What Would You Subtract?

Hello [First Name],

I did something last week I’m pretty sure I’ve never done in my life.

I stayed for the whole thing.

Five days at a mastermind retreat with other business owners. No slipping out early. No catching the last flight home. No “I’ll just come for the two main days.”

And it was the most energizing, didn’t-know-I-needed-it week I’ve had in eight years of running this business.

The question I’d been carrying for years

I’ve invested in personal growth for decades. It probably started when my father handed me Tony Robbins and Brian Tracy sales tapes in high school. Every year since, I pick one program, one room, one thing I’m going to participate in for the year.

But something was missing, and I wonder if you’ve felt this too:

Where are my people?

Not a networking group. Not an audience. Something else — and it took me three years of looking to be able to name what I was really seeking. More on that in a minute, because it turned into a test I now run on every room I consider joining.

We meet weekly on screens, and twice a year we come together in person.

What happened in April

When we gathered in April, I shortchanged it.

I’d been traveling for weeks and it felt like I hadn’t been home. So, I flew in for the two main days and left.

It was still amazing. But I left a little depleted and with a lot of FOMO. You know that one. You want to be all in on something, and you can’t be there for the whole thing. So do you take the part you can get?

Sometimes yes, that’s life. But in August, something in me said: be there for all of it.

I flew in a day early and hung out with peers who’d flown in from different parts of the world, shared meals, played mind golf. No agenda, just time to connect. Then four days of working through every part of business — including the most important part…what’s going on with the business owner.

Hot seats. Real conversations in the gaps between the sessions. A level of support I have honestly never felt before. I didn’t realize the degree to which we’re all in this shit together, regardless of where we are in our businesses.

Before I share what I brought home, I want to hand you the question I’m still sitting with:

What do you need right now that you haven’t fully admitted you need?

Connection with a few or many, familiar or new? More support from your family? Time completely alone?

Whatever it is — give it to yourself, ask for it. It’s the greatest gift there is. I am more energized right now but in a different way. More connected to who I help and why, more in a steady flow vs a huge burst of action.

One lesson, wearing three different outfits

I’m not going to list every breakthrough from the week. What struck me on the flight home is that the three that really stuck weren’t three lessons at all, but rather the same lesson approached from different angles.

Every one of them was a subtraction.

Which is not where I expected to land, because I went into that week the way most of us go into any room where we’re trying to grow: what’s required to get a better outcome...what more could I be doing.

1. Subtract the services that aren’t the one.

When we want a different outcome — growth, the next level — we almost always assume it requires adding something. More solutions. More help. More activity.

Sometimes that’s true. But an equally important question is:

What could I subtract that would improve both my business and my life?

This is exactly what surfaces when I take clients through the 42 Dive Principle. They’re offering many kinds of services because they’re capable of many kinds of services. The work is narrowing to the one core piece with the greatest potential for growth.

And I want to be specific about what that’s worth, because “simplify” can sound like a lifestyle choice rather than a revenue decision. Subtracting the peripheral services and narrowing to one core offer is a multiplier. Steve’s consulting business was growing incrementally year over year. When he subtracted three peripheral services that he provided to less than 20% of his clients and reallocated the energy and resources to two core solutions that addressed a bigger problem to a core group, he doubled revenue in a year.

Subtraction isn’t the thing you do instead of growing. It’s frequently the thing that causes the growth. It’s breaking the pattern so many of us grew up in that growth means doing more, adding more. Subtraction is a declaration; a decision you make on how you want to live and grow on your terms.

That’s an identity move, not a strategy move. It’s why founders sitting in front of the right spreadsheet still don’t do it. What takes the time isn’t seeing the one thing. It’s becoming the person who can say no to the other five.

No system sticks until the identity catches up. This is what I mean when I say it every week.

So sit with this honestly:

•       What could I remove?

•       What could I stop offering?

•       What could I decide to no longer do, or no longer promote?

Look especially for the thing that takes an enormous amount of work for not much return. The thing that, if you’re being honest with yourself, doesn’t bring you much joy. It might be an offer. It might be a system or a process that has quietly gotten heavier than the problem it was built to solve.

2. Subtract the business from the center.

I have always been big on vision — getting clear on the desired outcome. So much of Win Your Way is about redefining what success means for you so that it produces the result you actually want.

Here’s the shift I got pushed to make: create the clear vision for the life you want first. Then create the business vision that funds and supports that life.

That one stung a little, and here’s why.

For all my talk about winning your way, I was still trying to make my life fit into my business. I had my own work backwards in my own application of it.

My commitment going forward is the reverse — the business fits into the life — and I’m now re-evaluating everything against it. Heading into the new year, that looks like less client travel. More helping small business owners grow revenue. Building communities where we all grow together.

Notice what that commitment is not a new goal. It’s a removal — and the same declaration problem applies, because less travel means telling good clients how I now work.

That’s not a small edit. That’s a different year.

3. Subtract the rooms that don’t clear the bar.

You’ve heard it: you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

Five people is a headcount. It doesn’t tell you what to look for, and it certainly doesn’t tell you when you’ve found it. What I was searching for those three years was a room where I could contribute and learn — both, in equal measure.

That’s now the test I run. Four questions, and a room must clear all four:

•       Can I contribute and learn here? If I’m only taking, I’ll disengage. If I’m only giving, I’m the coach, not a member.

•       Do they understand my specific complications? Not business in general. The particular mess of this kind of business.

•       Does feedback run in both directions? Am I willing to receive it — and are they?

•       Does it fit the life into the life I’m leading? The right space is easy to prioritize, it fits what works for you in the season you’re in…and it’s ok that it changes over time.

The room I found pulls people from different parts of the world. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed that global perspective — it was central to a different chapter of my life — until it was sitting right in front of me.

And the test cuts both ways. Clearing the bar for a room I joined meant leaving two I’d spent too much energy trying to make fit. Same declaration. Same discomfort.

Run the four questions. Find your room. It makes all the difference.

The mantra I brought home

Simple is service.

Complexity can feel like value. It almost never is. Simplicity just might be the single most underrated thing you can do for your business growth. I’ll be looking at all parts of my business - communication, process, how people work with me – and looking to simplify.

Hit reply and tell me

What’s the one thing you could subtract — the one you already know the answer to?

You thought of it while you were reading. You probably thought of it in the bullets and then talked yourself out of it. Hit reply and tell me what it is. I read every response.

► Speaking of subtraction — what if you removed the guesswork from where your next client comes from?

Join me for my 100% FREE masterclass for professional services founders:

From Referral Roulette to a Revenue Leader Rhythm You Can Run Every Week

📅 August 25th at 10:00am Central

Here’s what we’re covering live:

•       The 42 Dive Principle — how a single play from one of the winningest college football teams holds the secret to your next 10 clients, and why focus beats volume every single time.

•       The Sales Identity Reframe — stop trying to become a salesperson. With the Identity Statement template, you’ll set a new ceiling for your growth by simply being yourself.

•       The Revenue Leader Rhythm — how to produce a predictable pipeline regardless of the economy, where consistency comes from discipline, not motivation.

Save my seat  

Win your way,

Michael