Let’s talk about the death of business plans.
I’ve burned every business plan I’ve ever written. And I’ve written a lot of them. Each one was a beautifully decorated prison cell that kept me stuck doing what I thought I was supposed to do instead of what I actually wanted to do.
You know what’s worse than failing at business? Succeeding at the wrong one. Three times.
I spent years building what looked like success on paper. Three different quarter-million-dollar businesses that made me want to stab myself in the eye with a fork. One in health and fitness (ironic, I know), another in online education, and a third in e-commerce.
Each time, I’d build to 80% completion, hit six figures, then feel this overwhelming urge to burn it all down and start fresh.
Everyone had a theory. Lack of focus. Poor follow-through. The entrepreneurial equivalent of commitment issues.
But here’s what nobody tells you about business plans.
They’re really good at one thing – making you look and sound just like everyone else. They turn your weird obsessions into sanitized market opportunities. Your burning desire to change the world into conservative financial projections.
And the worst part? Sometimes they work. You follow the template, fill in all the boxes, and build exactly what you said you would. But success feels hollow because you’ve built someone else’s idea of a good business.
I see it happen every day. Someone comes to me with a beautiful 30-page business plan. Perfect formatting. Conservative growth projections. Detailed competitor analysis. And zero soul.
When I ask them why they want to build this particular business, they talk about market size and profit margins. When I ask what gets them excited about this idea, they show me their ROI calculations.
They’ve written a perfect plan for a beautiful prison.
And I get it. I really do. That’s what we’re taught to do. That’s what I did. Write the plan, follow the plan, build the cage, move in, wonder why you feel trapped.
But what if there was a different way? What if instead of planning a business, you could build a world? What if instead of following someone else’s template, you could create your own universe with its own rules?
That’s exactly what I discovered when I started working with AI to build business worlds instead of business plans.
It wasn’t intentional at first. I was just trying to find a way to make AI understand my brand voice so it could help me create content.
But what emerged was something far more powerful – a system for turning my weird obsessions into profitable worlds I never want to escape from.
Now when people go through our AI World Architect program, they don’t walk away with a business plan. They walk away with something much more valuable – a World Bible. A living document that captures not just what they want to build, but the entire universe they want to create.
And that’s what we need to talk about next – why these old-school business plans are actually killing the very businesses they’re supposed to help create.
The Hidden Cost of Traditional Planning
Here’s what happens when you write a traditional business plan.
You start with this raw, electric idea. This thing that keeps you up at night because you’re so excited about it. Then you open up that business plan template and watch your idea slowly die.
First, you have to “validate your market.” That means taking your weird, wonderful idea and squeezing it into whatever box the market research says is profitable right now. Your unique vision gets diluted into whatever trend is hot on Instagram this week.
Then comes the financial projections.
This is where you lie to yourself and anyone else who might read your plan. Because let’s be real – if anyone could accurately predict business growth, we’d all be billionaires. But we write these numbers down like they’re gospel, then spend the next year chasing fictional goals we pulled out of thin air.
I remember sitting in my office at 2 AM, staring at a spreadsheet for my education business. The numbers were good. Really good. Revenue was up 250% year over year. The business plan said this was success. But all I could think about was how much I dreaded waking up the next morning to do it all again.
That’s the real cost of traditional business planning.
It’s not just the time you waste writing documents nobody will read. It’s the soul-crushing reality of building something that looks perfect on paper but feels wrong in your gut.
The business plan tells you to focus on what’s “proven to work.” But here’s the thing about proven paths – they’re usually proven to work for someone else. Someone with different dreams, different values, different ways of seeing the world.
And don’t even get me started on the language these plans make us use.
“Market penetration strategy.”
“Scalable business model.”
“Competitive advantage.”
We end up sounding like AI chatbots trained on MBA textbooks instead of humans with actual passion for what we’re building.
The worst part? This stuff seeps into your brain. You start thinking in ROI and KPIs instead of joy and impact. You catch yourself saying things like “let’s table that idea until we’ve proven the core business model” when what you really mean is “I’m too scared to build what I actually want to build.“
I see it happen in almost every world-building consultation I do. Someone comes to me frustrated, feeling stuck, not sure why their business isn’t working. Their metrics look fine. Their business plan is on track. But they’re dying inside because they’ve built a perfect system for someone else’s definition of success.
When I started developing the AI World Architect system, I noticed something fascinating.
Every time I asked AI to help me write a traditional business plan, it sounded just like all the others. Same structure. Same language. Same soul-crushing formality.
But when I asked it to help me build a world? That’s when the magic happened. Because AI doesn’t just regurgitate business school templates – it can actually help you explore and expand your unique vision.
But before we talk about what replaces the business plan, you need to understand something crucial. This isn’t about throwing out all planning or structure. It’s about replacing rigid templates with living documents that actually capture the essence of what you’re trying to build.
Enter the World Bible
A World Bible isn’t just some fancy rebrand of a business plan. It’s a fundamentally different way of thinking about what you’re building.
While a business plan tries to predict the future, a World Bible creates it.
Instead of focusing on what the market wants, it focuses on the world you want to build. The one that gets you jumping out of bed at 5 AM not because some guru told you to, but because you can’t wait to keep building it.
Let me break this down with a real example.
Back when I was building my health and fitness business, my business plan talked about market size, user acquisition costs, and revenue projections. All the “right” stuff.
But my World Bible for Makers Mob? It starts with “Because building beautiful prisons isn’t our style” and goes on to map out an entire universe where people build businesses from their joy instead of someone else’s blueprint.
The difference? The business plan was about numbers. The World Bible is about transformation.
In a World Bible, we don’t have target demographics – we have a character ecosystem. We don’t just identify who might buy from us. We create deep, rich understanding of the heroes in our story.
The creative souls stuck in conventional jobs. The side-project enthusiasts ready to go bigger. The corporate refugees seeking meaningful work.
Instead of competitive analysis, we have world physics – the fundamental laws that govern how our brand moves through the world. What attracts people to us? What repels them? What creates momentum? What causes friction?
Rather than mission statements, we have core truths. Not some sanitized corporate speak, but raw, honest declarations of what we believe. Like “If it doesn’t make us want to jump out of bed to work on it? We don’t build it. Period.”
This might sound abstract, but it’s intensely practical. When I started using AI to help people develop their World Bibles with the AI World Architect, something fascinating happened. People didn’t just get clearer on their brand voice or content strategy. They got clearer on everything. Because once you understand the world you’re building, every decision becomes simpler.
- Should you launch that new product? Does it belong in your world?
- Should you write that social media post? Does it follow your world’s physics?
- Should you pursue that partnership? Do they live by your world’s core truths?
Your World Bible becomes a living, breathing filter for every business decision. And here’s the really wild part – it actually makes you more profitable, not less. Because when you build a world that perfectly expresses your weird obsessions, you attract people who share those obsessions. People who don’t just want to buy what you sell, but want to live in the world you’re building.
The AI part? That’s just rocket fuel.
Because AI can help you explore and expand your world in ways that would take years to discover on your own. It can help you find patterns in your thinking, uncover hidden aspects of your world, and create consistent content that pulls people deeper into your universe.
But the magic isn’t in the AI. The magic is in finally giving yourself permission to build the world you actually want to live in.
Making the Switch
So how do you actually make this switch from planning businesses to building worlds?
It starts with a simple but terrifying decision – giving yourself permission to build what you actually want to build, not what some business guru says you should build.
I remember the exact moment this clicked for me. When I was working with the AI I stopped giving it the “right” answers to things and I started to feed it stories.
My stories.
The ones that shaped me.
The story of why I burned down three successful businesses. The story of how getting diagnosed with ADHD at 42 helped me realize those “commitment issues” were actually my brain’s inability to stick with things that didn’t light it up. The story of how one innocent question from my kid at breakfast changed everything.
Suddenly the AI wasn’t just mimicking business speak – it was helping me uncover and expand the world I actually wanted to build. A world where we measure success in morning smiles instead of monthly revenue. Where we build profitable worlds from our joy, not beautiful prisons called businesses.
That’s when I realized the real power of world building isn’t in the document you create – it’s in the permission you give yourself to build something true to who you are.
Every time someone gets their AI World Architect and tells me about it, I see this same transformation happen. They come in thinking they need help with their brand voice or content strategy. But what they really need is permission to let their weird guide them.
There’s this moment – and I live for this moment – when they stop talking about market research and start talking about the world they want to build. Their eyes light up. Their energy shifts. They start speaking in their real voice instead of their “professional” voice.
That’s when I know they’ve made the switch from business planner to world builder.
But here’s what you need to understand about this transition. It’s not about throwing out all structure or ignoring practical realities. World builders still track metrics. We still care about profit. We still plan and strategize.
The difference is that all of these practical elements serve the world we’re building instead of constraining it. Revenue isn’t the goal – it’s the fuel that helps us expand our world. Content isn’t about SEO – it’s about pulling people deeper into our universe. Products aren’t just solutions to market needs – they’re portals into our world.
You want to know the wildest part? Once you make this switch, business actually becomes easier.
Because you’re no longer fighting against your own instincts. You’re not trying to force yourself to follow someone else’s blueprint. You’re building something that’s truly yours.
This essay started with me telling you I’ve burned every business plan I’ve ever written. And I have. But what rose from those ashes wasn’t chaos or lack of direction.
It was something far more powerful – a World Bible that gives me permission to build exactly what I want to build, exactly how I want to build it.
And that’s what I want for you. Not another beautiful prison built from someone else’s blueprint, but a world that’s uniquely, unabashedly, profitably yours.
The business plan is dead. And honestly? Good riddance.
Because what’s replacing it isn’t just another document – it’s a portal to a world you actually want to live in. Your world. One that makes you want to jump out of bed at 5 AM not because some guru told you to, but because you can’t wait to keep building it.
