Not all great stories start with a happy beginning
This story starts with a mortgage that was due and a fridge that was empty. That means tough decisions were ahead.
He walked to the closet and pulled out a prize possession. He looked at it twice before he listed it on Ebay, then the bids started coming in.
This is how one man fed his family for a quarter.
It wasn’t a sales career. The money came from a hobby. He grew up as a huge sports fan in New England and used to go to the Spring Trainings and get players to sign balls, bats, and even photos. For him this was fun. It was his link to his home town and nostalgic feelings.
The memorabilia sales became a way to keep the lights on and feed his family.
One line in particular from Derek Carlson’s Unlock Your MVP that haunts me is: “We were not building wealth, we were buying time.”
You will find most business books start after the hard part. This one starts right in the middle of it, so it isn’t your run of the mill mindset book.
There are 4 important stages in this book:
- You survive
- You heal
- You get clear
And then finally…
- You build for something other than yourself.
Carlson, makes one particular claim over and over again—each one of the stages needs a different tool. An important distinction is that what saved you in the previous stage will not save you in the next. What you need to know is grit gets you out of the fire but it will not build the house.
Each stage requires a different strategy.
His position is: “Mindset can carry you through survival, but it can’t build an entire life on its own.”
That leads directly into an important aspect to consider: “Endurance without distinction becomes exhaustion.”
If you have ever worked hard for a season and still fell further behind, you know this statement is both true and painful.
Dependency demonstrates a lack of real leadership
This one sentient really stuck out to me because I see so many people make this mistake.
“A vision that cannot function without you is not leadership. It is dependency disguised as ambition.”
You might want to read that twice.
I work with owners every day that are proof of this statement. Let me give you three examples:
The first one is the closer in his own company. All the major sales go through him. When he’s not on the deal, sales drop by more than half. He insists this is hands on, but it’s just a company with a single working part everything depends on.
The second one signs off on every quote over five grand. He built that silly rule ten years ago when he had four people. There are more than 40 now. The rule has never been updated. The team outsourced their thinking because they got overruled.
The third one has the top 10 account numbers saved in his cell phone. Those clients don’t trust the staff, they trust him. That’s a nice feeling right up until the day he wants to sell. Then it becomes a problem on valuation.
Not one of those men are lazy. All three of them are willing to work hard along with their team. That’s the trap and the book explains it well. The less you carry it alone, the more you can build that runs without you.
Carlson uncovered this issue in the midst of a health scare. Most owners I deal with get there through an LOI or term sheet. The end result is the same.
The day nothing was wrong
The strongest scene in the book is not the one of the crash. It starts on a normal Tuesday.
He is sitting in his office with back to back meetings. Emails are stacking up and deals are moving forward. By every metric, the business seemed healthy and strong.
But even with this success, he felt empty and alone.
He recognized the feeling right away because he had felt it once before and simply dismissed it as being tired. He says, “Momentum without meaning always collapses.”
He now calls that day an inflection point.
It’s the moment growth stops asking how much you can achieve and starts asking how much can you carry?
That question is not subtle or diplomatic—it’s the same thing a buyer asks in due diligence. They just use harsher words. They ask who owns the client list, what happens to the gross margin when you take 90 days off, and will your best employees stay after closing?
Carlson builds the book on four legs.
Health: This step comes first because it determines what you can show up for. In his own words: “Health is not about appearance or performance, it’s about capacity.”
Relationships: A bigger goal should pull people closer, not push them apart. He says, “Vision forces honesty about how you show up when nobody is applauding.” That one should sting a bit.
Business: Here the company stops acting as a scoreboard and becomes the stage. The question moves from what can you take out to what can you build? Success gets measured by what grows under you, not just what grows because of you.
Legacy: It’s not what you leave in the will. It’s about what you model on a normal day, over and over until the team does the same.
Your vision has to be load bearing, meaning it has to hold up when you are tired, when you delegate tasks to others, and when the company grows and changes hands.
Carlson explains, “If your vision is broken, it wasn’t because it was too heavy. Hollow things always break when the real weight arrives.”
Where this book gets brutally honest
There is a particular part in this book that really made me think.
Carlson admits he used to avoid saying “I don’t know.” This answer isn’t meant to trick anyone, he just thought that a leader always had to sound sure. From the outside that answer looked like confidence. Inside he says, “It felt like managing based on what people thought instead of managing based on reality.”
Just about any owner who has run a Monday morning meeting knows this feeling.
The feeling of being unsure and the feeling of being exposed are not the same thing.
He explains, “Doubt comes from not knowing whether you belong.”
That is a better read on the topic than I’ve seen in most books written by people with stacks of letters after their name.
Where do things stand when you step back?
Unlock Your MVP coalesces into one powerful foundational message, and here’s what I took from it:
The weight is coming. It might be from a sale, your health, or the day your best employee quits. It may even be the day your kid needs you more than a block on your calendar does.
It doesn’t ask first. It shows up and forces the lesson.
In my opinion, Carlson’s entire book is one question presented from multiple perspectives. It’s not about how much you have built. It’s ultimately about how much of it remains standing when you step back.
When you look at your business, ask yourself this one question:
If you took the next 90 days off starting tomorrow, what would still be standing when you get back?