When I first got married, my wife and I shared one car, and since we worked in the same general direction, we rode to and from the office together every day. It wasn’t long before we noticed a pattern: we frequently found ourselves in a conflict, either during the drive home or right after we…
If you’re reading this, you’re someone who is striving to excel, push yourself, learn, grow, and get better every single day. As I’ve been on this same journey, I always come back to a core question: What’s driving that deep desire to improve? Dr. Michael Gervais, a sports psychologist and host of the Finding Mastery podcast, asks…
If you’ve been reading for a while, you know I’m constantly beating the drum for you, as a leader, to do less. When I look at your to-do lists, I see more things to do than hours available to do them. How do we, as leaders, consistently identify the one or two things that deserve…
The legendary sprinter, Carl Lewis was known for his slow starts. He’d come out of the blocks, and in the first few steps, he might fall back to 4th or 5th place. Yet, by the end of the race, he was breaking the tape. How did he do it? Reviewing the film of hundreds of…
Have you had that feeling of knowing, deep down, that something just isn’t working? Recently, I had an unproductive conversation with one of my children where I kept using the same approach, expecting a different result. Or I think about a client who told me his morning routine of rushing straight to the inbox was…
I was talking to a founder about her biggest headache: a recurring bottleneck in her sales pipeline. Every quarter, the same issue would surface. She’d review the deals, spot the friction, step in, and fix it. She’s the hero in the moment, but the cycle keeps repeating. She told me, “I know the answer is…
I was in a meeting recently with a nonprofit I’m committed to, talking through a challenging problem with people I care deeply about. I offered a suggestion, and the comment that came back felt like a physical blow. It wasn’t an attack, at least not an obvious one, but in that instant, I felt completely…
I was sitting in on a client’s team meeting the other day, and something interesting happened. It was a very efficient group, laser-focused on getting through the agenda so they could “do” things. The conversation moved fast as they reviewed the key initiatives for the quarter, when, with 5 minutes left in the hour, someone…
My client was in the midst of an unprecedented storm of projects and responsibilities. She felt overwhelmed by everything and was convinced that the only way to find peace was by mastering all this work with sheer force and effort. As I listened, I couldn’t help but hear the ghost of a younger version of…
Last night, discovered an interview with Mandy Patinkin on YouTube. The interviewer posed a question that honestly stopped me in my tracks: “What do you know now that you wish you’d known then?” His answer resonated so powerfully with me, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. Here’s a version of what he said…