The biggest learning curve from talking to small business owners was hearing their frustration with consultants, people who walked in with frameworks and left with the business changed in ways that didn't always fit.The first boundary I set for myself was simple: they know their businesses best. My job was not to tell them what to do. It was to build the infrastructure that would help them hear what they already knew.

Strategic foresight has long been treated as a separate discipline — something that happens in boardrooms, with dedicated teams and six-figure budgets. But for small business owners, foresight is not a methodology. It is simply thinking about what's next, and making that thinking a habit.