This is my latest "Just Thinking" blog post in our Your Pathway To Growth Skool community. Find it here: https://www.skool.com/your-pathway-to-growth-5059/classroom/93080f2f?md=1c8d2466bdbb4586a663c6be3465913d You will need to be a community member to read these posts. Standard tier membership is free.

You remember the woman in the red dress from The Matrix? Absolute chaos. The film is asking deep questions about reality, control, and existence, and every guy watching goes, yes, yes, fascinating philosophy, but also who ordered the red dress. Total distraction. Now imagine this. She does not just walk past. She stops. Turns around. Smiles politely. And says, don’t panic, I learned kung fu 🥋. Immediately, the fantasy is over. Because now she is not decoration. She is capable. And nothing makes a room quieter faster than unexpected competence 😶. That is basically how business works. Most people are still staring at the red dress. Logos, aesthetics, vibes, LinkedIn bios that sound impressive but do absolutely nothing. Then someone walks in who actually knows how the system works 💻. They understand infrastructure. They know where revenue comes from. They can throw a clean roundhouse kick in Microsoft licensing, IT systems, and marketing that actually converts 📊. The mood changes. People stop talking. People start listening. So hi, I’m John Hamilton Lewis from Johannesburg 🇿🇦. I help businesses stop being impressed by surface-level polish and start learning kung fu. I work with Microsoft solutions, done for you systems, IT that does not collapse when one person forgets a password, and five core marketing services through my agency that move revenue instead of just engagement ❤️. Before this, I ran sales teams in health and fitness, then moved into a boutique marketing agency in Cape Town, where I became head of client partnerships, which is a professional way of saying I fixed ambitious ideas that had no operational spine. Now I run my community focused on outreach, distribution, IT services, and marketing 🚀. Because most businesses do not need more motivation. They need fewer mistakes, better systems, and someone who has already fallen into the holes they are about to step into. The long game is launching these solutions into the UK fintech market 🇬🇧, which is basically The Matrix but everyone wears a blazer and argues over compliance.

We think of our tech as "cutting-edge," but the global financial system is actually resting on a digital bedrock from 1959. Every time you swipe a card or check your bank balance, you are interacting with COBOL; a programming language designed before the moon landing. While modern apps come and go, this "dinosaur" code handles millions of transactions with a level of precision that newer languages still struggle to match. From the visionary mind of Admiral Grace Hopper to the literal "bug" that started it all, the story of how we got here is a fascinating look at why the oldest systems are often the most powerful. Find the full version of this amazing story in the "Just Thinking" blog module in our "Your Pathway To Growth" community classroom, available with Standard (free) membership: https://www.skool.com/your-pathway-to-growth-5059/classroom/

Join us this evening at 8:00 p.m. ET for our Thursday Live Q&A Zoom call. Everyone welcome. Open discussion. No formal presentation. Share who you are and what you do. Check our community calendar: https://www.skool.com/your-pathway-to-growth-5059 #Questions #Answers #Conversation #MeetUp #Frinds

UPDATE: I've decided that I'll leave this to others to do properly and instead, I will spend my time finding other ways to support you and help you grow that will be even more worthwhile! I've been thinking a lot over the past several months about the idea of a CLASSIFIEDS Directory. I've always kind of called the Classroom our directory, but several people have mentioned that it would be nice to have things organized according to topic/industry/niche, which prompted me to ask you all about organizing the community that way (we/I decided against it for several reasons). If I were to do it, it would be one "course" in the classroom with a page for each industry. It would be available to annual premium member and VIP members (when I release VIP) with VIP members having top billing, and it would be updated monthly. Here are my concerns: 1. It would be a lot of work to create and update, and I'm not sure if the ROI would be there in terms of increased visibility. 2. There are a lot of other sites (ProveWorth and others) that are doing a great job at letting people list their communities as well as many Skool groups that now are sharing directories. Do we really need another directory??? 3. Having a course in the classroom that people can easily scroll through is already a pretty prominent visibility opportunity and it rotates weekly, so everyone has a chance to be on the first page. 4. It's a lot of work. Did I mention it's a lot of work??? 5. The only benefit above the ads already posted in the classroom would be that it could be sorted by niche. 6. Skool is going to do a lot of improving this year to searchability and discoverability, so there may no longer be a need for this in the near future. I'm going to post a picture below of what an entry would look like. I'm super curious about your thoughts! Please share below and don't hold back. All opinions are welcome! 😊