As we talked through her business, the conversation drifted in a different direction.
She mentioned a program she wanted to create. So I asked her how long she had been thinking about this.
"About two years."
Two years.
For two years, this idea had been sitting in her head. Life was happening. Business was demanding attention. There was always something more urgent to deal with. So the idea stayed where it was.
And the truth is, she is not the only person who has said this to me.
Over the years, I have had countless conversations with people carrying ideas they genuinely care about. A program. A business. A community initiative. A creative project. Something they have wanted to build for months, sometimes years.
The pattern is almost always the same.
They have done a lot of thinking. A lot of research. A lot of talking themselves in and out of it.
What they have not had is someone to help them turn the idea into the next practical step.
Because most ideas do not stay stuck because they are bad ideas. They stay stuck because the person behind the idea is trying to figure everything out alone.
The hard part is no app or clever tool will take the idea out of your head and execute it for you. Someone has to sit with you and help you move it, one small step at a time.
For years, people have said to me, "You're the person I'd call when I need to bring an idea to life."
I used to think it was simply a compliment. Now that I think about it, they were telling me what I had been doing all along.
Whether I was helping a business owner build systems, supporting a founder through a project, or helping someone organise the moving parts of an idea, the real work was never just strategy. In every one of those conversations, I was helping people move from "I've been thinking about this" to "I have started something."