Bismarck News Updates

UNITED STATES – October 19, 2026 – Most advice tells you what to think. This piece asks you to do something.

Over the next thirty days, you will work through four short weeks of exercises. Each one takes a few minutes a day. By the end, you will know where you really stand, what you actually want, what your next landmark is, and whether you have taken the first step toward it.

The exercises are built on the ideas of Nathan Vaknin, an entrepreneur who spent more than 25 years building companies across nine industries, from fashion and wholesale to insurance, AI, and finance. Some of those companies grew into multi-million dollar operations. Some did not survive. Today he offers business owners and individuals free help, and free follow-up when it is useful, with no fees, no commissions, and nothing to buy. He does it to give back.

You can complete this workbook on your own, but it works best with one outside voice. In Week 2, you will choose someone whose judgment you trust, such as a friend you value, a mentor, or an experienced business owner, and talk your situation through with them.

Grab a notebook. Let’s begin.

Before you start: three ground rules

Rule one: write everything down. Thinking in circles is what got you stuck. Writing forces a decision about what you actually mean.

Rule two: honesty beats polish. Nobody grades this. A messy, true sentence is worth more than a clean, flattering one.

Rule three: small is fine. Nathan’s whole approach rests on the idea that progress comes from one realistic step, not a perfect plan. If an exercise feels too big, shrink it.

Your 30 days at a glance

Week	Focus	What you will have by Sunday
1	See clearly	An honest description of where you stand today
2	Get an outside view	A clear goal and an outside perspective on it
3	Move toward one landmark	One small, finished action and what you learned from it
4	Review and adjust	A redrawn route and your next landmark

Week 1: See clearly

The first week is about looking at your situation without the stories you usually tell about it. Nathan’s conversations begin the same way: by listening until the full picture is clear, not just the headline.

Day 1: Write the headline

In one sentence, write the problem as you would normally describe it to a friend.

Examples: “My business is stuck.” “I hate my job.” “I can’t decide whether to move.”

That is your headline. Keep it. You will come back to it at the end of the week and see how much it has changed.

Day 2: Write the facts underneath

Now list only facts. No feelings, no predictions. Dates, numbers, events, what was said.

If you run a business, include rough figures if you have them: monthly revenue, what it costs to deliver your product or service, and how much cash is on hand. Nathan’s site points out that real numbers lead to far more useful advice, even approximate ones.

Day 3: List what you have already tried

Write every attempt you have made to fix this, however small. A new tool you signed up for. An agency you hired. A conversation you had. A plan you wrote and abandoned.

This list often reveals a pattern. Many people discover they have been solving the same symptom over and over while the real cause sat untouched.

Day 4: Separate urgent from important

Draw two columns. On the left, write what feels urgent. On the right, write what actually matters most over the next year.

Notice how little overlap there usually is. This is one of the core moves in Nathan’s approach: separating what is loud from what is significant.

Day 5: Find the real constraint

Look at everything you have written. Ask one question: If I could fix only one thing, which fix would make the others easier?

For business owners, Nathan calls this finding the actual constraint behind the symptoms. Falling sales might really be a pricing problem. An exhausted team might really be an owner who has not handed anything off. A cash crunch might be slow collections, not weak demand.

For personal decisions, the constraint is often a fear, a missing piece of information, or a goal you set years ago and never revisited.

Day 6: Name what you are assuming

Go back to Day 2. Mark every item that is truly a fact with an F. Mark anything that is actually a guess with a G.

Most people are surprised how many G’s appear. Nathan writes that long-range plans fall apart because they are built on assumptions nobody has tested. Seeing your G’s is the first step to testing them.

Day 7: Rewrite the headline

Return to Day 1. Rewrite your one-sentence headline using everything you learned this week.

“My business is stuck” might become “My prices have not changed in three years while costs rose.” “I hate my job” might become “I want more control over my time, and I have not tested whether my side project could provide it.”

Week 1 checkpoint: If your new headline is more specific than the old one, the week worked.

Week 2: Get an outside view

You have looked at your situation from the inside. This week, you add the thing that is hardest to give yourself: perspective from someone who is not living in your problem.

Day 8: Write your goal in one sentence

Finish this sentence: “Ninety days from now, I want to have…”

It can be a decision (“decided whether to expand to a second location”), a result (“raised my prices and kept most of my clients”), or a direction (“a clear sense of whether I want to stay in my industry”).

If you genuinely do not know, write that. “I don’t know what I want next” is a legitimate starting point, and it is one of the topics Nathan’s site lists for personal conversations.

Day 9: Decide where the decision lives

Is this mainly a personal matter or a professional one?

It is common for both to be tangled together. A founder burning out has a business problem and a personal one. Choose the side where the actual decision sits. If you are deciding whether to hire, that is professional. If you are deciding whether you still want to run a business at all, that is personal.

You will need this answer tomorrow.

Day 10: Choose your outside voice

This is the step most people skip, and it may be the most valuable one in the workbook.

Pick one person whose judgment you trust and who is not caught up in your situation. It could be a friend you value, a mentor, a former boss or colleague, an experienced business owner in your area, or a professional advisor. The best choice is someone a few steps ahead of you on a similar road, and honest enough to tell you what you might not want to hear.

Be careful about choosing only the people closest to you. They care about you, which makes it hard for them to be neutral. They may want you to play it safe, stay nearby, or take the leap they never took.

Send them a short message asking for half an hour. Include what you wrote on Days 7, 8, and 9: your rewritten headline, your goal, and whether this is personal or professional. Sharing it ahead of time means the conversation can start with your real issue instead of twenty minutes of background. Nathan prepares for his own conversations the same way, and it makes a big difference.

A quick caution: save highly sensitive medical, legal, or financial details for a conversation with the right licensed professional.

Days 11 to 13: Prepare, then talk

Use these days to reread your notes and have the conversation.

Good outside conversations tend to follow a simple flow, the same one Nathan describes in his own work. First, the other person listens and asks questions until they understand the whole situation. Then you work together to find what matters most. Then you explore practical options that fit your real life, including your responsibilities. Finally, you leave knowing what to do next, even if not every question has an answer yet.

If your helper jumps straight to advice, gently steer them back to questions. The best insight often comes from a question you had not thought to ask yourself.

If you run a business, try structuring the conversation around Nathan’s three-word method: Learn, Optimize, Deploy. Learn how the business really works. Optimize the few things that matter most. Deploy specific actions you can start this week.

Day 14: Capture what you heard

Write three things:

1. The most useful question you were asked

2. The one idea you want to act on

3. Anything you were told you might need, such as a specialist, a tool, or a type of professional

That third item matters. A friend or mentor is not a substitute for therapy, medical care, legal or tax advice, or regulated financial advice. Nathan draws the same line around his own guidance. If your conversation surfaced something that needs a licensed professional, make that call part of your plan.

Week 2 checkpoint: You should now have a clear goal and at least one outside perspective on it.

Week 3: Move toward one landmark

Here is where most people stall. They gather insight and then wait to feel ready. This week is about acting before you feel certain.

Day 15: Choose your landmark

In his article “You Don’t Need the Whole Map to Start Moving Forward,” Nathan uses the image of a hiker in unfamiliar country. The hiker does not plan every step. They pick the next ridge, walk to it, and look again from higher ground.

Your landmark should be something you can reach within about a month, and specific enough that you will know when you have arrived. Examples from his writing include ten conversations with potential customers, a finished prototype, a month of savings, or one honest conversation.

Write yours down.

Day 16: Shrink the first step

Now find the smallest possible action that moves you toward that landmark. Then make it smaller.

“Launch a new service” becomes “write a one-paragraph description of the service.” “Change careers” becomes “send one message to someone who works in the field I am considering.”

If the step feels slightly too easy, it is the right size.

Day 17: Do it

Take the step today. Not tomorrow. Today.

Day 18: Record what happened

Write three lines: what you expected, what actually happened, and what surprised you.

This habit comes straight from Nathan’s writing. He argues that surprises are not interruptions to the plan. They are the reason for moving at all, because they contain information no planning session could produce.

Day 19: If it went badly, read this

Maybe the step did not go the way you hoped. Someone said no. The numbers looked worse than you thought. The prototype broke.

Nathan’s view, and the title of one of his essays, is that failure is data, not a verdict. The result is real, but it is not a judgment of your worth. It is information about what to try next.

Ask yourself: Was this a problem with the route, or with the direction? If the same obstacle keeps appearing, the route probably needs to change. If you have lost interest in where you were heading, the direction itself deserves an honest review.

Day 20: Pick a tool only if you need one

If your step revealed a bottleneck, such as missed calls, slow scheduling, or marketing that never happens, this is the moment to consider a tool. Not before.

Nathan keeps a short list of recommended AI and business tools on his site, with no affiliate links and no payment for any listing. More useful than the list is his rule for buying software: name your single biggest bottleneck, try one tool on a small task, measure it for two weeks, and keep it only if the difference is obvious.

Day 21: Take the second step

Repeat Days 16 to 18 with the next small action.

Week 3 checkpoint: You should have finished at least two real actions and written down what each one taught you.

Week 4: Review and adjust

The final week turns a burst of effort into a habit you can keep.

Day 22: Look for quiet progress

Reread everything you have written since Day 1. List anything that is even slightly better, clearer, or easier than it was a month ago.

Nathan has an essay titled “Progress Doesn’t Always Feel Like Progress.” Real change often looks slow and uneven from the inside, and many good efforts are abandoned in exactly that quiet stretch. Your notes are proof that something moved.

Day 23: Check your fixed principles

Write down three things that will not change no matter which route you take. How you treat people. A quality standard you will not drop. A limit on money or time you will respect.

Nathan suggests holding these firmly while holding the route loosely. When the principles are clear, a failed route is just a reason to choose another one.

Day 24: Redraw the route

Based on everything from Week 3, adjust your plan. Change what the evidence says to change. Keep what is working.

Plan the next thirty to ninety days in detail. Leave everything beyond that as a rough direction.

Day 25: Pick your next landmark

Choose the next ridge. Write it down with a date.

Day 26: Explore the free library

If you want more depth on your specific situation, Nathan’s site offers a library of free guides and essays, all written without affiliate links or sponsorships. Topics range from turning an idea into a paying business, to finding where a busy company’s money is going, to rebuilding after a setback and repairing relationship conflict.

Pick one article that matches where you are. Read it slowly and take one idea from it.

Day 27: Decide whether to follow up

Go back to the person who gave you perspective in Week 2. Tell them what you tried, what happened, and what you plan to do next.

This short follow-up does two things. It closes the loop with someone who gave you their time, and it gives you a second round of perspective based on real evidence instead of guesses. Nathan describes good ongoing support as helpful without creating dependency, and that is a useful standard for any mentor relationship: the aim is for you to need them less over time, not more.

If one conversation was not enough, consider adding a second voice. Someone with a different background often catches what the first person missed.

Day 28: Share your direction with one person

Tell one trusted person your direction and your next landmark. Saying it out loud makes it real and gives you someone to check in with.

Day 29: Schedule your next review

Put a date on the calendar, roughly one month away, to repeat Week 4. Nathan recommends regular reviews: monthly for most projects, quarterly for larger ones. A review is not a verdict on you. It is how a changing route stays connected to a steady purpose.

Day 30: Write a letter to yourself on Day 1

Write a short note to the person who started this workbook a month ago. What would you tell them? What were they worried about that turned out not to matter? What did they not yet know?

Keep it. Read it before your next review.

The thinking behind these exercises

The ideas in this workbook come from Nathan’s own writing and the way he works with people, and they come with an unusual backstory.

After more than two decades of building, losing, and rebuilding businesses, Nathan concluded that the most valuable thing he could offer was not another product. It was perspective, attention, and practical help. For most of his life he shared that informally, through business problems and personal moments alike. Eventually he decided to make it intentional and open it to anyone, free of charge, as a way of giving back.

His reasoning is straightforward. He believes clarity should not be locked behind a transaction, that trust should come before any request to buy, and that experience becomes more valuable when it is shared. No gimmicks and no strings attached.

That same spirit runs through this workbook. You do not need money, status, or a perfect plan to make progress, only a willingness to look honestly at where you are and take one step.

What to do on Day 31

The workbook ends here. Your progress does not.

You now have a clearer headline, a written goal, a tested first step, a redrawn route, and a next landmark with a date beside it. That is more than most people get from a year of thinking about the same problem.

If you want a second perspective on any of it, now or a month from now, reach out to Nathan Vaknin. Share what you wrote, choose a time on his calendar, and keep moving. The help is free, and so is the follow-up.

About Nathan Vaknin

Nathan Vaknin is an entrepreneur with experience across multiple industries, including fashion, wholesale, insurance, artificial intelligence, and finance. Through his website, he shares guidance and resources intended to help individuals and business owners approach challenges with greater clarity and practical focus.

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