Retail. Logistics. Healthcare. Capital markets. Inside each one, there are assumptions that have been repeated so long they became invisible. Best practices. Benchmarks. Industry standards. Someone else's answers to questions that were never re-asked.
These aren't harmless. They're the foundation for pricing decisions, growth plans, and million-dollar commitments. And the most expensive failures I've seen in 25 years didn't come from bad execution. They came from flawless execution of plans built on premises no one questioned.
I know because I've done it myself. Trusted the premise. Paid for it.
This is where I write about that pattern. Not advice. Not frameworks. What actually happens when belief meets reality, traced to the moment the wrong assumption took hold. Each piece will be sourced, pressure-tested against real outcomes, and longer than you're used to.