Reflections

Our Imposter Monster Soul Suckers tell us we’re secretly not good enough and any day now, someone's going to find out. Most of us have heard those thoughts in our head at one time or another. But what’s really happening is both more complicated and more simple.  We're...

One of my favorite days of the year is Christmas Eve. Not because of what comes after … Because of the not-knowing, the twinkly lights in the dark, the presents still wrapped, the anticipation of something that hasn't quite taken shape yet.  I love the mystery of...

For decades, the speaking world has been selling a snake oil version of charisma. The idea that if you study the greats long enough, if you copy the gestures, the pacing, the cadence, the way they pause before a punchline, you'll eventually unlock something similar in...

You've probably had this experience: You gave a talk (or a pitch, or a keynote, or a podcast interview.) People said it was good. And then... nothing changed. No one reached out. They didn't seem to remember it a week later. They moved on. That's the gap between being...

There's a particular kind of tired that has nothing to do with your schedule. A kind of tired that doesn’t come from a full day or a hard week. It’s just there, underneath everything: a low hum of depletion that’s become your baseline. That kind of exhaustion often...

There's a version of visibility that looks like waving from the side of the road. Move more in your videos. Post consistently. Show up louder. Dance a little so the algorithm notices you. Repeat again and again and again until someone clicks.  I understand why...

Most of us learned leadership backwards. Have the answer. Project confidence. Fill the silence before it gets uncomfortable.  When someone says something charged that raises the temperature in the room, the knee-jerk reaction under that old leadership model is...

Most of us have a version of ourselves that knows how to quietly disappear. The shoulders that round out of habit. The instinct to take up less space in a room. The practiced art of being present without being seen. We learned it early, and we learned it for good...

There's a trap most leaders never see coming. Not failure. Not the wrong move at the wrong time. Not even a bad hire or a market that shifted. That trap is comfort. Specifically, the kind of comfort that gets built piece by piece over years of doing the right thing,...