When I got accepted into the Goldman Sachs 10K Small Businesses program, I thought I knew exactly what I was signing up for. I expected technical training. Financial modeling. Better systems. How to make smarter projections. I was ready to learn.

I didn’t expect it to challenge how I think about my own ceiling.

Early on, they asked us a simple question: Where do you see your business in five years?

I wrote down $800,000 in revenue.

And to be honest, that number felt like a stretch. It wasn’t conservative. It wasn’t small to me. It felt ambitious based on what I know how to build today as an independent agency owner for commercial insurance. It represented the upper edge of my current capacity.

I hit submit feeling proud.

Then came the exercise that changed everything.

In one of our early modules, we were asked to draw what our business would look like in five years if money were not an issue. No capital constraints. No hesitation about hiring. No “let’s be realistic.” Just design it.

So I did.

What I drew didn’t look like an $800,000 company.

It looked like Miami. Palm trees. Sun. Movement. A stretch of buildings where The Bunker insured every business, every building, every owner on that street.

Inside, it didn’t look like a traditional insurance office. It looked like a Google-style workspace — industrial but chic. Pellet ice machines. Topo Chicos and Coke Zeros stocked. Dogs welcome. Built-in content studios so clients and advisor partners could record and create. A space to host lunch and learns.

A Bunker, but above ground.

If you’re insured by The Bunker or you’re an advisor partner, you have access. Access to the space. Access to the community. Access to the energy.

That’s what I drew.

Then they took it further.

They came around and said, “You’ve just received $50,000. You have three months to spend it.”

I didn’t hesitate. Hire. Tighten systems. Invest in marketing.

Then they said, “Now you’ve received $500,000. You have six months.”

Expand nationally. Add specialized producers. Strengthen advisory partnerships. Build out the space.

Then they said, “You’ve received $5 million.”

Buy real estate. Secure the dream Bunker HQ. Scale nationally. Invest in the brand.

I had no shortage of ways to spend it. None.

And then they asked the final question:

“After $5 million… does your picture look any different?”

And that’s when it hit me.

It didn’t.

The picture didn’t expand. The dream didn’t stretch. Even at $5 million in revenue, I wasn’t imagining something fundamentally bigger for my business. I was imagining the same vision — just funded.

That was the moment I realized the ceiling wasn’t money.

It was me.

As business owners, we are head down most of the time. Managing. Executing. Solving. We live in operational mode. And operational mode calculates growth based on what it can see today — today’s team, today’s systems, today’s constraints.

Psychologists call this the planning fallacy. Research shows that we consistently forecast the future based on present conditions. We anchor our projections to what feels tangible now instead of accounting for how much we will evolve along the way.

That’s exactly what I did.

My $800,000 goal felt big because I was measuring it against who I am today.

The second you notice you’ve been planning from where you stand instead of where you’re going, something clicks.

And once it clicks, the question becomes unavoidable:

Why not me?

Why not build beyond the version I initially thought was “big”?

Why not assume that my leadership, my reach, and my impact can grow far beyond what feels comfortable right now?

Goldman Sachs didn’t give me a bigger number.

It forced me to pause and look up.

And when you realize you’ve installed your own ceiling, you have a choice:

Keep building underneath it. Or remove it.

If you ever get the opportunity to draw your business five years from now, don’t do it from limitation.

Draw it answering one question:

Why not you?