’s imperative to remember that feedback is data.

    Collect, organize, and examine data from feedback like a scientist. Inference is more informed with data. Decisions that are made become more in tune with reality as you continue to collect and learn with data.

    As you translate decisions into action, you must also find your own way. Even with good intent, people who provide you with feedback are doing so based on their experience. The experience of others is based on their own past, and no feedback is likely to fully harmonize with your vision. There are many ways to navigate the idea maze. Gather feedback like power-ups in a video game and use diversified data to guide your quest toward product-market fit.

    By Ben McDougal, ago