#21 – Simplify

This is #21 in the series, “50 Ideas Worth Fighting For.” You might like #10, also. Here’s a sentence I read recently: “As brands grow they can sustain a certain growth rate; forcing higher growth unnaturally simply consumes capital unnecessarily.” It’s a terrible sentence. It’s terrible because it’s complicated and excessive. It’s terrible because it

Between Friends

A text exchange between friends \\ 10:45 AM \\ December 18, 2019 \\\ Friend: Checking in on you today – you keep crossing my mind. Wondering how your spirits are, and the sense of “darkness”? \\\ Me: Lovely timing… \\\ Friend: Crazy how that works \\\ Me: The thing about advent is that its a

Feeling Words

I was reminded the other day of just how easily my default responses flow from my highly developed rational self (left brain) rather than from my more vulnerable, less practiced emotional self (right brain). I seek concrete explanations and action steps – my need to know how and why and to know it right now!

No Qualifiers

How about this? How about you stop explaining what you are about to ask or say or state? How about you just go ahead and say it? I’m projecting that onto you because it’s a huge development opportunity for me. And I’m already getting better. Because I decided to. And because I have a good

Do you still get nervous?

I’ve been performing or presenting in some form or fashion since I was 14 years old. In choirs, as a soloist, a trainer, facilitator, or speaker, I’ve been getting “on stage” for 35 years now. Once I while I’m asked, “Do you still get nervous?” My answer is always “Yes” and that answer is often

The Pretense of Self Sufficiency

I like to fix things. I’m pretty good at it. I’m not a qualified auto mechanic or electrician by any stretch, but if you need your new TV setup or your phone reconnected or your files moved to the cloud, I’m a good guy to ask. I like being good at fixing these small things

The Language of Aliveness

Are you living and leading with as much aliveness as possible? You might consider noticing your language to find out. Your instinctive verbal responses to challenging, complex or even novel circumstances say a lot about how alive and intentional you feel as opposed to how flat and stuck you feel. This is the difference between

More fun, please

It seems to me that the designer of this particular user interface had better options than this. Instead of “No one is invited” how about: “Who will you be meeting next?” or “Who’s on your invite list?” or “What are you waiting for? Make that call!” or “I can’t read your mind…who’s next?” or “Connection

One Minute

One minute is longer than you think. In class today, my colleague and I had our students give one minute presentations. We put a selection of topics in a bag, had them each blindly draw one out and after a few moments of reflection, speak about that subject for one minute. They talked about money,

When is it due?

Have you ever had “Just get it to me whenever you can” turn into “Why haven’t you finished that yet!?!”? Both the requestor and the producer are complicit in this failure of agreement. The former needs to provide a clear deadline, even if it’s a best guess, and the producer needs to request one before agreeing to