At the beginning of this year, I decided to stop complaining. I noticed that I tended to complain about things I didn’t feel I had the agency to do anything about. Whether it was the daily news, long-standing intractable habits of my family members, or business dilemmas that didn’t go how I wanted them to,…
“All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there.” — Charlie Munger Last week, I talked about who I was on my best days and how different that person was from me on my worst days. I want to be that best-day-Brad more often! So I looked again at…
I have my good days and my bad days. I’m sure you do, too. Both of those people are me. Both use my talents and abilities in the best way they can see to use them in that moment. One creates empowered, aligned leaders, and the other creates resentment, fear, and chaos. Having more “good…
Starting something is so exciting. Like the new office supplies on the first day of school, the joy of a new birth, or a wedding day. There’s nothing like the hope and anticipation of starting something new. Likewise, there’s a satisfaction in an ending. A completed project, graduation; even the end of a life enables…
Our CEO led an all-hands meeting of a company we had just acquired. In that meeting, he did two things. As the new leader of this team, I wasn’t sure how to follow his story! I obviously couldn’t strike a grave, “I’m the new sheriff in town” tone. Nor did I have a ready madcap…
I spent a weekend on a Boy Scout campout last month. (Yes, it was January in Chicago, and we were outside in tents from Friday night until Sunday morning. The temperature ranged from 13° F to 34° F – so it was cold but not life-threatening.) One of the things I love about the Boy…
Who I’m being is more important than what I’m doing. I can do all the right things. I can make budgets and forecasts and track my pipeline and closing ratios, but that might not create more certainty in my finances. I can map out my customer touchpoints, develop relevant case studies, and create compelling content, but still not…
I keep finding that the world isn’t as I want it to be. Do you have that experience? Sometimes, that discovery results in frustration. For example, a team member blows off a deadline because they “weren’t feeling it.” Other times, it results in rage. When I’m in the 3rd hour of my conversation with my…
I was thinking the other day about my 4th-grade teacher. I was a precocious youngster, and she found a way to pull some of us aside and give us extra challenges. Sometimes, we helped our classmates; other times, she encouraged us to go deeper into a subject we enjoyed. She noticed me and found a…
I scheduled too many things today. Mondays are for thinking and writing, and I knew I had a lot to think about and at least one thing to write about. But two calls had slipped into my schedule. No, that’s not true. I said “Yes” to two calls today. That would have been OK, but…