Then a plant showed me something.
I had a long strand of a plant that I was trying to propagate. I put the end in water and waited for it to grow enough roots that I could eventually pot the whole thing.
And it worked. It started rooting.
But one day I looked at that long strand differently.
Instead of trying to grow an enormous root system strong enough to support the entire thing as one plant, I started looking along the strand for the points of life. The nodes. The places where new growth was already possible.
So I cut it.
I took those individual points of life, separated them from the one long strand, and put each of them in water.
And they rooted.
Each piece began developing the root system it needed to support itself. Each had the potential for new growth. What I had been trying to grow as one thing could become many.
That’s when I saw myself in the plant.
I had spent years trying to figure out how everything I had been given was supposed to grow together into one enormous thing. One business. One purpose. One answer that somehow explained all of the completely different things I could do.
Maybe that wasn’t the assignment.
Maybe I needed to start looking for the points of life.
Instead of asking how everything fits together, I could take what was already there and give each thing somewhere to grow.
One gift could become a business. Another could help someone. Another could create something. Another might combine with something else entirely. They didn’t all have to be supported by the same root system.
The potential to multiply was already there.
I just had to stop insisting it become one plant.
Then I looked at what Jesus actually taught.
In Matthew 25, Jesus tells a story about a master who leaves on a journey and entrusts his property to three servants. One receives five talents, another two and another one, each according to his ability.
A talent in this story was money. Jesus wasn’t using the word the way we use “talent” today to mean a natural ability. I think that distinction matters because I don’t need to change the story to make the point.
The first two servants did something with what they were given. They put it to work, and when the master returned, they had more to give back than what had originally been placed in their hands.
The third servant did something very different.
He buried it.
He didn’t lose what he had been given. He didn’t waste it. He protected it so well that he could return exactly what he had received.
And he was the one the master rebuked.
That hit me because the difference wasn’t what they had been given. They had each been entrusted with different amounts. The difference was what they did with it.
Multiplication is the Outcome of Obedience.
For me, that changed the question completely. If I believe GOD gave me what I have, then being grateful for it isn’t enough. Recognizing it isn’t enough. Protecting it isn’t enough. I am responsible for what I do with what has been placed in my hands.
And Scripture reinforces that idea. In 1 Peter 4:10, we’re told to use whatever gift we have received to serve others as faithful stewards of GOD’s grace. In Romans 12, Paul talks about people having different gifts and then gets incredibly practical about what to do with them. If it’s serving, serve. If it’s teaching, teach. If it’s encouraging, encourage. If it’s giving, give. If it’s leading, lead.
Use what you have.
You don’t have to believe what I believe to understand this.
I believe what I have came from God. You may believe something completely different about where your abilities, interests, and opportunities came from.
But regardless of where you believe they came from, you have things in your hands right now.
You have abilities, experience, knowledge, resources, interests and ideas. You’ve learned things because of what you’ve lived through. There are probably things you do so naturally that you’ve never stopped to consider that somebody else finds them difficult. There may be things people consistently come to you for that you’ve dismissed because they don’t seem important enough to call a gift.
Some of those things you’re already using. Some you probably aren’t.
And some may be sitting in water because you haven’t figured out what they’re supposed to become.
What can knowing your Signal give you?
Signal gives you an outside view of something that’s incredibly difficult to see from inside your own business: what someone may actually be receiving from what you’ve put into the world.
It can show you what is immediately clear, what makes you distinctive, what creates trust, where expectations are being set, what may be creating hesitation or confusion, and where the different pieces of your business are reinforcing each other or saying different things.
Sometimes there will be audience language or behavior that helps confirm what I’m seeing. Sometimes there won’t be. I follow the evidence that’s actually available rather than forcing every business through the same framework or pretending I know what people are thinking when I don’t.
The outcome isn’t a score or a list of things you’re doing wrong.
It’s visibility.
You understand what you’re currently putting into the world more clearly, so whatever you decide to build, change, keep or amplify next is an informed decision.
Signal isn’t a problem I’m looking to find.
This matters to me because I have no interest in creating another system that exists to tell businesses everything they’re doing wrong.
Your Signal may be communicating exactly what you intended. If it is, that’s valuable to know. Now you know what you’re pressing into.
I may receive something you never intended. That’s valuable too. Now you know before you decide what happens next.
And sometimes I may see something valuable in what you’re already sending that you didn’t realize you were saying at all.
That’s why I don’t think of Signal as good or bad.
Signal is information. Once you can see it, you can decide what to do with it.
I read Signal.
For most of my career, I didn’t have that language for what I was doing. I just knew I could look at a business, a person, an offer or an idea and start seeing connections other people weren’t necessarily seeing.
My clients usually knew A. They knew where they were. And they knew Z, where they wanted to go. A lot of my work became figuring out B through Y: what needed to be built, changed, communicated, connected or created to get from one to the other.
I’ve helped my clients generate tens of millions of dollars doing that work. I’ve worked with industry giants, celebrities, entrepreneurs and businesses at very different stages. I’ve built the strategy and I’ve built the things. I’ve spent enough time inside all of those separate disciplines to understand how they affect one another.
But I’ve realized something important about the order.
Before I start solving for B through Y, I want to understand A.
Not simply what you tell me A is.
What is A actually communicating?
That’s where Signal starts.
So, what are you signaling?
There’s one obvious problem with trying to answer that question yourself.
You already know what you meant when you said it. You can’t unknow it long enough to experience your business the way someone encountering it for the first time does.
I can.
That’s why I created the Blind Signal Read.
Before you tell me what you intended, I experience what you’ve already put into the world and tell you what I received.
Maybe it’s exactly what you meant. Maybe it isn’t.
Either way, now you know your Signal.
Explore the Blind Signal Read →
It’s rare to find brand chops and proven performance. Kristen delivers both.
Jonathan “JCron” Cronstedt
CO-CEO, Kajabi
