Name the people you go to when you need advice or perspective or strategy or help, and give each one a seat with a job attached, described in words that sound like you. Vague seats make vague asks, and vague asks get polite maybes. Jess learned that staring at the very first worksheet at a networking event, with no one to write down for some prompts. This worksheet is the do-over. Name up to six seats, describe each one as a job, and pencil in who could fill it. Then trade drafts with somebody else. That trade is the seat swap, and it is the whole point.
Start from Jess's seats
These are the five seats Jess wrote on her own third sheet, in her own words. Click one to drop it into your next empty seat, then edit it until it sounds like you.
All six seats already have names. Clear one to try another starter.
Name your seats
Write each seat as a role, like a job description. Start with "someone who will" and finish the sentence in your own words.
Seat 1
Seat 2
Seat 3
Seat 4
Seat 5
Seat 6
Pencil, not pen. If a label makes you wince or blurs into another label, it is probably the wrong framing. Reword it until it sounds like you. Five or six seats is great. Jess had five definite with a sixth maybe.
Your board so far
0 of 6 seats drafted.
Your seats will show up here as you fill them in.
Two seats share a label. If they blur together, try rewording one in your own words.
Step two: the seat swap
A drafted board sitting in a drawer does nothing. Take your draft to two or three people who are close to you, in your industry, or at a similar build point, and talk through the seats. You are not asking them to judge or evaluate. You are asking for a second set of eyes from somebody in similar shoes. If sending the ask feels transactional, a clear ask is the fix, not the problem: it tells them exactly what you need, why you picked them, and that no is a fine answer. One of Jess's favorite lines from the workshop: "Humans are hard, don't make it harder."
Hey, I'm mapping out who I need for my next phase of building. Could I walk you through my draft for 15 minutes and get your feedback on it? I'm happy to do the same thing for yours. And if now is not a good time or that's not in alignment with what you're doing, I am okay with that. I just need you to tell me, and I promise not to take it personally.
That message has a real ask and a real out. Send it only if you are okay with both answers coming back, a yes and a no.
FAQ
What is a personal board of directors?
It is the set of people you go to when you need advice or perspective or strategy or help, organized as seats instead of a contacts list. The workshop Jess attended ran it as three sheets. The first asked who you go to, as a type of person rather than a name, when you hit a barrier. The second offered a list of possible roles to brainstorm from, with permission to cross things out, combine them, rename them, or make up your own. The third asked you to commit: write down the seats you need, two or three people who could fit each one, and the role you would be asking them into. Jess got stuck on the first sheet and rewrote every seat on the third, because the labels only worked once they were in her own words.
What is the difference between someone who helps and someone to think with?
The difference is the word "with," and it is there on purpose. Plenty of high achievers have people who help them: a team, a partner, a contractor, a friend. The gap is smaller and more specific. It is the person you call when your own thinking hits a wall, the one who gets to say you are missing something. You can be completely surrounded by people and still never have somebody in that seat. And if you are the one everybody calls, the relationships often run one direction: you are the go-to, and you never get anybody to go to yourself.
Why does the seat label have to be in my own words?
Because if you cannot describe something in words that sound like your own natural language, you will not have the confidence to ask somebody to step into that space. Generic asks get vague answers. Jess sees people post "I need a mentor" or "would you be a mentor," and in her world vague asks get polite maybes or gentle no's. A specific ask defines the role on both sides, so the other person can say yes, I can own this, or no, I cannot. Her example: "Would you be the person I call when I can't tell if an idea is good for me or just really loud right now?"
I already have people. Why do I need this?
You probably do have people. The question is whether they are the right people for the version of yourself today that is building toward tomorrow. People can love you and show up when it counts and still not be the people who need to surround you for this specific goal. Love and perspective are two very different things. Some people can do both, but most can only do one. The seat swap is not asking who loves you. It is asking who can see what you are building and give you perspective on it.
What if I ask the wrong person?
It is okay to be wrong. It is okay to fail. It is okay to learn from the experience. Every type of data is feedback. It is not a verdict on your character. You get to audit, check, and learn more about yourself. You are collecting perspective, not taking orders from a menu. And before you hand somebody a seat, Jess suggests running the S test from Episode 25, so you know what they are building toward before they get the opportunity to impact your build too.
What did the research find about asking for help?
In 2008, researchers Francis Flynn and Vanessa Lake published a series of studies in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology on how well people predict whether someone will say yes to a direct request for help. Across three studies, people underestimated by as much as 50% how likely others were to say yes. The explanation: the person asking pictures the cost of saying yes, the time and the effort, and does not picture how uncomfortable it is to say no to somebody's face. The helper feels that discomfort and the asker does not. So when you are bracing for a no, you have probably already decided the other person's answer for them. The smaller and clearer the ask, the easier it is to make. And nobody in those studies had to work out what to ask for first, which is exactly the step this episode is about.
Go deeper
In Episode 33, Jess tells the story of the networking event where she froze on worksheet one, the three sheets that followed, and how rewriting every seat in her own language finally unlocked the exercise. She names her own five seats, walks through the research on why we brace for a no that was never coming, and issues the challenge: draft your seats, then go trade drafts with somebody else. The tool above is the worksheet. The episode tells you why the swap matters more than the sheet.
Listen to Ep 33: Build Your Personal Board of Directors: The Seat Swap
"You can carry the work by yourself, but you were never built to carry the thinking by yourself."
Related
- Episode 10: Stop Thinking. Start. Getting out of the silo and starting the conversation, which works better once you have something to say when you start it.
- Episode 28: You're Not Behind (You're Just Waiting for Permission) The person who has the language but has not sent it yet, still holding out for the green light.
- Episode 25: The Question That Tells You Who's Actually Building Something The S test to run before you hand somebody a seat.
Big Ideas Made Simple is a weekly podcast for entrepreneurs and fast thinkers building a business around who they are and how they operate. Hosted by Jess Webber. New episodes Mondays at bigideasmadesimple.captivate.fm.
Get the next one
Got your result? Get the next idea like it each week.
Three steps. About 20 minutes. Type everything on your mind, answer two questions about each one, and see what to keep, hand off, protect, and drop this week. You get the sheet right away, plus my weekly email afterwards.
