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Drop the dead weight; unburden your business
Joel Osteen speaks about baggage in the context of past hurts, offenses, regrets, the quiet accumulation of things that sit in the background and shape how you show up. He encourages his congregation to travel light. This does not mean dismissing or acknowledging that bad stuff happened , but becoming aware that carrying it forward…
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The bread of affliction and what this phase means in business
In its original context, the “bread of affliction” refers to matzah, eaten during Passover, tied to a moment of urgency where there was no time for the dough to rise, no room for refinement, no opportunity to turn something basic into something more complete. What was made had to be eaten as it was, flat,…
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Are you incarcerated by thresholds?
My day was full. I did a fair amount regarding a home project I’m working on, had some things to sort out with my car and I handled a few things that had been sitting for longer than they should have. Once home, I glanced at the clock and felt the day close in on…
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Not everything that looks like proof…is proof
I’ve been listening to MJ DeMarco’s The Millionaire Fastlane on repeat. He separates what can be made to look like wealth from what actually functions as wealth, and that distinction is less about appearance and more about whether something can sustain itself without constant effort to keep it looking the way it does. That idea…
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Verbal processing without structural change = stagnation
There are conversations that feel productive while they’re happening. Everyone is engaged and able to say something about what is being discussed. You leave those conversations with a sense that the work has started. You are clear on what needs to be done and you are pumped that the plan in place will work. But…
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Sense-making doesn’t begin with answers
Sense-making doesn’t begin with answers. It begins with the quiet, almost invisible machinery that turns raw events into something interpretable, something that feels solid enough to act on. By the time most decisions are made, that machinery has already done its work. What looks like a response to reality is often a response to interpretation…
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Always Overestimate the Time it Takes to Complete a Task or Project
Chin-Ning Chu is one of my favorite authors. I first heard about her, when Dan Kennedy recommended Thick Face Black Heart as an essential read in cultivating the right mindset. The book fuses the wisdom of the East and West, and explores how ancient Asian battle strategies and cultural mindsets can be applied today to…
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Is worst-case consequence analysis actually useful in business?
The easy answer is yes, and that’s usually where most explanations stop, somewhere around resilience and preparedness and better decision-making, all of which are true in a general sense. However it’s not particularly helpful when you look at how decisions are actually being made in real time… under pressure, with incomplete information and a room…
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Why adopting a particular leadership style can be detrimental in more ways than one
While scrolling LinkedIn, I came across an illustration that immediately caught my attention. It showed two types of leaders. One was the mechanic. The other, the gardener. The mechanic sees the organization as an engine. Something that can be understood through parts, diagnosed through logic, and repaired through intervention. When something goes wrong, the instinct…
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Good Business Practice: Trust… but Verify
“First off, don’t let the force of the impression carry you away. Say to it, ‘hold up a bit and let me see who you are and where you are from—let me put you to the test’ . . .” —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 2.18.24 Epictetus is pointing to a moment we often miss… the split second where something happens,…
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 