I recently began working with a founder who’s built a 100 million dollar company from scratch.No outside money. No shortcuts. Almost a decade of grit, intuition, and operational excellence.He leads from experience and straight talk. His people trust him.Yet he’s been wrestling with something most executives would never admit out loud.He feels strong with his
If you’re a Founder/CEO or senior exec at a growth-stage company, you’ve probably felt this tension. You know your business can’t grow unless your senior team grows. But you’re busy, you’re not a trainer, and part of you wonders if you’re even qualified to coach a C-suite peer.It’s pretty common. Lots
I was talking with a client recently—a newly promoted senior executive who’d just inherited 20 direct reports and a double digit million dollar budget challenge. “I’m trying to get the signal through the noise – there’s so much inbound right now coming from both directions.” Sound familiar?Most of us have been there. The
You may think that head-of-the-table communication is primarily about being polished, eloquent, and having all the answers when you speak in high-level meetings.But really, executive communication is less about performance and perfect delivery and more about creating clarity and impact through connection, authentic presence, and engagement.If you focus on a few key principles like decision-first communication, confident uncertainty, and reading
I’m not a career coach but I have been fortunate to support c-level executives in doing this kind of work and then either reinventing themselves in their current roles, landing new incredible “first and second mountain” jobs, or avoiding what would have been some very unfortunate choices. Recently, a couple of clients and I
I was catching up with a client of mine – COO at a hot growth-stage company. He was telling me about his crazy-busy life and the headaches that come with his digital workplace. Sound familiar? With several big companies suddenly calling everyone back to the office, he’s feeling pretty torn about what to do next.
I love using strategically placed sticky notes to help me keep useful concepts top of mind. One of my favorite acronyms is “W.A.I.T.” or “Why Am I Talking?” Whether it’s in conversation with my clients, my wife, or my kids, this mantra reminds me to take a humble moment to check in with myself to
An executive joins Company A where he’s excited to leverage his experience to make a huge impact at an important inflection point in the company’s trajectory and his own career. Meanwhile, the CEO at Company B seeks to up level her team by hiring an executive with perfect experience relative to the current and future
The practice of daily rituals has been coming up a lot lately. My clients are either looking to implement them or, at a minimum, recognizing that something’s missing from their routines. Between all the productivity, longevity and beauty experts on social media, there are so many things I’m being told will lead to transformation of one
For obvious reasons, back when I was in the restaurant business, the proverb “the fish stinks from the head” was an effective leadership development metaphor chefs could relate to. Seems it’s likely to have come from the 1st century Greek philosopher Plutarch who wrote “the responsibility belongs to the rulers, and the fault is
