[#010] My First Billion: When the Business Gets Boring (In a Good Way)

It’s January 2nd, A new year.

I got back in the office on Saturday after being fully unplugged in Panama with my family for a week.

No work. No dashboards. No meetings.

That part matters.

And when I returned, there wasn’t a pile of things waiting on me.

No fires.
No backlog.
No sense of “I need to get back up to speed.”

And that made this week feel… boring.

Which is exactly the point.

A Small Moment That Stuck With Me

When I got back, I noticed something on my calendar.

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were blocked for rest.

I didn’t put them there.

So I messaged my operations manager, Taryn, and asked if she added them.

She did.

She said she made an executive decision.
To give me that time to think, rest, and strategize.

In my mind, I just did that in Panama (as you can see in this pic with me by the pool)

I didn’t argue.
I didn’t push back.
I thanked her.

And it ended up being exactly what the week needed.

The Quiet Weeks Tell You the Truth

This week reminded me of something Richard Koch once said…

That he won’t invest in a business if the CEO isn’t bored.

His logic was simple:
a well-run business is boring business.

Not stagnant.
Not unambitious.
Just… stable.

Predictable.

This week had:
→ A call with my CFO to close the book on last year and look ahead
→ A health coaching session to set targets for the year
→ Strategic planning with our leadership team
→ Quarterly planning with clients
→ Light sales leadership and event check-ins
→ Deep work on simplifying our business and personal operating systems

The Absence Test Passed Again

What stood out most wasn’t what I did.

It was what didn’t happen.

I didn’t come back to:
→ people waiting on me
→ systems paused
→ momentum lost

The team kept moving.
Clients kept getting served.
Payroll ran.
Planning moved forward.
Systems and assets got built.

My brain was almost confused by it.

It went looking for something to fix and there wasn’t anything.

That’s a good sign.

Resetting the Operating System

Most of my time this week went into refinement, not creation.

Finalizing:
→ our business operating system for the year
→ my personal operating system as a CEO, husband, and father
→ what stays
→ what goes
→ what no longer deserves attention

I’m doubling down this year on:
→ events
→ media
→ strategic communication
→ portfolio growth

And removing everything else.

A Personal Highlight

One of my favorite moments this week had nothing to do with work.

My 10-year-old launched his book.

It’s all about teamwork and never giving up.
Two valuable tools in life for adults and kids.

Watching him create something and put it into the world was a reminder of why any of this matters in the first place.

We also sat down as a family and walked through our Best Year Ever Blueprint: wins, lessons, goals, skills to master, and a stop-doing list.

That kind of clarity compounds too (generationally).

The Reframe I’m Carrying Into the Year

For a long time, I thought progress would feel loud.

Turns out, the real signal is quiet.

When you can step away and nothing breaks.
When you come back and there’s nothing to catch up on.

When the work shifts from reacting to refining.

Talk soon,

Marquel