If you’ve led your agency for any length of time, you’ve experienced some ups and downs. For example, here’s an email I got from an agency owner this week: I thought the deal would catapult us into a new level of stability. I had verbal commitments and contracts out. In the meantime, we were working…
Contented: satisfaction with one’s possessions, status, or situation. Merriam-Webster Part of being grounded is knowing that I have what I need at this moment, and when challenges or opportunities arise, I can meet them with confidence. Another word for that is contentment. When I live from a place of contentment, it’s harder for people to…
So, I’ve never been very good at journaling. I was diligent with the 5-minute Journal process for a time, which was helpful. But I’ve had a hard time being consistent. And I know there are good reasons to keep a journal. I value reflection, and when I do it, journaling gives me perspective. It helps…
If you want to be influential and lead others, there is one thing you can do that will have an outsized impact on your leadership. Get a good night’s sleep. Before you sign up for an expensive leadership development program or read another book about leadership, pay attention to the basics. Things like sleep, nutrition,…
In human affairs, the distance between the leaders and the average is a constant. If leadership performance is high, the average will go up. The effective executive knows that it is easier to raise one leader’s performance than to raise the performance of a whole mass. ~ Peter Drucker in The Effective Executive Leaders I…
Founders of creative service firms and other agencies have built a platform that’s created leverage for them. They have a team. They’re leading an organization from a positional sense. However, the team doesn’t always do what they expect, and sometimes team members act in puzzling ways that contradict the direction they have set. To gain…
The quality of our lives is directly proportional to the quality of questions we ask ourselves on a consistent basis. If you ask better questions, you will have better focus and better results… ~ Rich Diviney Early in my career, I had a job where I traveled a lot. My office was in Chicago, our…
“I wanted to ask, ‘Why did you let this happen?’ but that was blasphemy. You never ask why. It was not a question for you to ask.” ~ Nnedi Okorafor, Binti As I have worked to grow my own leadership, one superpower is self-awareness. If I can see myself the way others see me and become more…
A few years ago, I read Being Mortal by Atul Gawande. It’s an excellent book about end-of-life issues and I highly recommend it, but the idea that most stuck with me is summarized in this quote: “We want autonomy for ourselves and safety for those we love. That remains the main problem and paradox for…
Did you know that Warren Buffett has created over 90% of his wealth since he turned 65? He became a millionaire in 1962 when he was 32 years old. He became a billionaire in 1990 when he was 60. Last year he reached $20 Billion in net worth (after giving away much of his Berkshire…