Sometimes the door needs to close 🚪

Have you ever watched a sure thing completely fall apart?

A few years into building the business, I was feeling it. Newly married. And the pressure to go get a real job was getting loud.

I caved and applied for a position at a law firm in Santa Monica. 

I went through the interviews and got the offer. I thought I finally had an escape route.

The money was less than I expected. So I pushed back. I asked for more before walking away from my own company. I figured they'd counter… that's how this works, right?

Instead, they pulled the offer entirely. 🫢

It felt like I'd just set fire to my own safety net.

Today in 3 minutes or less:

✔️ Turns out they did me a favor

✔️ If one detail broke it, it was already broken

✔️ You won't know for years

✔️ Your move this week

🚪  Turns out they did me a favor

Losing that job is the reason I still have a business.

Not just because "everything happens for a reason.”

Because I had no exit anymore, I stopped shopping for one.

Safety nets often trap you more than they protect you. The best rejections protect your true potential.

You've seen this in your own business. The big client backs out two days before signing. The hire you were sure about takes another offer. The partnership dies at the paperwork stage.

At the moment, it feels like a disaster.

But if you look closely, you usually find a hidden tax attached to those deals. 

That client would have drained your resources. That hire was not a culture fit. That partnership would have diluted your brand. The universe has a funny way of saving us from our own compromises.

🧱 If one detail broke it, it was already broken

Here's what I've come to believe: the right opportunities survive friction. The wrong ones shatter.

That's a useful test, because friction is free. Push a little. Ask for the thing you actually want. If the whole deal falls apart over one line item, it was held together by one line item.

I asked for more money and they walked. That tells you what that job was worth to them and what I'd have been worth in it.

Some of your best decisions get made for you. By someone else. Usually while you're busy being upset about it.

You stop fearing the word no. You learn to trust that the right opportunities will withstand friction, and the wrong ones will crumble.

 📈 You won't know for years

One decision almost never looks life-changing the day you make it.

But they stack.

Take one path, and you meet different people.

You build different skills, create different opportunities.

You become a different version of yourself.

At year one you can't tell the difference. That's the whole problem.

At year ten it's obvious. But nobody gets to see year ten from year one.

So you won't know yet whether the thing that just went wrong was a favor.

That's fine. Build like it was.

✅ Your move this week

When a door slams in your face, do not waste time trying to pick the lock. Try this instead:

• Review your recent losses. Look at the clients or deals that fell through this quarter and find the hidden relief in losing them.

• Identify your compromises. Ask yourself where you are settling for a safe option instead of pushing for actual growth.

• Name your escape hatch. Not to cut it, but to notice how often you look at it. Attention that goes to the exit isn't going to the work.

• Trust the friction. The next time a prospect walks away over a small detail, let them go without chasing them.

Sometimes the best thing that can happen to your business is a painful rejection. You won't know for years whether a no was a favor. Build like it was.

To profiting more and working less. 💸 

-Matt

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