Many people told me to shut down the weekly talk show.
I understood why.
Planning and producing every episode took time. In the early days, it took days. It did not bring revenue. It pulled me away from the work that paid the bills. It pulled me away from family time. It looked like unnecessary overhead.
A consultant even said that in a paid business review of my IT business.
He did not say it lightly. He had looked at the numbers. From that view, the show did look wasteful.
Sometimes what looks like wasted time is the work that reveals the real work.
But I could not let it go.
Even when my business was struggling. Even when the company was close to shutting down. Even when people around me wondered if I was being stubborn, I kept going.
Was I crazy?
Maybe a little.
But something was happening that the spreadsheet did not show.
Every week, I sat with leaders and asked questions. Not soft questions. Questions that made them pause. Questions that made them explain what they were seeing, why it mattered, what they were worried about, and what they had learned.
The answers were helping people.
Listeners were not coming for entertainment. They were coming to validate their thinking. To hear what other leaders were facing. To avoid mistakes that could become expensive. To feel less alone in hard decisions.
A CIO from Germany told me the show helped him become a better leader. Two other leaders, one from Toronto and one from Singapore, told me something similar.
That stayed with me.
I realized the show was not just content. It was a place where leaders could think out loud for the benefit of others.
That is where my why became clearer.
To inspire positive change by provoking thought.
That line did not come from a branding exercise. It came from staying with something long enough to understand why I could not stop doing it.
The show later became the foundation for CIO Talk Network. It helped shape the way I moderate, the way I advise, and the way I think about rooms.
Sometimes what looks like wasted time is the work that reveals the real work.
The hard part is knowing the difference.
Questions worth asking
- What work do you keep returning to even when it does not make sense on paper?
- Where are you measuring too narrowly?
- What would you protect if nobody else understood its value yet?
Related reflections
- How Could He Do This Such A Jerk
- I Lost It All And Was Back To Square One
- From Software Programmer To Media Entrepreneur