"What pulls the rope in most workplaces is the elevation and promotion of self (ego), not the elevation of others, purpose, heart, and mind (soul). It's no wonder that people feel so alone in most workplaces today. Interconnectedness gets lost when you have a team or company of people who are making decisions based on their ego's needs: What would be best for their own personal goals, not their co-workers' goals; what would be best for their personal image, not their team's." - Mike Metcalf &...
Oct 27, 2024•6 min
No. 1 In the midst of chaos, your mind cannot be chaotic. - General Jim Mattis, “Call Sign Chaos” In chaos or crisis, emotion is unhelpful and clouds judgment. Think about a 911 operator answering a frantic call. The operator is ALWAYS cool and collected while the caller panics. The operator tries to understand the situation (facts) and deploy appropriate resources. Part of their job is to calm the caller down, and they do this by staying calm. This is central to understanding reality. Leadershi...
Oct 20, 2024•3 min
No. 1 The will to victory may be demonstrated in places other than actual battle. A Roman general was leading his legions toward the enemy in a swampy country. He knew that the next day’s battle would be fought on a certain plain because it was the only dry, flat place for miles. He pushed his army all night, marching them through a frightening and formidable swamp, so that they reached the battle site before the foe and could claim the high ground. In the aftermath of victory, the general calle...
Oct 13, 2024•3 min
Here are two quotes from The CEO Test by Adam Bryant and Kevin Sharer. The book's content is simple, practical, and actionable for most leaders. Quote No. 1 “A helpful acronym for leaders to keep in mind is WAIT, which stands for, "Why Am I Talking?" because anything a leader says can quickly overwhelm a discussion and make people shut down. Asking yourself, “Why am I talking?” helps determine whether it’s more valuable to listen or contribute at that moment. Sometimes, listening is contributing...
Oct 06, 2024•5 min
A dear friend recommended the book Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. It took me a year to read it, which was a waste of a year. This week I scrolled through my highlights and I feel compelled to share a few with you. You don’t have to see where you’re going, you don’t have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice about writing, or life, I have ever heard. A sober friend once said...
Sep 29, 2024•4 min
I’ve been thinking about and talking about this topic a lot recently, and I found myself revisiting this post, so I’m resurfacing it for you today. I originally published this in July 2022. Note: This post is made for listening, but I’ve included the transcript if you’d rather read. TRANSCRIPT [00:00:00] Hey there. I wanted to follow up on my other note about one of two things leaders are responsible for. The second one is compensation. And there's a whole lot to unpack there, so let's try to do...
Sep 22, 2024•11 min
The most powerful force that could be potentially harnessed is dogged incremental constant progress over a very long time frame. -Peter Kaufman I can’t be the only one who lets out a little sigh when the elevator stops on the way down. It’s too early, and this box feels too small. Can I just get to the bottom of the building and out to my daily caffeine spot with as little human interaction as possible, please? Usually, but not always, the newcomer gets a small smile from me, and maybe even a "g...
Sep 15, 2024•6 min
"…tranquility…comes when you stop caring what they say, think, or do. Only what you do." - Marcus Aurelius There is some change happening in my life. A new job, a kid left for college, and a few other things that add complexity and a touch of anxiety. Most of this change is good, some of it not. All of it is part of life. Wrestling with a few thoughts and some internal disturbance, I went back to re-read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Often, it's not the books you read that make a difference in...
Sep 08, 2024•3 min
I believe the most effective type of team is a “Human Team.” These teams accept their members for their individual strengths and struggles. They want the entire human to show up, not just the tip of the iceberg. These teams are about helping each other, and the collective "us," find our potential. If you are on one of these teams, you feel it. It’s different, and you show up and do the best work of your life because you don’t want to let your teammates down. Recently, I read a passage in the boo...
Sep 01, 2024•3 min
Two Quotes “One of the things we try to do at Amazon is minimize the amount of energy that’s wasted on maintaining power and control and ego, as opposed to what really matters, which is helping our customers.” - Jeff Bezos "To be everywhere is to be nowhere." – Seneca A Lesson Learned This past week, I learned about Amazon’s single-threaded leader model. I'll explain that in a minute, but first, an admission. I once thought I could do it all, whether for ego reasons or to prove my self-worth. Wh...
Aug 25, 2024•5 min
Are you on a team or just a group working in parallel? The word "team" dates back to the 8th century and originally referred to a group of animals harnessed together to pull a cart or plow. By the 15th century, it had evolved to its modern meaning—a group of people working together, particularly in competitive contexts like sports or battles. Today, "team" means collaboration, mutual support, shared objectives, and winning. A couple of yaks harnessed together to pull a cart are just two yaks pul...
Aug 18, 2024•14 min
Clarity is arguably a leader's first job. Why are we here? What are we doing? How do we work? MISSION = WHY This is why we exist—the mission. It’s the guiding principle that serves as the foundation for all work. When you talk about it, you should feel your energy rise. When it gets hard, this is what gets you to the other side of the hard. The mission should be clear and have deep meaning to everyone. STRATEGY = WHAT This is the plan of action to achieve the mission. This is where analytical th...
Aug 11, 2024•5 min
Some people give space, others take it. Givers let you talk. Takers do the talking. Givers give credit and take the blame. Takers take credit and give blame. Givers seek answers. Takers are the ones with all the answers. Givers focus on improving. Takers are busy proving. We don’t ever exclusively play the role of space taker or space giver. Our role should change depending on the situation. Sometimes, you need to be a space taker. Sometimes, a space giver. The question to ask yourself constantl...
Aug 04, 2024•1 min
I’m working on something that I call a MAP: Me, a Page. The idea is to give someone my instruction manual. I have quirks, beliefs, pet peeves, and ways of working. Why keep them a secret and make them learn it the hard way? They likely aren’t permanent or perfect, but they are me at this moment. In the process of doing that, I thought I’d write down my values. That seemed simple enough, but it’s not. Sitting next to Princess Buttercup, I took out a notebook and wrote down a few words. One of the...
Jul 28, 2024•6 min
A few years ago, I was part of a technology transformation at a company. Transformation is really just a big word for fixing everything that's broken. A friend who was leading the project looked at me and said, "Listen, you can have it fast, good, or cheap, but you can't have all three. You get to pick two." That applies not only to technology but probably a lot of things in life. Lessons From Changing Tires I just finished a book by a couple of former athletes who now coach NASCAR pit crews. Li...
Jul 21, 2024•5 min
We are compensated in three ways: * Economical: We get paid. * Educational: We learn and grow. * Emotional: We love the work and/or the people we work with—ideally, both. When we have at least two of these, we feel good. When we have all three, we are fully engaged. At different points in our lives, each of these has varying levels of importance. Each can, depending on the moment and for different reasons, lead to discretionary effort. For most people, the emotional aspect tends to matter the mo...
Jul 14, 2024•5 min
“Escape competition through authenticity. When you’re competing with people, it’s because you’re copying them. It’s because you’re trying to do the same thing. But every human is different. Don’t copy.” (Naval Ravikant) I don’t like the word authenticity. Maybe it’s too big, or too many books have been written about it. It’s probably because too many management consultants who couldn’t manage a lemonade stand talk about it. It’s easy to say “be authentic,“ but it’s hard to execute. Given my aver...
Jul 07, 2024•3 min
"Your whole life is a kind of apprenticeship to which you apply your learning skills. Everything that happens to you is a form of instruction if you pay attention." (Robert Greene, Mastery) A friend sent me photos from her trip to Yellowstone—an extraordinary place. When I visited, I couldn't help but imagine how it was centuries ago: simple, wild, and a bit scary. The idea of roaming freely is romantic, but it is also dangerous. That's why we stopped. We found a better way to survive by buildin...
Jun 30, 2024•4 min
We spend so much time wishing our lives were different, comparing ourselves to other people and to other versions of ourselves, when really most lives contain degrees of good and degrees of bad. - Matt Haig, The Midnight Library I’ve been thinking a lot about responding, not reacting. Making space between provocation, judgment, and action provides time to explore reality—an opportunity to find the truth about the situation, yourself, and what you can control. When possible, delay. If delaying yo...
Jun 23, 2024•2 min
"A true student is like a sponge. Absorbing what goes on around him, filtering it, latching on to what he can hold. A student is self-critical and self-motivated, always trying to improve his understanding so that he can move on to the next topic, the next challenge. A real student is also his own teacher and his own critic. There is no room for ego there." (Ryan Holiday, Ego Is the Enemy) Through trial and error, I learned my skills and knowledge as a parent on the job (I'm still trying). I mad...
Jun 16, 2024•2 min
He is a dear friend, a long-time mentor, and one of the most remarkable people I know. He left his job as CEO to build a hotel run by folks with special needs. He's pretty special. For decades, he's drilled into me the qualities required to be a good leader. Here they are: * Humility & empathy. * Self-awareness & self-control. I've always agreed. They make sense, but I never dug in. Then, I sat with another leader for a few hours talking about leadership, and they started to crystallize....
Jun 09, 2024•5 min
"The best way for me to spend any given day is to essentially figure out how to make my team a tiny bit better. Because there's really only two kinds of days-ones when your team gets better and ones when your team gets worse. And if you just spend time getting better, then over a prolonged period of time you become essentially unbeatable." -Adam Bryant and Kevin Sharer, The CEO Test Missions hold a special place in my heart. They aren’t a few words on the pretty wall at headquarters. Missions ar...
Jun 02, 2024•7 min
"Workaholics aren’t heroes. They don’t save the day, they just use it up. The real hero is already home because she figured out a faster way to get things done." -Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, Rework Video calls have become a significant part of my life. Probably yours, too. People are quick to admonish them. I’m not in that crowd. They are helpful and add a level of productivity that we never had before. For me, there is no replacement for the energy you feel when sitting with someo...
May 26, 2024•2 min
Leadership is disappointing people at a rate they can absorb. Leadership is ultimately about driving change, while management is about creating stability. Stability is important in a work environment, but confronting challenges and realizing new ideas require discomfort. This means that you and your teams must abandon the stable and familiar in favor of an uncertain—but exciting—new direction. -Excerpt from Scaling People by Claire Johnson - Former COO of Stripe There is a difference between the...
May 19, 2024•4 min
"I made up my mind long ago to follow one cardinal rule in all my writing — to be clear. I have given up all thought of writing poetically or symbolically or experimentally, or in any of the other modes that might (if I were good enough) get me a Pulitzer prize. I would write merely clearly and in this way establish a warm relationship between myself and my readers, and the professional critics — Well, they can do whatever they wish." — Isaac Asimov Inspired by this, I asked a friend what cardin...
May 12, 2024•5 min
"In complete solitude, I stop objectifying myself. In the bush, I don’t think of myself on some social hierarchy. I don’t define my value as a comparison with others. The birds and animals don’t judge me. It’s a kind of healing in which I become human again. In complete solitude, we are not a concept of ourselves; we are ourselves." (Boyd Varty, The Lion Tracker's Guide to Life) Hi friend, What would life be like if you weren’t afraid of people’s opinions? What if you didn’t care if anyone liked...
May 05, 2024•3 min
Don’t waste the rest of your time here worrying about other people—unless it affects the common good. It will keep you from doing anything useful. You’ll be too preoccupied with what so-and-so is doing, and why, and what they’re saying, and what they’re thinking, and what they’re up to, and all the other things that throw you off and keep you from focusing on your own mind. Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote that to himself more than 2,000 years ago. He goes on a few lines later: “You need to g...
Apr 28, 2024•2 min
"The more urgently you want to speak, the more likely it is that you will say something foolish." -Leo Tolstoy and Peter Sekirin, A Calendar of Wisdom We’re a few months away from one of the boys leaving the house. He’ll go away to school, and he won’t come back. At least not the way it’s been for the last 18 years. He has all of the choices in the world to make - A whole life ahead that likely won’t be what he thinks. I hope the pressures from his parents, friends, and society don’t prevent him...
Apr 21, 2024•4 min
“If you keep experiencing the same things, your mind keeps its same patterns. Same inputs, same responses. Your brain, which was once curious and growing, gets fixed into deep habits. Your values and opinions harden and resist change. You really learn only when you’re surprised. If you’re not surprised, then everything fits into your existing thought patterns. So, to get smarter, you need to get surprised, think in new ways, and deeply understand different perspectives.” -Derek Sivers Derek Sive...
Apr 14, 2024•7 min
"The intensity of our striving for power is inversely proportional to the degree to which we can be educated." -Alfred Adler, Understanding Human Nature Organizational charts are typically represented as pyramids, and for good reason. There is one person who is ultimately responsible, and clarity of decision-making and authority is essential. That said, Organizational charts should be inverted pyramids. Leaders are on the bottom, and their job is to support their humans ‘above them.’ Leaders mus...
Mar 31, 2024•3 min
