On the drive home from Ohio, I spent about four and a half hours listening to a podcast about Disney.

Yes. Four and a half hours.

If you know me, you're probably not particularly surprised.

It was the second part of Acquired's deep dive into the Walt Disney Company, starting in 1984 and bringing the story pretty much to the present day.

And what resonated with me wasn't really the Disney success story.

It was its..."Now what?" story.

The episode began by taking us back to 1984. Disney was struggling.

Then Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Frank Wells were brought in, leading to an extraordinary 10-year run and an animation "renaissance."

The Little Mermaid.

Beauty and the Beast.

Aladdin.

The Lion King.

Disney expanded into Broadway, home video and other businesses. Then it acquired ABC, which happened to include ESPN, which became an enormous part of the company's business.

For a while, Disney looked unstoppable.

Except it wasn't.

Things changed.

Some bets didn't work. Internal relationships fractured. Animation struggled again. The company that had experienced this incredible comeback found itself struggling to figure out what came next.

Then Bob Iger became CEO.

And another extraordinary run began.

Pixar.

Marvel.

Lucasfilm.

Suddenly Disney had Buzz Lightyear, Iron Man, Darth Vader and Mickey Mouse all living under the same corporate roof.

Again, Disney looked unstoppable.

Until it wasn't.

The world changed.

Streaming arrived. People started cutting the cord. ESPN's enormously profitable business model came under pressure. Disney launched Disney+. Then COVID shut down movie theaters and theme parks.

Once again, this company that seemingly had everything figured out had to ask:

What's next?

That's the part that continues to resonate with me.

Society reinforces this idea that we're supposed to have everything figured out...that successful people really know what they're doing.

The trope says:

Find the right career.

Build the right business.

Discover the right strategy.

Reach some point where we can finally say:

There. I got it.

In reality, nothing is permanent.

Disney didn't get one comeback.

It has had to keep evolving.

And like Disney, we do too.

What worked for you at 30 may not work at 50.

The career that once gave you energy might eventually drain you.

The business model that worked beautifully five years ago might suddenly stop working.

The technology changes.

The marketplace changes.

Our families change.

Our bodies change.

We change.

That doesn't necessarily mean things went wrong.

It may simply mean that the conditions changed, and now it's time for something else.

I think that's an important distinction.

Because when something stops working, my instinct can be to look backward and ask:

What did I do wrong?

But maybe there's another question:

What if the conditions simply changed?

That doesn't mean we don't examine our decisions.

We should.

What worked?

What didn't?

What would I do differently?

What am I holding onto because it's still useful,

and what am I holding onto simply because it used to work?

Those are questions I've been asking myself a lot lately.

I'm looking at my work.

The tools I'm using.

The things I've started and haven't finished.

And some things I thought I had figured out that I'm reconsidering.

Part of me would really like to have everything figured out.

I think we all would!

Here's the lesson though:

Disney has been around for more than 100 years, and they're still trying to figure out what Disney needs to become next.

Why would we expect ourselves to be any different?

Maybe the goal isn't to finally become the final finished version of ourselves.

Maybe the goal is to get better at noticing when the conditions have changed and being willing to change with them.

That's something I'm thinking about this week.

What about you?

Is there something in your life that isn't necessarily broken, but was built for a set of conditions that no longer exists?

And if you're sitting with that question yourself, I'm opening a few 90-minute one-on-one sessions in September.

Nothing complicated. Just 90 focused minutes together to look at where you are, what's changed, and what you want to do next.

If you think that would be helpful, reply to this email and tell me what's going on.

Until next time,