All you need is a framework and a dream
J.P. Montalvan • August 29, 2022
“You don’t need to be a genius or a visionary, or even a college graduate for that matter. To be successful. you just need a framework and a dream."
- Michael Dell
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One summer night, Orlando and I sat down at a casual restaurant for dinner to catch up.
Orlando has a special place in my heart when it comes to extraordinary conversations. It may be because Orlando is both incredibly warm and incredibly thoughtful. And it may be because we’ve both worked together and have developed an incredible friendship through the ups and downs of life, whether relationship break-ups or the joy of time with family.
Orlando doesn’t live in my hometown of DC anymore, so when we get together, our conversation drifts from the usual “catch up” type stuff to more thoughtful musings on life.
He asked about my coaching practice, what I was learning and where the practice was headed. I shared with him that my practice was really about developing frameworks for solo and small team entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs to help them “win” in their professional lives without sacrificing wins in the personal and other domains of their lives.
He said he loved the concept of “frameworks” overall.
“I look for frameworks to help me in every part of my life, even when what I’m thinking about seems trivial,”
he said.
He shared a story of how he had just bought a home. With rents rising in Miami, and with home prices rising at a quick clip, finding a new home wasn’t easy. He is a realtor, so he used the same “framework” that you probably used when you looked for your last home — looking online and watching the what came to market.
But he knew that wasn’t enough, so he started to consider areas within Miami that were a little outside of his search area and that hadn’t shown up online. He started to look around these areas as he drove through, looking at what homes were available and what neighborhoods hadn’t been on his radar. In other words, he changed his framework.
One day as he was driving through these areas, Orlando came upon a “for sale” sign for a new community being planted into a yard on the site of a former golf course. He set up an appointment to learn more about the development and the available floor plans, chose one and made a downpayment on a new home.
When we think about a “framework,” we usually think about something that’s very high level — like policies and procedures in our work. Frameworks usually include ways that we share goals and strategies, serve our clients and work with our teammates.
But we really have frameworks for just about everything we do in our lives, from what we do when we get up in the morning — brush our teeth, make coffee, take a shower, etc. — to how we interact with our families — say goodbye, schedule meal and time with the family, etc.
What made my conversation with Orlando extraordinary was sharing depth and new insight on something “trivial” — in this case how we take for granted that we “always” do something a certain way.
What if we regularly looked at how we “always” do something to make it a little better? What if we learned about other ways to do it? What if we applied a new framework?
What dreams could come true with a new way of looking at things?
As Orlando shared, once he hears about a new way of approaching something, he likes to walk through the new framework several times to see how it works and fits.
As we wrap up summer, I’d encourage you to think about just that.
How could you approach what you normally do just a little differently, for the better?
You might just like the change you see.
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