In the Thought Leaders game, a successful cluster is an offer you take to market that generates $10k a month in your practice. And we expect half of our clusters to fail.

So what happens to failed clusters? Where do they go to die?

In 2010 I launched The Money Workshop, a cluster to help Gen X’ers transform their relationship to money and achieve financial independence. In my humble opinion it was awesome, easily better than any other personal finance program going around.

Only problem was I couldn't get people to buy it.

Those that thought they needed it couldn't afford it. Those that could afford it didn't think they needed it. It was hard to generate urgency about a ten-year game. My list wasn't long enough. The stars didn't align. I wasn't ready. The market wasn't ready. Or something else altogether.

For whatever reason I couldn't get it to $10k a month, and eventually I failed it. I was a bit attached to it, so I probably took longer than the prescribed 3 months to realise it wasn't going to fly.

Fast forward nine years later and I got to run it again last Friday. This time we did it primarily for our black-belt community, but we invited everyone in Thought Leaders Business School. Here are some snippets of feedback:

"It was one of the most useful workshops ever: short, elegant, sharp, insightful, very practical and I had already started implementing action steps before I even arrived."
"It was such a great day, and to experience this with my wife was so special. She couldn't stop talking about the vulnerability of the room and how engaged and fun it was."
"Best of all I feel like the financial hole in my heart has been healed."

Personally, it was so gratifying to see the cluster I failed coming back to life a decade later, and having such a profound impact on so many people so close to my heart.

And also, it goes to show that just because you fail a cluster now, it doesn't mean it's going to disappear for ever. You might just be ahead of your time.