In August, my family and I are going to a dude ranch. It’s a place I’ve been to before, and I have fond memories of the times I spent there with my parents and my older kids. But it’s been 20 years since I went, and none of the people I’m going with this time…
“Don’t get too high with your highs, don’t get too low in your lows.” I have heard my clients, agency founders, describe leading their firm like they are riding a rollercoaster. One minute they were on cloud 9, they closed a big deal or had a client presentation dripping with insights, and their clients clearly…
Whenever I see someone’s calendar and it looks like a failing game of Tetris, it reminds me of that Anti-drug PSA from the ’80s. Because if I tried to manage that many meetings, changing topics and keeping track of everything, my brain would fry. One of the first assignments I work on with clients is…
When last I wrote we talked about the fact that if you wanted to see change, in your business or your life, you needed to change. (Then Memorial Day weekend happened and I missed a whole week of emailing!) I got quite a response to that email! Some thought it was a little harsh, some…
I spent over 15 years as a consultant. During that time clients would hire me to fix a “problem” that they had in their business. Their new business system was broken, their margins were terrible, they had too much turnover, etc. They had a problem, my job is to fix it. Most of the agency…
Remember that client I told you about on Tuesday? The one whose energy was low, who was discouraged and started thinking about looking for another job? After we took a different perspective and she started to see a clear way forward she easily laid out a plan to get the outcomes she’s been looking for….
On Tuesday, I told you a story about how a change in perspective helped a client to see their situation in a whole new way. That new perspective offered her a way forward that engaged her creativity and energized her toward action. Many readers resonated with that story and replied to me with stories about…
Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been talking about how clarifying your role frees you up to be bored on Friday at 4 PM! The whole point of this exercise is that we want to do our job and only our job so that on Saturday, we don’t need to be doing the billing,…
Once your priorities are clear, getting your calendar to align with those priorities is the next step to getting your work done. One way to start reshaping your calendar is to wipe the slate clean and create a template for an ideal week. By starting with a blank slate, you can schedule your most important…
Jerry Colonna coaches venture-backed CEOs, and he’s coached a boatload of them! He’s worked with the CEOs of Etsy, Foursquare, Intuit, and Soundcloud to name a few. But not just when they are big and famous; he works with many folks who are in their startup phase. On a recent podcast, he said of the…