While Promoting Nothing but Fear  The dream of previous generations was to find a good job, settle in, work hard, get promoted and retire. People were happy to be in one place, and for many of them, one place provided them everything they needed. The world has change. Business has changed. People have changed. I recently read the book Jump by Kim Perell. It's not exactly a business book, definitely geared towards taking big leaps - more framed for life in general. The core ideas are great. Nothing dramatically different than a lot of what you will find in other books in the self-help genre, however the presentation is on point and well structured. Kim sets up the three main buckets for why people need to take big leaps (or jumps) in their life. You have no choice (i.e. something has happened to you) You see an opportunity You're feeling stuck The book did connect for me on a personal level, however I found a lot of parallels for my professional life as well. I've spent the

Why Opening Up Helps You and Your Team Soar Vulnerability is a great leader’s superpower. It ties together elements of risk, uncertainty and emotional exposure — personally I lean more towards the idea of just exposure, and the requirement of being open. Why is vulnerability so important for a leader? Being vulnerable allows you to make real and solid connections with the people around you. Success comes when people WANT to work with you, that they choose to be part of what you are doing. If you want someone to lower their guard and take their armour off, you have to take yours off first. You cannot expect someone from your team to come to you with a problem, with something they are struggling with and lay it all out on the table for to “manage” them and have a one way conversation. This doesn’t work. It’s not effective. And what ends up happening is that you don’t make the right connection and will most likely not actually get to the root of the problem — let alone really solving it.

 Is It Really Always Best to “Be Yourself”? You’ve been in this room before. Maybe hundreds of times. It’s used whenever a presentation is being made. It’s a simple room. Exactly what you would expect of a basic conference room. A long rectangular shape with walls painted a neutral colour. The decor is is nothing special. Awards, posters and memorabilia from the organization’s history. It’s supposed to make you feel like your part of the team. And it does. Until you don’t agree with what’s being said. Now you feel like a a big red dot on a bright white canvas. Just be yourself is some of the most popular advice people will give you these days. Everyone is encouraging you to be authentic and bring you whole self to work. Depending on who you are speaking with or what you happen to be reading, there is more that can be added in. They’ll tell you that being authentic doesn’t mean that you always have to be exactly the same. That there is a time and a place for different versions of yourse

  The Best Decision Isn’t Always as Obvious as It Seems Your success at work is correlated to the quality of your relationships. Easy right? It’s common sense. You might even be wondering who doesn’t already know this. The challenge isn’t about attitude though. You’re right, nobody likes the as%ho^e — Don’t be that person. The challenge comes when you have to choose between being right or making the right choice. The Problem My team and I had been working on a large project that had been pushed back multiple times over the years. The market finally got to a point where the problem in the field had to be addressed. We dusted off our files and started looking at the information we had built 3 years prior. We made our plans for what needed to be refreshed and how we would go about it. We cut through the project quickly. The team had matured a lot in that time and those roadblocks from the past were mere pebbles on the road this time around. Cue the problem. The fundamental assumptions of

 Use This Activity To Develop The Most Crucial Habits for Lifelong Success It’s a cool October night. One of those nights where the sun starts going down, coaxing people back into their houses. The type of night that is actually perfect when you are going to exercise and sweat. Moving through the subdivision is easy enough. You can chart a rectangular course to meet the distance requirement you have. In my case, I’m able to do one big loop to get in 5k of activity. Little did I know that the distance was going to be the easiest part of the night. Most people outside of the military have never heard of rucking. It seems absurd when someone explains it to you. Rucking, is a low-intensity exercise in which you add weight to your back while walking or hiking. But what makes this the best exercise you have never heard of? It creates a unique set of conditions and variables to play with. It challenges you mentally as well as physically. The Physical This part is easy to understand. It’s exer

 Promoting Value is Exactly Why No One Is Listening We live in a world of innovation. Every day something new is created. So why is it then that so many great ideas die? Sell the features. Sell the benefits. Sell the value. The right way to sell is to show how good your service, product or idea is. Wrong. Those things are necessary, but they are not what is essential for new ideas or innovation to catch on. Changing The Frame I have spent the majority of my career making things better. Continuous improvement, network design, process re-engineering — it has many different labels. It’s all the same. Make changes to what is being done to generate better results. The single biggest key to my success in implementing new ideas? Lower the barrier for entry. We like to believe we are organic computers. Rational to the end. That given the right information and the correct inputs, people will produce the best output. To get someone to actually change, give up on that idea immediately. In the wor

[ONE] I’m Left Handed There aren’t that many of us, 10–12% of the global population. It’s one of those things that people typically don’t notice and then when they do they are surprised. What surprises me most of all is how often though that people I connect with are left handed. Maybe we gravitate to one another! [TWO] I Used to Shy Away From Leadership Leadership is a huge part of my life. I have been leading teams in my professional life for the last 12+ years. Considering the passion I have for it, this makes me laugh. I distinctly remember talking to an old boss one day where he was struggling with my attitude and sharing why it needed to change — because I was a leader. I couldn’t deny it fast enough. [THREE] I Love Learning This sounds strange. I think a lot of people feel that they like to learn new things. Ask yourself however when was the last time you learned something just for the sake of knowing. This is a big change for me. I was never a straight A student and my parents

 The Lost Art That Changed The World   People hear the word philosopher and this is what jumps to mind. Icons of the past that changed the world thousands of years ago. Brilliant thinkers that changed how everything was understood. Ideas that changed the course of history. This isn’t you. So you aren’t a philosopher. That statement is wrong. Completely wrong. Philosophy isn’t about a few brilliant thinkers. Philosophy is something that we can all do. Most of us DO do it when we aren’t drowning in the busyness we have built our lives around.     Philosophy is our ability to wonder. About life and everything in it The goal isn’t to come up with answers. The real intent is this: It’s about the process of trying to find answers versus accepting without questioning. The most important ideas in your life will come from your own individual reasoning. They will not come from what has been forced upon you by society.     The beginning of thought is in disagreement — not only with others, but wi

 Building Habits In One Area of Your Life to Improve Others     Everyone knows that exercise is good for you. We are meant to move. The lifestyles that many of us lead today keep us glued to our chairs, in front of screens. I’m not sharing benefits for your body. This quick hit will share 6 qualities that will improve ALL areas of your life. The experiences we have, the habits we build, are not locked into the activity you developed them in. How you train yourself to behave or react in one situation will carry over to others. Running alone will allow you to build personally and triumph professionally.  [1] DISCIPLINE In order to achieve any goal, you have to take action. The biggest challenge people face is keeping themselves accountable. All too often we quit at the wrong time.  The world is full of distractions. Our mind is loaded with resistance.  Build your inner strength by sticking to a routine not giving up when things are hard. [2] CONSISTENCY Holding yourself to your routing

 How My Focus on Writing is Influencing Everything For every year that has gone by, I have written more. You meet more people, attend more meetings, work on more projects and balance more commitments. To juggle all of those different activities, we communicate with each other more than we did in the past.  A lot more. It does people a huge disservice. And they don’t even know it. Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect. Jump-starting 2022 It’s cliche, but I decided that I was going to get back into writing. I had first picked it up when I left my job in 2019 and dove headfirst into the professional world of networking. My weapons of choice? LinkedIn and a personal blog. To step outside of my comfort zone and showcase my business prowess, I took to writing. I developed a strong habit of posting 1–3x a day on various industry news. My network was growing. Eventually, I let it drop off. I got busy with a new job and didn’t prioritize it. One day turned into a week, t

 How The Cold Calculated Choice Is A Dangerous Habit To Develop The bell just rang, the doors fly open and an avalanche of smiling faces come pouring out into the yard. It’s recess. There’s that period everyone goes through. Usually from grades 4 to 7 where you’re old enough to understand the world around you but young enough to still love to play. These are important formative years. I was an interesting mix growing up. I wasn’t an unpopular kid, but I wasn’t one of the super popular kids either. I was something else, somewhere in the the middle. I always had friends, did sports, wasn’t shy, and was smart enough to do well in school while also being able to play the slacker card. For the most part, things were good. The problem I had though, was that I was always bigger. Growing up a fat kid the 90s was less forgiving than what life is like today. Bullying was quite chic back then, borderline expected as part of growing up. But I was too popular to be bullied openly but not popular en

 How Managing Towards Perfection Makes You Excellent I’m walking up the steps to a set of glass doors situated at the corner of a small production plant. The stairs are much bigger than they should be. Wider. They create a sense of grandeur that doesn’t match the rest of the building. I open the doors and walk into the lobby. It wasn’t a lobby. It was a man trap — an unmanned man trap. There’s a phone with a contact list. I look through my phone and confirm the spelling of the last name of the person I am coming to meet. I call in and let them know I’ve arrived. Two people come out to greet me at the door. One is a coworker and the other is my new boss. I have taken a job as a distribution supervisor for a company in the food industry. Managing day-to-day delivery operations. You can imagine the type of fit this was for someone who graduated with a law and anthropology degree. This was a whole new world and I had no idea how any of it worked. The One Thing That My Career Success Is Bui

 Why Diversity Is As Important As Intelligence It was 2005. I had graduated university and was six months into one of the most entertaining jobs that I have ever had. I worked retail, like a lot of people in my situation. Working part time (or full time) while going through school was not uncommon. From 2000–2004 I worked at Staples. The store was fine. Pretty much what you see today when you walk into a Staples. A little bit less flashy, a lot more grey. Their bread and butter was business clients after all. I worked in the computer department. I'm sure that it had a special name, but I've long since forgotten that internal acronym. This was the start of the computer craze. The internet was drawing everyone's attention, every month there was a newer and faster computer released. Keep in mind, it was only in 1995 that Java was first announced; and by 1999 AMD was releasing the a 750mghz processor.  Impressive. With so much activity in the market, you can imagine customers s

 Using Small “P” projects To Get Smarter Do you feel like there is too much to learn? I do. All the time. I cannot believe what people are doing, what they have created or how simple things have been re-invented. New products are being created to replace products that they had already replaced. What inspired my thinking this morning is note taking. Exciting stuff, I know. Note taking isn’t the point though. It highlights how much things are changing, and more importantly, how people’s understanding and perceptions are changing. This is what’s important, because it’s happening — everywhere. The more that you can learn, the more exposure you get to shifting paradigms, to better you will be equipped to manage your own needs and keep pace. What is a Small “P” Project? I’m introducing you to this idea to tear down how you might think about projects. People hear the word project, and they think boardrooms, budgets and big deliverables. Small “p” projects comes back to an idea that David Alle

The Siren's Seductive Call of Self-Sabotage If you know anything about copywriting, you know there is one golden rule. Never, ever, make the customer feel like the problem is their fault. This article is going to break the rules. I'm going to agitate you. Get under your skin. I expect some of you will rage quit smashing that 'X' and putting down your phone. Some ideas need to be shared. Some need to be challenged (hard) if we want to achieve our goals. Rationalization is running rampant. People have never been happier to let themselves off the hook than they are today. It's not all your fault.  The self-help industry is estimated to be worth $11.3B dollars a year. There are two key sales strategies to sell at scale. Take away someone's pain, or help them get what they desire. Self-improvement hits people on both fronts, you barely have a chance against the psychological warfare. What's their number one seller? It's not your fault, you tried your best. Wh

  People hate to fail. We drive ourselves crazy trying to avoid it. The irony however, is that we are natural experimenters. Our ancestors started roaming the planet about 6 million years ago, modern form humans back 300,000 or so, with civilization starting about 6,000 years ago. The constant through all of that has been trying out new ideas, methods or activities. Do you know what happens when we experiment? We get things wrong. If We’re Built for Experimentation, Why Do We Hate It? While failure comes with experimentation, it has an unfortunate connection to our fundamental needs. Originally developed in the 1940s, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs helps us identify and rank core human requirements. Level one being were most of our trouble resides when thinking of failure. Biological and physiological needs — air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, etc. Our earliest memories set the stage for our future. We go to pre-school to succeed in kindergarten. From there we move through the

Dealing With the Discomfort of Decisions  T he inability to make a decision in the face of uncertainty is the greatest barrier that holds people back. We have created a world of judgement. We are afraid of how others will react and how they will view us. So we abstain. There’s nothing to judge if you follow with everyone else. I have been leading teams for over 15 years now. The most common developmental area that I have worked on with my teams is decision making. It’s easy to come up with reasons why you can’t make the call. Not enough information. Don’t have enough experience. Don’t have the authority. Do you know what the real reason is? Fear. It’s almost always fear. They just don’t want to make a mistake. That’s normal. We reward success and discipline mistakes. I have never chastised anyone on my team for making a decision, even if it was “wrong”. Making the decision is more important than them making the same choice I might have, or what the expectation would be. As long as they