As I was experiencing some grief recently, I reread this beautiful story and thought it worthy of sharing. May it also lead you to a softer place in your own life. “At 40, Franz Kafka (1883-1924), who never married and had no children, walked through the park in Berlin when he met a girl who was crying because she had lost her favorite doll. She…
Thinking I know better has gotten me in trouble. As we forge ahead in 2021, I find myself hearing consistent messages I’ve either resisted or thought I had a better answer for. The good news: the messages get louder and are offered with a frequency I can’t ignore. I refer to them as a 2 x 4 smacking me between the eyes.…
Shortcuts don’t work. If you’re looking for the easy way, the hack to the system, the cheaper, faster and less laborious way to a qualitatively superior result, stop now. Anything excellent, ANYthing, requires effort, tenacity, discipline, persistence and patience. I know that’s about as sexy as oatmeal, but it’s true. Quality doesn’t happen randomly or easily. It can be simple, and often is. It’s just not easy. If it was, everyone would be living…
It’s amazing to me how otherwise great leaders diminish their opportunities to build trust by withholding feedback until it’s too late to correct the behavior. Time and again, I’ll be working with a leadership team and one or more people will wait until the end of our full day meetings to offer constructive feedback that would have changed our day and our experiences for the better. As teams learn, grow,…
Convergence: it’s when things come together. Right now, with time to think becoming more available in my calendar and the team encouraging me and supporting the space, alignment is happening. It’s not something you can force, make happen or grasp until there is space for it to unify, converging into something greater and compelling you forward. As our future unfolds in my…
“When we make plans, God laughs.” I’m having one of those days. In my mind, it was an open day for me to catch up, make space, create, practice and deliver on multiple deadlines that are all crashing in at once. It was my chance, my day. This is where you cue the laugher. The day unraveled quickly, going nothing like the picture I had of all…
If you own a business, you’ve been running quite a race for the past year-ish. Are you taking care of yourself as a leader and in your life? Something that can help with perspective is to remember you’re actually running two businesses. Whether you’ve ever thought of it this way or not, you’re running the business you have now and you’re running your business in the…
We all know change is disruptive. It’s especially disruptive if we think it’s happening to us rather than when we believe we are part of the change. Whether it’s leaving a job, starting a new job, changing your business model, automating something that’s been manual, buying a new phone, technology, appliance, car or a pandemic, things are no longer as they were. How we…
Today I received an email that our dock and pontoon will be delivered in the next 2-3 weeks. I can’t tell you how happy that makes me. Our pontoon is where we relax, restore our energy, absorb Vitamin D and enjoy countless hours with family, friends and colleagues enjoying music, laughing and solving the world’s problems (which is a tall order right now). I…
When you see something, or the absence of something, do you say something? If not, why not? As I participate in leadership teams daily, I observe people. It’s a skill worth mastering. Whether you do so on a screen or in person, people are communicating so much – SO much – whether they speak or not. It could be their facial gestures,…