readiness
capability is not readiness. knowledge is not wisdom. close is not there.
the 98% problem.
someone can be 98% of the way there. they have the knowledge. they have the capability. they might even have the ambition. and they are still not ready.
this is the hardest judgment call we make. because the gap between 98% and 100% is not a skills gap. it's a wisdom gap. it's the difference between knowing things and knowing how to move. and that difference is everything when you're building something that matters.
people who are almost ready but not quite ready are not assets. they are liabilities. not because they lack talent, but because they lack the judgment to wield it. they overindex on proving themselves. they get excited about being heard for the first time and they let that excitement drive decisions. they glorify knowledge and think knowledge alone makes them valuable. it doesn't.
knowing how to move.
Ron puts it simply: do you know how to move?
not "do you have the capability?" not "do you have the intent?" knowing how to move is about embodiment. effectiveness. it's the difference between someone who understands strategy intellectually and someone who can sit in a room, read the dynamics, and act with the right force at the right time.
the signs that someone doesn't know how to move yet:
- they rush to prove they're based. they want to show you they get it before they've actually demonstrated it.
- they overindex on excitement. first time someone listens to them, they light up and start operating from that high instead of from discipline.
- they expose creative vulnerabilities because they're operating from enthusiasm rather than discernment.
- they think money is the goal. money is a byproduct of alignment. if you're chasing the byproduct, you've already lost the plot.
these are not character flaws. these are developmental stages. but you do not bring someone into a high-trust partnership because they're close. you bring them in because they're ready.
the principle.
we support people on their developmental journey. we invest in them. we give them proximity. we let them see how we operate.
but we do not hand them the keys until they are ready.
this is not gatekeeping. this is stewardship. the work we do depends on trust, discretion, and the ability to make judgment calls under pressure. someone who is still in the proving phase, still in the excitement phase, still treating this as a knowledge competition, will make decisions that damage relationships we spent years building.
readiness cannot be taught in a workshop. it cannot be accelerated through exposure alone. it is, in the deepest sense, a spiritual maturation. God works on people in ways we cannot engineer. our job is to create the conditions, provide the proximity, and then be honest about what we see.
when someone is ready, you know. there is a steadiness to them. they don't need to prove anything. they don't rush. they don't overreact to opportunity. they move with the kind of calm that only comes from having worked through their own stuff first.
time is a multiplier.
when you have leverage, you don't have to rush. and we have leverage.
every deal where we are the bottleneck does not need to be rushed by anyone. time puts a multiple on everything. the people who are 98% ready today might be 100% ready in six months or a year. that's not a loss. that's an investment in doing it right.
the instinct is always to move fast. bring people in before they're ready because you need the help. scale before the foundation can hold it. this is how things break.
instead: let people sit. let them get some air on their check. let them season. the ones who are truly ready will still be there when the time comes. the ones who weren't ready will have either grown into it or revealed that they weren't going to.
either way, you protected the thing that matters.
we would rather move slow with the right people than fast with the wrong ones. readiness is not optional. it is the prerequisite.