The Direction Journal

I was scrolling Threads the other day and saw someone list MBA in their bio. My first reaction wasn’t admiration. It was a quiet, uncomfortable wince. Not because I don’t respect education. Because I have degrees too. And you would never know it. They’re not in my bio. They’re not framed on a wall. I don’t lead with them. I don’t mention them unless someone asks directly. If you work with me, you experience my thinking. You don’t get a credential flex. For a long time, I felt embarrassed by them. Not because they were worthless. Because they were expensive. In time. In debt. In sacrifice. In emotional bandwidth. I did the school thing. I did the responsible thing. I did the secure your future thing. And somewhere along the way I realized the most valuable education I ever received did not happen in a classroom. It happened in negotiations. In rebuilding after betrayal. In sales conversations where millions were on the table. In sitting across from founders trying to untangle confusion ...

  The Difference Between a Business Problem and an Orientation Problem Some problems look tactical. They aren’t. By the time founders reach me, they’ve already done what responsible operators do. They adjusted the offer. Reworked pricing. Rebuilt the funnel. Hired support. Tried the strategy everyone said should work. Nothing is obviously broken. And yet nothing fully holds. That’s usually when the conversation changes. Not because the business suddenly became complicated, but because the problem was misidentified from the start. What a Business Problem Actually Is A true business problem has a location. Conversion is low because the page isn’t carrying its weight. Revenue dipped because pipeline maintenance slipped. Positioning stopped resonating because the market moved and the message didn’t move with it. These problems are real. They respond to intervention. You find the break, you repair the break, forward motion resumes. Experienced founders are usually capable of solving the...