After that Sunday morning in the corral, something shifted in me.
I could not unsee the trap. And I could not accept that this was just “the cost of success.”
So I started researching. Six months of it.
Pizza franchises. Video stores. Real estate deals. Any business model that promised flexibility and scalability. I was methodical — I was a researcher, after all. But nothing landed. Nothing felt like it.
Pizza places required constant management. Video stores were capital intensive. Real estate needed boots on the ground.
High performers. Already successful. Already credible. But completely time-trapped.
And here is what made it different from everything else I had researched:
They said I could start with one hour a day.
Not ten hours. Not a second full-time job. One hour during the time I already had — the nonproductive hours, the early mornings, the late nights, the weekends.
And I could do it whether I was in Manhattan or at the farm. Whether I was managing consulting clients or riding horses. The business model worked with my life, not instead of it.
For the first time in six months of research, I felt something shift. Hope. Clarity. A real possibility.
I could not wait to get home.
When I told my husband what I had discovered, his response matched mine. He saw the excitement. He felt the possibility. And he supported it completely.
Because we both saw the same thing: Finally, a structure that could actually work for people like us.
And here is what I did not know then: That week in California was not just about finding a business model for me and my husband.
It was the beginning of understanding something much deeper — something I would spend the next 35 years refining.
It was about discovering what real leverage actually looks like.
In the next part of this series, I will tell you what I learned over those 35 years — and why I eventually created the Freedom Fit Assessment to help thousands of other high performers find their own version of that California beach moment.
Ann Feinstein is The Leverage Queen — a global entrepreneur and mentor who for 35 years has helped executives and solopreneurs build scalable, system-supported income. Connect with Ann to explore whether a strategic partnership or private mentoring is the right next step for you.
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I remember this ❤️🛫✈️Waiting for the book you are writing ✍️ now, Good luck 👍
Hey Dror, Stay tuned for Leverage Letters – Part 3 coming on Tuesday, July 7th! 🫂🌹💞