-
Everyone’s Hard Thing, is their Hard Thing
Note: This post references character backstories and early plot elements from the ITV series Coldwater. While it doesn’t give away the show’s central mystery or ending, consider it a mild spoiler alert if you prefer to watch with no context at all. I heard the phrase on an episode of Coldwater, a British psychological thriller…
-
How to Reclaim your Muchness
You used to be much muchier. You’ve lost your muchness. I came across this quote recently where the person posting said that every time she feels the need to apologize for being too much, she remembers that this is what the Mad Hatter told Alice. I naturally assumed it belonged to Lewis Carroll’s 19th-century Alice’s…
-
How Quickly Can You Dismantle Democracy Within an Organization?
Timothy Ryback’s The Atlantic piece, How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy in 53 Days, is a case study in speed and strategy. In less than two months, Germany’s democratic Weimar Republic—complete with constitution, free press, and elections—was hollowed out and replaced with a dictatorship. This isn’t about comparing leaders to Hitler. It’s about recognizing how systems…
-
When Words Start Wars
Orem, Utah, September 10, 2025: Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old founder of Turning Point USA, was midway through a “Prove Me Wrong” campus debate when a single rifle shot ended his life. The scene—open-air forum, microphones humming, thousands of students—could hardly have been more emblematic of his chosen medium. Only weeks earlier he’d said, “When people…
-
Scarcity isn’t about Economics
I’ve always had some kind of morning ritual, from as far back as I can remember. My current ritual is reading a chapter of Proverbs, reading a Daily Stoic entry, and reading an thinking on a card from a deck by Esther and Jerry Hicks about money. The card I’m pondering today says that the…
-
The Consulting Crash We Were Warned About
In 2005, Martin Kihn cracked open a world that, until then, largely operated behind frosted-glass conference rooms and perfectly bound slide decks.His memoir, House of Lies: How Management Consultants Steal Your Watch and Then Tell You the Time, was part confession, part dark comedy, and part industry autopsy. Kihn wrote from the inside. As a…
-
Building from Brilliance
Some communities have developed recognizable economic signatures. Jewish merchants, shaped by centuries of restrictions on land ownership, mastered literacy and finance, creating networks of trade and professional services. Indian diaspora families, carrying memories of colonial merchant roles and extended kin systems, now own large shares of global hotel and corner-shop markets. Ethnic Chinese networks, long…
-
When your Gift Becomes a Cage
Scott Clary, in his Saturday Strategy Sessions newsletter, asked a powerful question: What if the thing you’re best at is the thing that’s killing you? He used the example of Josh Waitzkin — chess prodigy, national champion, International Master, and the inspiration for Searching for Bobby Fischer. By all external measures, Josh was destined for…
-
The Hidden Tax of Influence and the Real Cost of Outsourcing Transformation
In a recent New York Times Magazine interview, [you can listen to the interview here], Brené Brown named something rare that and also costly. She described the “care tax”—the hidden toll of being treated as a national therapist, expected not only to share ideas but to absorb people’s deepest stories of pain and trauma. After…
-
We Are Not Helpless: Sawubona and Strategic Alignment
We are not helpless. Change can still happen, but it requires responsibility-collective responsibility. – FARHIA NOOR Every so often I come across someone saying something as if they were speaking directly to me. Recently, it was a post by Farhia Noor. Rooted in her African heritage, she invoked Sawubona — “I see you, I honor…
Clarity BEFORE Execution. Structure BEFORE Speed
If you could better understand one thing about your business right now….
Most costly decisions begin with
an inaccurate understanding of the situation.
I help leaders understand what is actually happening before major decisions are made or
resources are invested in solving the wrong problem.
Giselle Hudson | Pre-Decision Diagnostic Advisor | Sensemaking for high-stakes business decisions 