Go Back to Who You Were Before the World Told You Who to Be

I recently attended a conference where my good friend and mentor, Will Huffhine, spoke. He said something that has stayed with me long after the applause faded:

Go back to who you were as a kid to find your superpower.

Not your résumé. Not your job title. Not the version of you shaped by performance reviews and promotions.

The real you - the curious one. The builder. The problem-solver. The leader who loved organizing, teaching, fixing, selling, creating, or bringing people together before the world told you what “success” was supposed to look like.

I’ve been reflecting on that idea a lot lately, and I can’t stop thinking about how powerfully it applies to franchising - and to so many of the professionals I speak with every week.

At some point, many of us became who the world expected us to be.

We chose the safe path. The impressive title. The steady paycheck.

And on paper, everything looks fine.

But underneath? There’s restlessness. Sunday scaries. That quiet feeling of “Is this really it?”

When I work with professionals exploring franchise ownership, the breakthrough almost never starts with finances or business models. It starts with identity.

Who were you before expectations took over? What energized you naturally? What kind of work made time disappear?

When we reconnect with that person - the one we were before we learned to ignore our instincts - we start making better decisions. Decisions that align with who we actually are, not who we’ve been performing as.

And that’s when something shifts.

Work starts to feel purposeful again. Mornings feel lighter. The week doesn’t feel like something to survive.

Franchising, when done intentionally, can be a powerful vehicle for this kind of alignment - not because it’s “easy,” but because it allows you to build a business around your natural strengths instead of forcing yourself into another role that doesn’t fit.

This reflection - going back to who you were at your core - is often the very first step in designing a life you truly love.

If you’ve been feeling stuck, restless, or quietly disconnected from your work, maybe the question isn’t what’s next…

Maybe it’s who were you before the world told you who to be?

That’s where the answers usually start.