-
Most Leaders Never Get to Practice
How strange it is that we expect business leaders to perform at extraordinarily high levels while structuring their lives in ways that would completely dismantle almost every other performance discipline we admire. If you watch elite athletes closely, or musicians at the highest level, most of what they do is not performance itself. Most of…
-
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…
-
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,…
-
The 7-step, “bulletproof” problem-solving process…with a twist
I came across Bulletproof Problem Solving by Charles Conn and Robert McLean… two men shaped by decades inside McKinsey & Company, strategy rooms, and high-stakes decision environments. Their work is built on what they describe as a seven-step, “bulletproof” problem-solving process… a method refined in consulting environments where rigor is non-negotiable and conclusions must hold…
-
Living your Best Life Now
We talk about living our best life now but ignore the now, and treat it as though it is a destination waiting somewhere ahead of us… after the right opportunity arrives, after the body changes, after the money settles, after the grief softens, after we finally become some shinier version of ourselves. But life does…
-
Ideas Aren’t Solutions If Diagnosis Didn’t Come First
There’s a costly habit that shows up in businesses that are otherwise filled with smart, capable people… the reflex to move from discomfort straight into ideas. The moment something feels off, the room fills with solutions. It looks like progress because there is movement. It sounds intelligent because the ideas are often good. But beneath…
-
Life Cannot Be Postponed While Realizing a Vision
Yesterday I wrote about daily evolution as the steady closing of the gap between what we know and how we live. About alignment not as an event, but as a practice that compounds quietly. Today the angle is different, because even disciplined evolution can become another form of postponement if we are not careful. There…
-
What Have You Got to Lose?
I got The Book of Alchemy for Christmas by Suleika Jaouad. It’s not a journal in the trendy, habit-stacking sense. It’s quieter than that. More deliberate…built around the idea of writing not as output, but as a way of staying in relationship with yourself when certainty thins out…when confidence feels unearned…when you’re standing at the…

