“A man must shape himself to a new mark directly [once] the old one goes into the ground.” ~Ernest Shackleton I love the story of Ernest Shackleton. An Antarctic explorer who never made it to the South Pole. He returned from a failed quest only to see someone else make it to the pole 3…
So, we’ve been through some things the last year or so, right? I had a boss once who told us, “Never let a good crisis go to waste!” He knew that there are always opportunities in a crisis. We’ve been navigating a priceless crisis the last year or so! Do we have some room to…
A few weeks ago I wrote about how nothing changes on January 1, 2020, unless you make changes. If 2021 has been a terrific year for you, what do you need to do in order to build on that success? Do you need new systems, or new people (cloning isn’t a viable strategy)? If 2020…
At the end of each year, I spend some time reflecting on what I want to be different in the year ahead. One of the things I want to see more of in 2021 is that I want to have more fun at work. Rather than “grinding it out,” I want to infuse the work…
I know we’re all looking forward to turning the page on 2020. It’s been a year. But things don’t automatically improve just because we change the calendar, right? If you want 2021 to be different from 2020, you need to take different actions and make different decisions. It’s not automatic; you have to make it…
How do you review a year like 2020? In a normal year, November is when I pull out my goals for the year and see how we’ve done. Maybe there are one or two areas where I can buckle down the last 6 weeks of the year and make up the gap between my January…
Consider the role of French cooking. The techniques and recipes of the French chef have changed the way the world dines. Chefs from all corners of the world travel to France to learn from the masters there. Yes, French chefs know how to make outstanding meals, but they can’t do it without the freshest, most…
Yes, I love it when I can plan my budget for the year and then month-by-month tick off achievement after achievement. That feels great; it builds my confidence and makes me feel so smart! But I don’t learn much during those times. When everything is going great, I tend to get a little cocky and…
I sat down today to write about uncertainty, but I’m not making much progress. Why? Well, I’m not sure what to say . On the one hand, we’ve been living with a lot of uncertainty all year. Uncertainty about our health and the health of those we care about. Uncertainty about our businesses, what’s changing…
Let’s say we were sitting in your strategic planning meeting this time last year, and we were planning out your strategy for 2020. Now imagine that I stood up in that meeting and said, 2020 is going to be a unique year! There will be a global crisis so severe that the government is going…