Do Less in 2023

Do Less in 2023

I work with a lot of executives in several different industries, but I consistently hear variations of the same story:  Executives today are overworked and overextended; they feel tired and frustrated with a lack of time and a lack of energy.   Whether you...
Year-End Reflections

Year-End Reflections

As a professional business coach with a whole-life approach to coaching, I want to emphasize this end-of-year time as a unique opportunity. Normally, I would tell people to think about the current year and assess how it went using our 7Fs of True Success model. I’d...
Leadership Lessons from a Puzzle

Leadership Lessons from a Puzzle

Having some downtime during the holidays, I thought it might be fun to put together a puzzle.  My wife, Susan, is a big puzzle fan, so when I suggested we do one, she was happy to oblige. Next thing I knew, she had brought up six boxes of puzzles—with pieces...
Expectations (and How to Manage Them)

Expectations (and How to Manage Them)

Expectations (and How to Manage Them) Often when I’m coaching a CEO, president or senior partner of a company and they are frustrated about what someone in their organization isn’t doing “correctly,” they will say: “If I were them, I would … “ Then, they go on to say...
Locus of Control

Locus of Control

We’ve all worked with people who, when things go wrong, blame everyone and everything except themselves. “The expectations were too high.” “I wasn’t given enough time (or resources or guidance or margin) to complete the project.” The excuses are endless, so they go on...
Ask the Right Questions

Ask the Right Questions

Smart questions get results. Uninformed questions get you nowhere. Those are two facts that apply in all circumstances—in all areas of life. For instance, we’ve had a streetlight near our house that has not worked for more than two years. One of my best friends...
The Elephant and the Rider

The Elephant and the Rider

Psychologists will tell us—and we all know all too well—that we have two “always-on” parts of our brain—one is the emotional side and the other is the rational side. Both are involved in decision making of all kinds. Both are necessary to establish lasting good...
Overachieving Without Overdoing It

Overachieving Without Overdoing It

Part 2 of 2 So, in my last blog post, I talked about how most overachievers have something difficult, something challenging in their pasts that spurs them to overachieve. For some people, overachieving is the mind’s way of moving past the past. For others, their...
The Challenges of Overachievers

The Challenges of Overachievers

Part 1 of 2 Let’s talk today about overachievers and their challenges. Not the challenges they face each day as they meet and exceed expectations and goals (they are overachievers, after all). But instead, I’m talking about the challenges that make these people into...
Getting in Touch

Getting in Touch

After a recent mass at our church, our pastor made this announcement: “If anyone’s trying to communicate with the church by going to the church’s website, the link to email the church is not working.” The pastor gave us his email address and suggested that if any of...