It wasn't about marriage techniques or communication strategies. It was about something much more fundamental:

We don't experience reality; we experience our interpretation of reality.

And that interpretation is shaped almost entirely by the people we surround ourselves with.

The Big Spring Farm Breakthrough: Julia Woods shared something that stopped me in my tracks: "In your first 1,000 days of life, your personality is essentially formed. Everything after that is just data coming in, but you get to choose what meaning you assign to that data."

Think about that. Every challenge, every setback, every piece of feedback you receive, it's just data. But the meaning you give it? That's shaped by the voices around you.

As I looked around the room at 40+ couples committed to growth, vulnerability, and challenging each other toward their best selves, I realized: I wasn't just in a different environment, I was becoming a different person because of the environment.

The Leadership Connection: This hit me like a freight train because I see it constantly in my consulting work. Two leaders can receive identical feedback, face the same challenges, even have similar backgrounds—but their outcomes are completely different.

The difference? The people interpreting the data with them.

The Framework: Data vs. Meaning Here's what I learned at Big Spring Farm that's transforming how I approach leadership development:

The D.A.T.A. Framework:

• Data: What actually happened (objective reality)
• Assignment: What meaning are you giving it?
• Tribe: Who is helping you interpret it?
• Action: What will you do with this interpretation?

Most leaders get stuck because they're surrounded by people who help them assign disempowering meanings to empowering data.

Real-World Application: Just this week, I've seen this principle play out in three different coaching conversations:

Client #1: A former colleague dealing with mental health challenges. His assessment showed natural vitality at a 9, but he's operating at a 1. The data is clear—but the meaning he's assigning is "I'm broken." We're working on surrounding him with people who can help him reframe that data: "You have incredible capacity that's temporarily constrained."

Client #2: A CEO and COO partnership where one is a visionary, the other an executor. They already worked great together, but the assessment data helped solidify why their partnership was so effective and gave them language to leverage their natural complementarity even more.

Client #3:  My brother, who's incredibly successful but has always known that follow-through isn't his natural strength. The assessment simply solidified what he already understood—he's a visionary who excels at getting things started and does finish what matters, but he maximizes his impact with strong execution support around him. The data confirmed his self-awareness and reinforced his strategy of building the right team to amplify his visionary strengths.

The Environment Effect:

Here's what I realized during those three days at Big Spring Farm:

Environment doesn't just influence behavior—it shapes identity.

When you're surrounded by people who are committed to growth, vulnerability becomes strength. When you're with people who challenge assumptions, obstacles become opportunities. When you're in community with others who are living intentionally, reactive patterns naturally shift toward purposeful choices.

The Assessment Insight: This is why I'm so excited about our partnership with PeopleBest for personality assessments. It's like "Moneyball for personality", giving leaders objective data about how they're wired. But here's the crucial part: the assessment is just data. The transformation happens when you're surrounded by the right people to help you interpret and act on that data.

The Challenge: This week, I want you to audit your interpretive community. When something challenging happens in your leadership, who are the first three people you talk to about it?

Do they help you find empowering meanings in difficult data?

Do they challenge you toward growth or comfort you toward stagnation?

Do they help you see possibilities or problems?

The Invitation: This is exactly why I'm opening up the next With Intention Cohort to just 10 leaders. Not because I can only handle 10 people logistically, but because real transformation happens in small, committed communities where everyone is invested in helping everyone else assign empowering meanings to life's data.

We will kick it off on Thursday, 8/14 and spend 8 weeks together, you'll not only develop your personal Intention Operating System, but you'll experience what it feels like to have your challenges, setbacks, and growth opportunities interpreted by people who see your potential rather than your problems. Click here to learn more.

Call to Action: If you're ready to stop letting random voices interpret your life's data and start surrounding yourself with intentional community committed to your growth, let's have a conversation.

Just reply back and here and I'll send you a link to schedule a strategy call to see if it's the right fit (or just hit me back with any questions). We'll discuss where you are, where you want to be, and whether our August 14th cohort could be the right community that accelerates your transformation.

With intention,

Jon

P.S. That breakthrough at Big Spring Farm? It happened because I chose to be in an environment with people who were as committed to growth as I am. The same data I've always had about myself, my marriage, and my leadership, but completely different meanings because of the community interpreting it with me. That's the power of intentional relationships.