The question nobody asks at thresholds
What to ask instead of “what’s next?”
The Simplicity Protocol Issue 1
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I was coaching a CTO who thought he needed better clients.
His wife had recently died. He was raising his college-aged daughter as a widower. And a layoff had forced him to stop working and start fresh.
When we started working together, he kept hitting walls. Job applications going nowhere. Every familiar route led to increased frustration. He'd go 90% of the way down one path and then just... stop. Something wasn't quite right, but he couldn't name it.
I asked a different question: "Who are you becoming in this next season of your life?"
Silence.
Then: “I don’t know.”
The real answer emerged a couple of weeks later:
"I want to travel with my daughter to every continent before she graduates. I want her to see the world before she starts her career and has her own independent life."
Last year, he took his first vacation in 17 years. This year, he's planning a diving trip in the Philippines and a multi-city European tour. All with his daughter.
He thought he needed better work opportunities. What he actually needed was a business model that put family first.
Perhaps a greater vision has been calling to you too. But you've been so focused on the “how” that you didn't allow yourself to dream of what could be.
Here's what I've noticed across hundreds of professional transitions:
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