Read the Words

Digitally speaking, writing or blogging is one of the coolest and easiest ways to share thoughts and insights (often referred to as opinions) that are outside the usual. Look for fresh insights and stories each week.

Courage to Live, Love, Lead

A colleague of mine, writing a book for millennials, asked me what advice I’d give about living, loving, parenting, and leading courageously. I gave her three things: Think Big, Choose Vintage First, Steward the Planet. This is about the first one. Make sure your entire reason for getting up in the morning is genuinely big....

The Titles That Told Me Nothing

A few weeks ago, I wrote about ditching my title. Here’s what happened after I released that opinion piece. Four people read that piece and told me I’d just described their secret sauce. I know all four of them personally. Not one of them had ever crossed my mind as someone I might hire. Here’s...

The One Thing We Never Like to Admit

I started the 5Cs podcast because I wanted to learn the truth behind the noise around climate change. That sounds simple. It wasn’t. I came from thirty years in the chemical, plastics, and lubricants industries. Businesses built on extraction, every one of them. I knew how to make money. I did not know what was...

Finding the Person Behind the Title

I hired a coach recently. Not to sharpen my strategy or refine my messaging. I hired her to help me find my personality. That probably sounds strange coming from someone who spent four decades standing in front of rooms and running organizations. But here is the truth. For most of those years, I was hiding....

That Thing That Happened: Now You Have A Name

This year, the 5Cs podcast went down a few dark alleys and I promised I’d find someone who could help us work through what we’re feeling. I found a fabulous clinical psychologist who does exactly that. And before she comes on, I need to set the stage so to speak this week. I want to...

Three Traps That Keep Us Stuck

There is something I keep noticing in the conversations I’ve been having with colleagues and clients this month. The pattern is consistent enough that I think it belongs here, in the wider community. For years, I was the person with the colour-coded planner, the non-negotiable morning routine, and the running list of serious, ambitious things...

The Art of Not Forcing

Have you ever thought about flow? I know, it sounds woo-woo, doesn’t it? But bear with me. Some old writings on Taoism crossed my desk recently. Specifically, something I hadn’t read in decades, and I read the same passage three times. In Chinese, Wu Wei is written 無為. The first character means “without” or “absence.”...

Apprentices to Ripening

Last week, I argued that efficiency is a manufacturing concept we swallowed whole and have been choking on ever since. This week, the harder question. If that’s the wrong metric, what do we replace it with? I want to start with a word. Ripening. Not growing. Not scaling. Not optimizing. Ripening. The kind of...

The Lies We Swallowed

The other day, someone who will one day be a client asked me if my diagnostic process could make her more efficient. I sat with that for a while. Then I wrote back: Efficiency is a word that should be banned for all time Particularly when it comes to humans. Here’s where it came from....

Fifteen Years Too Late (Don’t Be Me)

One of the hardest lessons I’ve ever had to learn is how to graciously receive. Today I’m asking you to learn it faster than I did. Because your heart will rejoice, your shoulders will lift, and you will stand so much stronger in your own skin. Don’t be like me. Please don’t be like me....