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 yo...

[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 disa...

 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...

 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 ...

 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 popula...

 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 ...

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...

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...

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...

  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...

 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 ...