How to Find the Right Words
I tell my fifth-grade daughter all the time: “Use words!” She’ll ask me to pass her “you know, that thing” or she’ll tell me about “stuff” that happened at school. But those words don’t do much to help me understand what she’s talking about. When she forces herself to slooooow down and actually find the […]
What Matters Most
It happens every year. A project leaves me completely, totally, helplessly stuck. This time around, the word I’d use was worse than stuck: I was stymied. This is not a good feeling, since my job is to help people get unstuck. If I’m slogging through thick mud myself, I can’t exactly pull someone else out of it. […]
What’s Good?
For the past year, I’ve been meeting regularly with a little group of like-minded business owners. We call ourselves The Greater Good, and our shared conviction is simple: We believe that business can be a force for the greater good. We started the group as a direct reaction to Trump’s reelection. Specifically, I saw business […]
Our Shared Context
A friend asked recently: How do we acknowledge that these are really tough times…and at the same time keep living our lives (and promoting our businesses)? In other words: How do we keep sharing our thoughts and updates and Great News! even when the world feels heavy and the headlines get bleaker every day? How does one […]
On My Radar: How We’re Using Technology (and How It’s Changing)
This week, I’m reflecting on two articles that made me pause and consider how we’re using technology. What does it mean when we all want to get off social media? What happens when we order every sandwich over an app, and never interact with the person making it? Should AI really write our emails? Would we miss […]
How to Package Your Ideas Like a Gift
“I have so many ideas! But no one else seems to ‘get’ them.” Does this sound familiar? I hear from a lot of people who have BIG ideas, but they haven’t packaged them in a way that someone else can understand them. YOU know you have good ideas. But often, the hard part is communicating those […]
Tell Me the Whole Story
Question for you! Which is more interesting? Here’s version A: Great business is about disciplined people, thought, and action, leading to sustainable, compounding results. Hmm…Okay, sure. And what about version B? Great CEOs are not flashy visionaries. They are quiet, self-effacing, but fiercely determined. Think of Darwin Smith of Kimberly-Clark—he didn’t court attention but made […]
A Mantra for Patience in a Busy World: ‘It’ll Come to Me’
This summer, I’ve been returning to my mantra for patience: “It’ll come to me.” I’ve been reflecting on how slowing down often encourages the best ideas to bubble to the top. When you hit pause, take a beat, sleep on an idea, stop grinding so hard, and prioritize slow reflection over progress, ideas seem to just…arrive. […]
Prove It: Why Experts Are Nervous About Oversimplifying Their Work
A couple of weeks ago, I led a workshop on “strategic storytelling.” I was with a group of very smart people whose job is to go deep on complicated problems. They’re used to building PowerPoint decks full of complex diagrams. Analyzing mountains of data. Getting the whole story and telling the whole story. So I […]
A Summer Challenge: Get in the Way of New Ideas
How do you stay sharp? Last week, my kids ended the school year and brought home packets of math problems and reading prompts to “prevent the summer slide” and stay sharp, lest they devolve into puddles of popsicles and Bluey episodes. As adults, though, we have the opposite problem. Kids default to all fun and no work…but […]