I think most would agree that one of the best resources for making better decisions is the advice of knowledgeable people who know us well. Unfortunately, it’s often an underutilized resource. The main challenge is, how do you actually do it?
I use something I call a curiosity loop to systematically extract wisdom from my network.
Read More »Make Better Decisions with Curiosity Loops
What defines you? What does success look like? How can I make good decisions for myself in the long term?
My belief is that it’s important to operate our lives by an Inner Scorecard. While an Outer Scorecard is based on how the external world sees you, judges you, and stacks you up in comparison to others, an Inner Scorecard is something based on what you truly want without thinking too much about what other people think of you*.
Read More »Build Your Inner Scorecard: A 10-Minute Exercise for Better Decisions
When I give advice to executives looking for a coach, I typically break it down for them into these straightforward steps on how to structure their search. This is Part 3 of my series on executive coaching based on insights from 80+ interviews with executives and coaches, focused on how to find a coach. Check out Part 1 for a rundown of the results and data, and Part 2 for what I’ve learned as a coach so far.
Read More »A Practical Guide: How To Find an Executive Coach (Part 3)
In part 2 of my series on executive coaching, I’m sharing the coach-specific insights from my 80+ interviews with executives and coaches, and how they’ve changed the way I coach. If you’re looking for the data, you can also refer to Part 1 of this series or visit Part 3: How to Find an Executive Coach.
Read More »What I Didn’t Know About Coaching (Part 2)
I’m excited to share what I’ve learned from 80+ conversations to map the executive coaching industry:
I was curious about these questions, too, in the course of answering these I collected interviews across 13 coaches, 17 founders and executives (Director/VP/GM+) who have engaged coaches, and 50+ prospective coachees.
Read More »An In-Depth Guide to Executive Coaching: Everything You Need To Know (Part 1)
When I founded my first company Connected back in 2011, I was really surprised by the intensity of the emotional rollercoaster. By then I’d already worked everywhere from large corporate Microsoft to tiny new startup and felt prepared. I was dead wrong. I remember describing it to a friend as, “After I started a company, everything became 10x more intense. The highs and lows filled with terror, sometimes all in the same hour. Everything else I’d done in my professional career fades in comparison.”
Read More »7 Things No One Tells You About Being a Startup Founder
It is tempting to fully embrace data-driven decision making and demand all marketing efforts are backed with data and ROI. While this sounds reasonable initially, marketing is both an art and science, and great marketers should also spend time honing their customer intuition to be successful in their craft.
Read More »Marketers: Hone Your Customer Intuition
Two and a half years in, I wanted to reflect on some of my top surprises of parenthood. TLDR highs are higher and lows are lower than expected.
Read More »What’s Surprised Me About Parenthood
With all of the talk of The Great Resignation, it doesn’t come as a surprise that many people are asking the question, what do I really want to do?
Many people follow a guiding star throughout their early career. Their career transitions are based on what their parents or peers expected, what their peers did, where there was the highest status, or even taking what they were good at to its natural extreme. Later on, what they begin to question is whether that work is meaningful or significant to them.
Read More »Finding Meaningful Work with “Designing Your Life”
Why transitioning to management is hard: The Leadership Chasm
When I coach founders and execs, I often encounter them in a point of transition. Reaching the point in your career where you transition from individual contributor to a people leader is often a story of struggle. Here’s why it’s so difficult to rise to the new challenge: The Leadership Chasm.