The Empty Chair at Your Table

Every morning, somewhere in Manhattan, a $40/hour conference room sits vacant. The projector hums, waiting for slides that won't appear. Down the street, a gym's elliptical machines gather dust between 2 and 4 PM.

We're surrounded by empty seats.

The restaurant table for four occupied by a solo diner. The car built for five carrying just its driver. The half-empty hard drive you're paying to maintain. The knowledge trapped in your head that could transform someone else's project.

These voids represent an invisible tax on our prosperity. But they're not just costs – they're opportunities in disguise.

The smartest businesses saw this. JetBlue started selling unused legroom as "Even More Space." Airbnb turned spare bedrooms into income streams. The sharing economy isn't about sharing – it's about filling empty seats.

But what about the empty seats in your life?

That unused hour between meetings. The extra bandwidth in your newsletter. The dormant connections in your network. The capacity to mentor someone for 30 minutes a week.

The real waste isn't in leaving these seats empty. It's in failing to recognize they exist at all.

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The Last Blacksmith in Town