There are rooms you walk into and leave exactly the same.
And then there are rooms that change what you believe is possible.
For me, CEO Space was one of those rooms.
I first encountered Berny Dohrmann and CEO Space during a difficult period of my life. I was homeless at the time, but something remarkable happened when I entered The Space.
People didn’t judge me by my circumstances.
They saw someone with ideas, dreams, and something to contribute.
That experience taught me a lesson I have carried with me ever since:
Sometimes the most valuable thing another person can give you isn’t money. It’s the right connection.
One Introduction Can Change Everything
Entrepreneurs often think about raising capital, finding customers, developing products, and building businesses.
All of those things matter.
But behind almost every business opportunity is another human being.
An investor.
A mentor.
A partner.
A publisher.
A customer.
A supplier.
Someone who knows someone.
CEO Space helped me understand the enormous value of putting ambitious people into an environment where introductions and collaboration were encouraged.
I experienced it personally.
I once brought a coffee-business project to CEO Space with my best friend. We needed approximately $50,000 to become compliant, obtain insurance, and move the business forward.
On Thursday, we met a gentleman I considered a true Superconductor.
He told us that once we became compliant and insured, he would come aboard and bring access to approximately 2,000 investors.
No check changed hands that day.
But I understood what had just happened.
A road had opened.
If we could document that commitment and raise what we needed to become compliant and insured, we could return in a dramatically stronger position.
My friend was discouraged because we hadn’t raised the money yet.
I saw something different.
We had found a connection that could change the path to the money.
That distinction has stayed with me for years.
The People You Meet Can Change Your Direction
CEO Space also brought remarkable people into my life.
I met Jill Lublin and later attended her weekend training program on press releases.
I met people connected with entertainment, business, publishing, music, entrepreneurship, and other fields.
Some conversations led somewhere.
Some didn’t.
But collectively, they expanded my understanding of what was possible.
That is why I don’t think of networking as collecting names.
The value of a network is what can move through it.
Knowledge.
Trust.
Introductions.
Encouragement.
Capital.
Opportunity.
Possibility.
I call this Connection Capital.
Contribution Before Competition
Another lesson I carried from The Space was the power of cooperation among entrepreneurs.
Traditional competition says:
Your success threatens mine.
But there is another way to think:
Your success may create possibilities for both of us.
Today we often use the word coopetition to describe the combination of cooperation and competition.
You can pursue your own success without wanting everyone around you to fail.
You can recommend someone.
You can make an introduction.
You can share knowledge.
You can open a door.
And sometimes helping another person succeed creates opportunities that eventually travel back through the network in ways nobody could have predicted.
The Superconductors II – https://www.mykindlebooks.net/books/superconductors/
These experiences eventually brought me back to an idea I had written about years earlier: the human Superconductor.
A Superconductor is someone who allows something valuable to move through them toward others.
That might be knowledge.
It might be encouragement.
It might be leadership.
It might be an introduction.
It might simply be the ability to see potential in another person before that person sees it themselves.
That idea is at the heart of my new book:
The Superconductors II: The People Who Powered CEO Space and Changed Lives Through Connection, Leadership, and Possibility
Berny Dohrmann is central to the story, along with September Dohrmann and many of the leaders, speakers, mentors, entrepreneurs, authors, and connectors associated with The Space.
But the book isn’t simply about remembering CEO Space.
It’s about asking whether we can carry its best principles forward.
Maybe We Can Create The Space Again
CEO Space as many of us experienced it belongs to a particular chapter in time.
But the underlying idea doesn’t have to disappear.
A mastermind can create a Space.
Five entrepreneurs meeting once a month can create one.
An online community can create one.
A mentoring group can create one.
Two people sitting across a table asking, “How can I help you?” can create one.
Because The Space was never only a building or an event.
The Space exists whenever people intentionally gather to increase one another’s possibilities.
I’ve created a website for The Superconductors and The Superconductors II where readers can explore the books, Berny and September Dohrmann, CEO Space, Connection Capital, Coopetition, the Seven Traits of a Superconductor, and my own experiences in The Space:
Explore The Superconductors website
And if you were part of CEO Space, I would especially like to hear from you.
What happened because you entered The Space?
Who did you meet?
What introduction changed your direction?
Who helped you?
And perhaps most importantly:
Who have you helped since?
The measure of a Superconductor is not how much success stops with them. It is how much possibility passes through them on its way to someone else.
— Bruce Goldwell
Tags: CEO Space, Berny Dohrmann, September Dohrmann, The Superconductors, Bruce Goldwell, entrepreneurship, investors, business networking, mentorship, leadership, Connection Capital, coopetition, collaboration, personal development, business relationships
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