It was late 2013.

I was sitting at the kitchen table, staring at my laptop screen for the third night in a row.

Michael Port’s Book Yourself Solid programme.

The investment was significant. More than we had. More than made sense. I had never spent big money on an education programme or a personal development programme.

Caroline and I had 2 kids under two and another one on the way in May. She was working full-time. I was working 60-70 hour weeks trying to build OmniPro into something that could sustain us in the present and build value for the future.

But I was obsessed with this programme.

It just made sense to me. He had this really simple 6-step framework. It was about attracting the ideal clients you wanted to work with. It was about valuing yourself and pricing appropriately. It was about building a business that was sustainable.

It was for me and OmniPro, but I was visualising what I could do with this programme and this information if I could share it with accountants, bookkeepers and tax advisers.

I’d been talking about it for weeks. Explaining the methodology. Showing Caroline the testimonials. Outlining what I could learn. Detailing how it could transform our approach to serving accounting firms.

She’d listen. She’d nod. She’d ask questions.

But I wasn’t actually asking her opinion.

I was asking her permission.

And I didn’t even realise it.

The Conversation That Changed Everything

Three weeks into my obsession, Caroline finally said it.

We were in the kitchen. Kids were in bed. I was mid-sentence explaining—again—why this investment made sense.

She stopped me.

“Des, I’ve listened to you talk about this for weeks now.”

I braced myself. Here it comes. The “we can’t afford this” conversation.

“I trust you and I believe in you.”

Wait. What?

“If you think this is the best thing to do, just do it. Stop asking me and just make the decision.”

I started to respond—probably to explain the numbers again, to justify the investment, to prove I’d thought it through.

She cut me off.

“We will find the money.”

Pause.

“Because one thing you’re really good at is finding money.”

I sat there, stunned.

Not because she’d given me permission—though that was part of it.

But because she’d named something about me that I’d never articulated to myself.

The Gift I Didn’t Know I Had

I’d always known I was resourceful.

When cash got tight—which happened more often than I care to admit in those early years—I’d find a way. A new service offering. An upsell opportunity. A strategic partnership. A client who needed something yesterday and would pay premium rates for it.

I’d been doing it for years without thinking about it.

I have a knack of seeing opportunities, creating things and filling the need in the market that generates revenue.

But I’d never called it a gift.

I’d called it survival. Necessity. Hustle. Sometimes desperation.

Caroline called it something different. She called it talent. She said my vision and ability to create revenue was a gift

” I trust your judgement. You’re really good at finding money.”

Eleven words. But they reframed everything.

Because here’s what I realised in that moment: I was at my best—my most creative, my most innovative, my most strategic—when my back was against the wall.

When the pressure ramped up. When the temperature turned up. When the stakes got real.

That’s when I stopped overthinking and started moving.

That’s when I found solutions that shouldn’t have existed.

That’s when I created revenue streams out of thin air.

But I’d been treating it as a character flaw—this tendency to thrive under pressure, to need the crisis to get creative.

Caroline saw it differently.

She saw it as my edge.

What Partnership Actually Looks Like

Here’s what I didn’t understand until that night:

Partnership isn’t about two people agreeing on everything.

It’s not about consensus or compromise or making sure everyone’s equally involved in every decision.
Partnership is about trust. Partnership is about belief in each other.

Partnership is about knowing when to step forward and when to step back.

It’s about trusting your partner to be excellent at what they’re excellent at—even when you don’t fully understand it.

It’s about giving permission when permission is needed.

Caroline wasn’t just supporting my decision to invest in Michael Port’s programme.

She was giving me permission to trust my own instincts.

Permission to stop seeking approval for every move.

Permission to leap when I knew I needed to leap.

And most importantly: Permission to believe that my resourcefulness wasn’t a flaw but a feature.

The Pattern I’d Been Missing

Looking back now, I can see the pattern clearly.

Every major breakthrough in OmniPro came when I was backed into a corner:

When we had that first cash crisis in 2006, I created new service offerings that became core to our business model.

When the 2008 recession hit, I launched CPD Fest—which became the foundation of our community.

When COVID shut down 150 scheduled events in March 2020, we pivoted to virtual delivery and built the CPD Store platform that now serves over twenty thousand accountants, bookkeepers and tax advisors.

Every single time the pressure cam on, my back was agains the wall and it looked like I had no choice, I found the choice.

Every time I needed money, I found the money.

Every time I had no path forward, I created the path.

But I’d been so focused on the crisis part—the stress, the pressure, the fear—that I’d missed the creativity part.

The part where pressure didn’t just test me.

It unlocked me.

The Uncomfortable Truth About Resourcefulness

Here’s the truth I’ve had to accept:

I’m not great at planning when everything’s stable.

I’m not strategic enough when there’s plenty of runway.

I don’t innovate enough when things are comfortable.

I thrive in crisis. I create under pressure. I find solutions when there are no solutions left.

That’s simultaneously my superpower and my weakness.

Because while it’s gotten me through every impossible situation OmniPro has faced, it’s also meant that I’ve sometimes created the crisis just to access the creativity.

And that’s not sustainable.

That’s not healthy.

That’s not something to be proud of.

But recognising the gift—this uncanny ability to find money, to create revenue, to generate opportunities when backed into a corner—that recognition gave me something crucial:

It gave me the awareness to use it intentionally instead of accidentally.

To harness the pressure without manufacturing the crisis.

To access the creativity without waiting for desperation.

What I Invested In (And What It Actually Bought)

I did invest in Michael Port’s Book Yourself Solid programme.

We found the money—because of course we did.

And the programme was transformative. It gave me frameworks for positioning, for messaging, for client attraction that I still use today.

The 6 Pillars of Professional Services Firm Marketing that we teach in Part 4 of The ProfitPro 6 Step Success Path are still the same 6 Pillars that Michael Port Taught me that are timeless.

His genius was in his ability to simplify

• Networking
• Direct Outreach
• Referrals
• Writing
• Speaking
• The Web

But that’s not what I actually invested in.

I invested in Caroline’s belief.

In her permission to trust myself.

In her naming of a gift I didn’t know I possessed.

Her belief allowed me to believe and invest in myself.

And that investment has paid returns every single day since.

Because every time I’ve faced an impossible situation—and there have been many—I’ve heard her voice:

“You’re really good at finding money.”

Not as pressure. Not as expectation.

As permission. As reminder.

As the truth about who I am when it matters most.

The Lesson For You

This connects to multiple frameworks in the ProfitPro 6-Step Success Path.

In Strategy, it’s about recognising your edge—the thing you do exceptionally well that others struggle with. Your resourcefulness, your creativity under pressure, your ability to see opportunities where others see obstacles.

In Personal Journey, it’s about the relationships that enable you—the partners, the spouses, the mentors who give you permission to be who you actually are instead of who you think you should be.

In Business its about getting off the fence and committing and investing in yourself. A Not making a decision is a decision.

But most importantly, it’s about this: Sometimes we need someone else to name our gifts before we can claim them ourselves.

Here are the questions you need to ask:

About Your Gifts:

• What do you do exceptionally well that you’ve been treating as a character flaw?
• When are you at your absolute best? (And why are you not creating those conditions more often?)
• What would change if you viewed your edge as an asset instead of a liability?

About Partnership:

• Who in your life gives you permission to be excellent at what you’re excellent at?
• Are you surrounding yourself with people who name your gifts or people who need you to be something else?
• What decisions are you delaying because you’re seeking permission you don’t actually need?

About Resourcefulness:

• How have you found solutions when there were no solutions left?
• What revenue have you created when creation seemed impossible?
• What pattern of creativity under pressure exists that you haven’t acknowledged?

The hardest part isn’t developing new gifts.

The hardest part is recognising the gifts you already have.

YOUR TURN

Be honest: What are you exceptionally good at that you’ve been treating as a flaw?

What conditions bring out your best work—and why are you avoiding those conditions?

Who in your life has named a gift about you that you hadn’t seen yourself?

And what investment are you not making because you’re waiting for permission from yourself?

Tomorrow: Letter 9/21 – “Philadelphia 2014 – Finding My Tribe” (2014) – The Power of the Room

If you’ve ever known something intellectually but spent decades learning to believe it emotionally—this one’s going to hit home.