JERK Report #20 Rained Out Plans

What a weekend of canceled plans at Sail250 and good detours taught me about offers.

I went to Sail250 in Baltimore this weekend and it gave me some surprises.

Sail250 was part of the celebration of America's 250th. A flotilla of tall ships from around the world toured five cities. Baltimore was the one that added an air show, so we got the fighter jets too.

Saturday morning I was going to do standup paddleboard yoga among the tall ships. Sounds so epic, doesn't it? I'd signed up thinking it was just paddleboarding, and only two days before realized it was yoga on a paddleboard, which neither my friend nor I have ever done. Trying it with a backdrop of tall ships sounded too fun to miss. But it rained, my friend declined, and then the class was cancelled. The plan washed out and I was so disappointed.

Sunday, a quick outing with friends ran long and wandered. We all marveled to see Baltimore wonderfully crowded and vibrant. I'd thought we were meeting and heading to a specific ship a friend wanted to see. But it's a group. People arrived late, got enticed by the bar, insisted on drinks first. Someone else came later still, insisted on sandwiches first. And that had us positioned on the water for the flyovers we'd not timed. Eventually we climbed through tall ships and talked to strangers, laughed in the sun, then went to a crab shack after.

Most of it was not planned. All of it was the good part.

I had been thinking about Sail250 as a metaphor for offers. When I think about what we offer to people, we can build a harbor. A space people return to. The website, a shop, a course that runs monthly, weekly calls. Nice, steady, easy to walk past. Community we appreciate but sometimes do not prioritize. Other times we build an event, like the tall ships. Finite. Novel. A reason to come now, because it leaves Wednesday. I think we need both. The harbor that holds the ships, and the events to fill the space. The space keeps the people visiting between events. What makes both worth showing up for, to me: a shift in how I see the world, human connection, and inspiration. You leave a little different than you arrived.

If we read the JERK Signals:

Position

Where someone sits with you today. A buyer. A reader. A regular.

Velocity

Whether they are moving. This month against last. Are they still engaged?

Acceleration

Whether that participation is building or fading.

Jerk

The change in the heading. The flash in someone's eyes, the aha moment. The earliest signal.

On Sunday, the bar was the nudge. The drinks were the turn. The heading of the day changed. An offer that makes someone faster is valuable. An offer that changes where they are headed is transformational. That is jerk.

Your five-minute practice this week

Open your favorite LLM and ask:

Given my business and who I serve, design three offers. One harbor: a low-stakes space my people return to regularly. One event: a finite, dated thing with a real reason to come now. One that blends the two. For each, name the novelty, the moment of human connection, and the one transformation someone leaves with. Then tell me what to leave unscripted, so the magic has room.

If you saw my customer in three years, and it was their best three years, what happened, and how did the offer contribute to it?

Read what comes back. Keep the plan that changes a heading, not just a speed.

Of course, this harbor metaphor inspired me too. The week of July 20th, I am running a Workshop Week. You're invited.