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...

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 ...

There was a point in my life when I prided myself on how much stress I could take. No matter what I was dealing with, I would take on more. It destroyed me. I have never been able to tolerate the same stress level since. I’m extremely thankful for that. Feedback is as gift that most people undervalue . No matter what you are doing, there is always a way to assess what is happening. Focusing on those cues, and developing my self-awareness has been vital to dealing everything in front of me. Cues These are personal. The patterns that I fall into are mine. We may share some, maybe even all of them, the point however is to identify the behaviours that are your response. These are some of my reactions to overload: Binge Eating This might seem obvious for you, it is for me as well. It is perhaps “more serious” for me. I used to be a lot bigger. Six years ago I lost a lot of weight and have been able to maintain my form.  I was successful because it came with a lot of understanding, a shi...

 Unlock the Benefit of Genuine Collaboration Technical capability is rarely why a team doesn’t succeed. Yet, technical capability is what a lot of managers focus on. The team isn’t performing well, so we look at the people. We review their skill-sets and compare them to one another. “If only I had another Bob — all of my problems would be solved.” Sometimes another Bob is the answer. Most of the time it’s not. Technical capability is easy enough to teach. You identify gaps in someone’s understanding, you work with them or use a training mechanism to get them more exposure and experience. Most things aren’t that complicated, and the internet is amazing for someone who wants to learn. Even with all the talent the Miami Heat had with the famous “big three”, they lost 50% of the time (4 consecutive finals — won 2, lost 2). Why Does Team Development Matter Teams are everywhere. It’s estimated that 90 percent of what we do at work happens through the collaboration of teams. The scary par...

 The Opportunity That Almost Everyone is Missing For the majority of the population, the 40 hour workweek is here to stay. I sit in the contribution/results camp vs clocking time. Forcing anyone to live by the ticker is a remnant of the past. Unfortunately my opinion won’t change the world. Have you ever thought about how much time you spend working?  How about you work 7.5h a day, meaning 37.5h per week. You are a little ahead of the filthy forty. Good for you. Before you start smiling, did you know that a 7.5h workday is 31% of your ENTIRE day. I’m being generous unfortunately. Remember you sleep 7h a night (you do sleep 7 hours a night right?) leaving you with 17 waking hours. With that new base, work now takes up a whopping 44% of your day. Gross. But wait, there’s more! It’s the roaring 2020s baby, let’s not pretend your nine to five is really all the work you do. Side hustle? A start-up? Gigwork?  Even sitting here now, writing this for you, do you classify th...

 How Measuring Differently Helps You Stand Out In a digital world, information is everywhere. At work, at home or at play, you have more access to information than ever. Use it. Below you will find some things I have learned leveraging data to keep making improvements in anything I do. Data is not something only for the office. When you realize how much information is out there, your world starts to change. Feedback is the secret to success. Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Tik Tok - they all provide services. The platforms and devices aren't the only reason their are winning. Data is their real advantage. It should be yours as well. Measure What Matters Whatever it is that you are about to do, if there is a path in front of that needs to grow or get better you HAVE to think about what to measure. Some of what you need to measure is easy to understand. These are the things that everyone else is doing. Those core key performance indicators that start the journey. Here are some examp...

Building your Dreams with Commitments  I saw an interesting video earlier today from Patrick Bet-David. In 68 seconds he told the story of an interaction with his 8 year old son.  What is the difference between will and want ? His perspective was this. If we say we will do something, then we have to do it. If we say we want something, won’t don’t have to. How do you feel now saying you ‘want’ anything for yourself? That’s a heavy frame. It connected with another idea I came across recently. It was a similar juxtaposition, the difference between seeing something as an obligation versus an opportunity. Here’s the viscous cycle then that people fall into. What identify things that we want. These are our opportunities. Things that we would like to do or represent some ideal self to achieve. For some, they may be their dreams. Everyone encourages you to pursue your dreams. To go after whatever it is that you want, yet we are all ready to accept that it doesn’t have to happen. Count...

 If it's too personal, keep it for your journal. That was the messages of an article I saw earlier. The position was that your writing for be for your readers, and not for you. I'm always facinated with our desire for binary thinking. Our brains are the most complex system to ever be created on the planet, and we regularly reduce it's power to an option of two choices. I agree with the author sharing that sentiment if your writing has really about your mental health. Studies have shown time and again the benefits of journaling and the impact it has on our ability to process information. For me, the goal of writing is to spark discussion. It's a gift to have our ideas challenged. To have new information enter our world and open ourselves to the possibility of more. Writing from life helps you do this. People can pick up if you aren't authentic. If you don't care. Writing from life connects your experiences, your emotions and your dreams into the ideas that you se...

  Most interview questions these days are terrible. They are formulaic, repackaged and cliche. What's worse than weak interview questions? Being able to delight with scripted answers. This is the best question anyone has ever asked me in an interview. It was so different I was not even expecting it: What has been the most fundamental idea that has influenced your life? Some perspective. I work in Supply Chain. More specifically, logistics. The biggest part of my career has been in the last mile space (think Amazon to your door). I'm sure you can imagine why that interview question was not on my radar. Most interviews questions are technical, situational or aim to flesh out the environment. My answer? That most things are not as complex as people like to make them seem. I know what you're thinking. That answer sucks. Maybe it did. I didn't end up getting that job. That was the answer to the question. That idea has influenced my life more than any other. How Has That Been...

 Why You Need to Rethink Your Understanding Most people don't understand leadership. They relate it to a title or position. Leadership is not about power. You are not superior to others when you lead. Leadership is about people. I write a lot about leadership. It turns some people off. It is one of those areas that has been over-marketed. Every day you see people posting platitudes about it. It can get annoying. Who wants to learn leadership from someone unless they have done something great? The paradox is this. A lot of incredibly success people are terrible leaders. Some of the most amazing leaders are people that you will never hear of. Being a successful leader is not about arbitrary results. What one person considers successful, another will think it fell short. Real leadership comes down to how you shape other people. What is Leadership? This is the best way you should think about leadership: A process of social influence in which a person can enlist the aid and support of o...

 The Biggest Dichotomy of Leadership You can never know everything. There's no point pretending that you do. Leadership is about trust. It is your responsibility to guide your team to achieve the goals that have been set. To draw out the strengths of each person, supporting each other to win. This is one of my favourite quotes. It comes from the book "The Dichotomy of Leadership" by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. Every leader must be willing and able to lead, but just as important is a leader’s ability to follow. A leader must be willing to lean on the expertise and ideas of others for the good of the team. Leaders must be willing to listen and follow others, regardless of whether they are junior or less experienced. It's empowering when people feel heard. Knowing that they can share their idea or perspective and that the person in charge is listening.  What's equally enabling is for them to know that you are supporting them. That you trust them to make decisions. ...

Building for Success on the Back of Change Usually when people think of 3 words that have a huge impact on your life they have more of a romantic connotation.  I suppose both phrases carry with them the idea of a change. I wrote a post yesterday on LinkedIn related to my field of work. I have been in Logistics and Last Mile delivery for 15 years now. Needless to say, I’m pretty comfortable in my thinking and confident in my understanding. I took a strong position against Ultrafast delivery and presented my case. The posted ended with me saying “Share your thoughts, change my mind”. There was nothing cheeky about it. It was a true desire and an honest comment. This was a response someone made on that post: Love this example of a strong belief weakly held, inviting real discussion and co-discovery. So rare. It surprised me. I have been like this for as long as I can remember. It’s a fundamental pillar of my leadership style and I am not sure I could be different if I tried. I ab...

 The Lost Art of Observation, Experimentation & Debate It’s 7:17pm on a Saturday night. You have had a brutal week. You’re behind on your project, your boss asked you to create a new report, an employee is out sick and you got nothing done because you attended 23 meetings in the last 5 days. You’re gassed. Sitting with a friend, having a beer, you start talking about how stressed you are wouldn’t be surprised if you were teetering on the brink of collapse. Instinctively, your friend reaches into their pocket pulls out their phone and jumps on Google. “What are the physical signs of burn out” Let’s go through the list and see how if you check the boxes. Rinse and repeat. For everything. All the time. The Value of Wonder Have you ever thought about what we have lost having the world’s knowledge at our fingertips? That question is the inspiration for this article, and quite possibly an ongoing series. I was out earlier today rucking, and that question dominated my thinki...

Content Creation and the Persistent Pressure to Perform   32, 083. T hat’s the number of posts being made to social media platforms every minute — of every day. The scary part? That number is ultra-conservative. I say that because it’s my own math.  4.62 Billion Active Social Media Users 1% of those users = Content Creators Each Content Creator posting 1x / day I’m comfortable that my opening number is too low. It better illustrates the point however, when even your minimum value overwhelms your capacity. The Frame I’ve been writing a lot in 2022. The other day I noticed that I have written more blog posts this year than I did in all of 2020 when I first started. A fun fact about 2020, I didn’t work a day job for half the year.  I’m not a professional writer. I don’t make money from this. I write because I enjoy sharing ideas. Add to this writing tied to my professional field on LinkedIn and my current Twitter experiment and I am writing a lot. The Lure of Likes...

 How your ability to hold both positions sets you apart as a leader Nobody wants to follow an asshole.  Leadership is not about your authority, it’s not about telling people what to do. Your position doesn’t make you better than anyone else. You’re probably thinking, how they hell can you be “unyielding” as a leader while still being open minded … these are not the same. Unyielding — adjective unable to bend or be penetrated under pressure; hard: trees so unyielding that they broke in the harsh north winds. not apt to give way under pressure; inflexible; firm: her unyielding faith. People follow those who take charge. Who are confident. Who default to action and make decisions. When leading a team, they expect you to be able to provide this structure, to provide them the context and the guidelines that they need to operate. How then can you mix these two ideas to be a kick ass leader while delivering results? It’s all in where you apply each idea. You have to be unyi...

 Are you living your own life or following someone else's compass? Here are three questions for you: What is your name? What is your quest? What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow? If you’re like most people, it was probably easy to answer two of those three questions. We all know our name, and a simple Google search can give us the other answer—twenty-four miles per hour. I saw that today and it spoke to me. There has never been more pressure to "get life right". From what we have been taught, to a culture that is focused on keeping up and the onslaught of social media - most people don't understand how they don't have it together while so many other people do. There are so many people in the world telling us what to do, who we should be and what is the right path it's easy to start living by someone else's rules. The challenge that I have seen and experienced with this is that most people come to the realization that they are living by other ...