Welcome to Mink In A Minute!

  you’re just too good to be true  

“You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off of you.”

– Maya Angelou

  The new flex  

Hustle culture is dead.

Balance is the new badge of honor.

And I love it. Why?

Because people are over the act.

Tired of 80-hour weeks and missing their kids' bedtime.

Tired of competing to demonstrate their devotion.

Tired of work for the sake of work.

Tired of being tired.

So they are saying no to the old.

And learning to flow.

Less time.

More productivity.

More efficiency.

More energy.

More happiness.

They’re saying no to the game.

Realizing they can perform at a high level while still maintaining gratifying lives.

Armed with nothing but the desire for both rewarding careers AND personal lives.

And they won’t be going back…

Because they don’t want to choose between a life and a career.

They want both.

  Ch-ch-ch-changes

My life in 2016:

- Sick

- Tired

- Hungover

- Overworked

My life in 2024:

- Healthy

- 7-8 hours sleep a night

- Maybe 1-2 drinks a week

- Work-life balance

What changed?

I started living less out of habit and more out of intent.

  In a blink of an eye  

Your great grandkids will not know your name.

So take care of your spouse, your kids, your friends.

Then do what makes you happy.

The mark you make on this world is permanent.

It might ultimately be forgotten, but it cannot be erased.

  Lessons from the School of Hard Knocks

College completely failed in teaching me anything about how business works.

So, like everyone else, I earned a degree from the School of Hard Knocks.

Then, after 25 years of ups, downs, highs, and lows, I discovered a simple framework.

Unlike college, it didn’t cost $100,000.

Here it is, for free:

- Vision | getting everyone the organization on the same page with where you're going and how you're going to get there

- Traction | taking the Vision down into the ground and making it real

- Healthy | fostering cohesive teams that work together for the greater good of the business (because, if we're being honest, most teams are bogged down by ego, personality conflicts, and self-interest)

Imagine a business where everyone:

- understands and buys into the vision

- rows in the same direction towards the achievement of the vision

- works together to solve root issues as they arise, free of blame, fear, or politics

This is not theory.

This is EOS.   

   Talk is cheap

Dear Leaders,

Saying how much you care about your team while bragging about yourself is not a good look.

Actions speak louder than words.

  Putting band aids on broken bones  

Here’s a simple framework for problem solving.

(Especially helpful if you are stuck in a cycle of issues whack-a-mole)

When tackling a thorny issue, ask just one straightforward question:

IS THIS A SYMPTOM OR THE ROOT CAUSE?

Force yourself and your team to dig deeper.

Go past the pain.

Stop applying business band-aids and start smoking out root issues.

Build this muscle and you'll start solving root problems forever.

   Get a grip  

Are you working too much?

If so, then stop working so much.

Work fills in the time allotted to it.

First, define what capacity looks like for you.

60 hours a week? 40? 30?

Then put up guardrails to protect your time.

Your priorities and focus will naturally fall in line accordingly.

Take control of your business so that it doesn’t take control of you.

   That time I made someone cry  

I once made an employee cry in front of the entire team.

It was late Friday afternoon and there was a big proposal due.

She was responsible for the final pieces and was late delivering them.

I lost my temper and yelled at her in front of everyone.

The next Monday, I started our team meeting by apologizing to her and to everyone for being a jerk.

Making mistakes is a trait that defines humanity.

How you respond to your mistakes defines you.

  The only equation you’ll ever need to know  

  Quality > Quantity  

 Did I look like Barney?  No.  Maybe.  Probably.

This is the story of the Purple Bodysuit

I had been working a deal with a prospective new strategic client for months.

They were a right fit customer and a high value account - the deal was going to be a win-win.

Deep into this engagement, our CRO popped his head in my office one Monday and asks when the deal was coming in.

"This week" I reply.

"You said 'this week' every week for the last few weeks," he says.

So we place a wager.

If the deal comes in before midnight on Friday, I win. Any later than that, he wins.

The stakes?

Loser to wear a purple bodysuit emblazoned with “[Name of Winner] is my hero” to work.

Friday evening rolls around, and the CRO pops his head in my office to gloat about his victory and to remind me of the...cough cough...fashionable ensemble I am to wear to work on Monday.

Dejected, I slink home to my loving wife, a bottle of wine, and Netflix.

That night at around 10pm (deep into said bottle of wine and Netflix), my phone buzzes.

It’s my new client texting, “I trust you, let’s go for it!”.

Immediately followed by an email confirming receipt of the executed contract.

The best business is fun business.

PS - out of solidarity with the team and to celebrate our TEAM win, I ended up rocking the suit anyways - see below:

  The protocol

My daily strategy for maximizing clarity and flow::

- No food or coffee before 10am

- Strict scheduling rules and guardrails

- Few if any meetings on Mondays and Fridays

- Daily walks free of music, podcasts, calls, or browsing

- First 45-minutes of the day devoted to intention setting, movement, and breathwork

Then, each day at 5:30pm I spend 30-60 minutes of undistracted time with my son.

Create a routine that focuses your attention on the things that matter, stick to it for 12-weeks, and watch what happens to your mind, body, and life.

  It’s the shoes that make the leader

Your core values are like a custom made pair of shoes.

Anyone can try them on.

Only you can wear them.

  Putting band aids on broken bones  

Here’s a simple framework for problem solving.

(Especially helpful if you are stuck in a cycle of issues whack-a-mole)

When tackling a thorny issue, ask just one straightforward question:

IS THIS A SYMPTOM OR THE ROOT CAUSE?

Force yourself and your team to dig deeper.

Go past the pain.

Stop applying business band-aids and start smoking out root issues.

Build this muscle and you'll start solving root problems forever.

  An OS for life  

In my 20s, I possessed the natural ability to engage in effortless states of laser-focus for hours at a time.

But that time has long since passed.

Today, umpteen devices forever ding and buzz, competing for attention.  I’ve battled chronic illness that has at-times been debilitating for a decade.

And yet, I’m now more productive than ever.

How?

I use an operating system. One that channels energy towards where I add the most value and the work that imbues me with energy and purpose.

An OS that stands up guard rails to keep out distraction while always centering me in my sweet spot. 

A framework that crystallizes and keeps me focused on my life and career goals.

I’m not who I once was. That guy was an arrow; this one is a pinball.

But my OS harnesses my energy and orients me in a singular direction towards achieving my vision.

With more focus and purpose than ever before.

My OS is the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS).

EOS is my scaffolding.  I use to run my business and to manage parenting/marriage.

It's the framework that allows me to express my greatest strengths while minimizing my most glaring weaknesses.

If you need help channeling your energy and the energy of your business, pick the OS that suits you and commit to it.

Then use it to plan and execute your business and life.

  Save the drama for your mama  

I recently made a return visit to a fasting clinic.

This visit was only a week, so it wasn’t a repeat performance of going 9 days without eating.

This time, the goal wasn’t a drastic health boost.

It was simply to:

- Reset

- Recharge

- Recalibrate

And return home ready to make a few lifestyle adjustments in the interests of maximizing health and happiness.

It’s easy to fall back into bad habits.

Continued growth requires continued intention.

  Paralysis of analysis  

Are you drowning in data?

Do your reports look like the streaming 1s and 0s from The Matrix?

Please, just stop with the "vanity reports".

Too much thinking, not enough action.

Find data you can use to make better decisions:

- Less is more: 5-15 measurables

- Activity-based: get ahead of issues BEFORE they cause problems

- Evaluate Weekly: see above

- Assign a goal to each measurable: green is on-track/red off-track

- Assign a leader responsible for delivering that goal: accountability

Break free of paralysis of analysis.

Use data to line up issues as they arise and knock them down forever.

  Doing the hard things

I recently made a return visit to a fasting clinic.

This visit was only a week, so it wasn’t a repeat performance of going 9 days without eating.

This time, the goal wasn’t a drastic health boost.

It was simply to:

- Reset

- Recharge

- Recalibrate

And return home ready to make a few lifestyle adjustments in the interests of maximizing health and happiness.

It’s easy to fall back into bad habits.

Continued growth requires continued intention.

  We are all headed to the same place  

You are going to die.

I am too.

We’re all headed to the same place. Fearing this fate won’t prevent it.

So stop being afraid.

Move forward, with love and compassion for yourself and each other.

Have the courage to take on new challenges.

Forget about the years in your life, the only thing we control is the life in our years.

Live fearless.

  Pick your poison  

Would you rather:

A) Attend your Monday morning team meeting?

B) Watch paint dry while listening to howling cats drag their claws across a chalkboard?

Want to make your meetings less painful?

Stop talking about problems, start solving them.

   The way things are vs. the way you want them to be  

The 75-second story of my entrepreneurial journey and how it led me to EOS:

Justin Mink, Certified EOS Implementer: My Entrepreneurial Journey

  Your biggest strength is your biggest weakness  

 I used to think that strong leadership meant projecting an appearance of total control, calm, and confidence at all times.

That any signs of cracks in my armor would be a demonstration of weakness.

Then, life and leadership showed me how wrong I was.

In this 60-second video, I outline how vulnerability is actually a leadership strength.

Justin Mink, Certified EOS Implementer: Vulnerability is Strength

   Evolution → Revolution  

Everything that works right now in your business will eventually stop working.

When that happens, you have three options 👇

1) Change nothing, die

2) Catch those failures after the damage has been done, try to fix

3) Identify & solve issues as they arise, before they become systemic

To open what’s behind door #3, you need an operating framework, a lean, easy-to-manage set of predictive data points with:

- A handful of measurables that drive the business week in, week out

- Clear goals that provide the ability to forecast your financial future

- Owners accountable for delivering those targets

The pace of change continues to speed up.

A simple framework that pins down key areas needing change as they arise will keep you ahead of the game.

 More money more problems

Are your company goals tied only to revenue?

If so, your team is likely confused and misaligned.

Here’s why 👇

Let’s say that your 3-year goal is to hit $10M in annual revenue.

- The head of sales envisions 100 clients @ $100K each in revenue

- The ops leader envisions 1000 clients at $10K a pop

- The company founder sees 100 employees and three offices

- The head of HR imagines a hybrid team of 50 working out of HQ

Yikes.

There IS a simple, clean way to make sure that everyone has the same vision of the future in their mind’s eye.

Of course you should include revenue. 

Then create a handful of bullet points describing what the company will look like in 3-years.

Hard measurables, plus high-level things like:

- new products or markets/verticals entered

- # of employees and customers

- big victories and recognition

- technology additions, etc.

When everyone has the same vision for the future, the odds of achieving your goals increase exponentially.

Sans the chaos, confusion, and tragic decisions.

 Be the buffalo

Did you know that cows try to outrace storms?

Of course, cows can't run faster than a storm.

So they run WITH the storm and end up maximizing their time exposed to the hard winds and rains.

Buffalo, on the other hand, charge headlong into the storm.

By confronting storms head on, buffalo run straight through them and minimize time exposed to the harsh elements.

Storms are an inevitable part of growing a business.

You can choose the path of the cow and run from them, thereby prolonging your pain.

Or you can mirror the buffalo and head straight towards them, breaking through to the other side.

Be the Buffalo.

Passing it forward

One great mentor can make all the difference in a career.

It’s not about the knowledge that a mentor passes on.

It’s the energy created when someone who has done it:

- Cheers you on

- Believes in you

- Invests time in you

- Brings out the best in you

- Helps you fulfill your true potential

Great mentors impart wisdom.

But the very best mentors foster self-confidence.

And that confidence can give you wings.

Feel me flow

5 every day ways to tap into a flow state:

- Work on tasks in the sweet spot between challenge and skill

- Create a time block with a desired outcome at its conclusion

- Focus on a single task at a time

- Eliminate distractions

- Don't press

Even if you don't enter into that magical state of flow, these practices will still help you focus.

  The way things are vs. the way you want them to be  

How do you define unhappiness?

It's simple.

Unhappiness directly corresponds to the distance between the way things are and the way you want them to be.

Embrace your current reality while you fall in love with the journey towards creating a better one.

Happiness can only flourish where there is acceptance.

  Just pick one  

The five common frustrations shared by entrepreneurs:

- Profit: or lack thereof, especially relative to your investment

- People: employees, customers, partners, no one seems to get it

- Control: that feeling that you're always chasing a speeding train

- Nothing works: every solution has become a flavor-of-the-month

- Hitting the Ceiling: year one was almost easy, but now we're stuck

Businesses shouldn't have to reinvent the wheel every time they open the door for business and every time they hit a ceiling.

They need a simple set of practical tools to create clarity, drive accountability, and inject discipline.

An operating framework designed for fast-moving entrepreneurial companies that deal with constant change, not for big corporations mired in red tape and bureaucracy.

Whether it's EOS or something else, pick an operating system, stick with it, and use it to smash through any and every ceiling you encounter on your business journey.

  Where productivity goes to die  

5 reasons why your team dreads meetings:

- Everyone just agrees with the boss

- They are unfocused and all over the map

- Nothing actually gets decided on or done

- They are a laundry list of "stuff we did/that happened"

- The same issues are brought up and go unresolved every week

Your team should look forward to meetings because:

- They're a lot of fun

- Root issues are surfaced

- Everyone has an opportunity to be heard

- They're an opportunity to connect the circles

- Problems are definitively solved and resolved

- Everyone has permission to engage in debate

  transform your meetings from awful to awesome  

A step-by-step guide to transform weekly team meetings from painful to productive:

- Same time, same day - only excuse is vacation or death (your own)

- Start on time, end on time - create a rhythm, inject focus

- Exact same agenda - you can’t become great without practice

- Segue - brief professional/personal bests to get out of the trenches

- Reporting review - priorities & measurables, on track or off track

- (NO DISCUSSION yet, if anything is off track, drop down to issues)

- Customer/employee headlines - where issues commonly cluster

- Review to-dos from last week - 90% should be “to-done”

- Review your entire issues list - prioritize the most urgent

- Briefly discuss in order - is this the root issue or just a symptom?

- Solve - SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, timely)

- Re-cap new SMART to-dos - who is doing what by when?

- Cascading messages - who needs to know, who is telling them?

- Rate the meeting - be critical, track your ongoing progress

Meetings aren’t awful.  YOUR meetings are awful.

Commit to making them better, run a better business, live a better life.

The world’s best investment

I pulled the trigger on a big investment in my professional development this week.

Many would say that this was a bad idea, that current revenues don't justify the expense.

But if there’s anything I’ve learned over the course of an entrepreneurial career, it’s that investments in yourself:

- Are almost 100% in your control

- Consistently net the biggest returns

- Produce long-term, lasting dividends

- Are a necessity if you expect anyone else to invest in you

Hope that’s helpful.

  Turn that frown upside down  

Simple advice to instantly transform your mood.

Call someone who:

- Inspires 

- Motivates 

- Challenges

- Has an infectious energy 

- Always leaves you smiling

Spend 15-30 minutes with them and see how the rest of your day goes.

  Lights camera action

In a rut?

Stop thinking and start doing.

Mood follows action.

why no one likes your meetings

Dear Leaders,

Please stop treating team meetings as nothing but a long summary of things that happened since last week's meeting.

No one likes it when mommy and daddy are constantly checking to see if they've done their homework.

  What the heck is EOS  

Just what IS the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS)??

A lot of people call it "Traction". Traction was the book that introduced EOS to the world. The model itself is called EOS.

In this short video, I explain:

- what it is

- who it works for

- how it improves the businesses that use it

- how it upgrades the lives of the leaders at those businesses

Justin Mink, Certified EOS Implementer, explains the Entrepreneurial Operating System

Questions? Let me know!

  Embracing clarity  

I used to take neighborhood walks while listening to podcasts.

I thought that those 30-minute breaks were an ideal time to learn.

Boy, was I wrong.

One day I put my phone on airplane mode and let my mind wander.

Over the course of the next ½ hour, solutions to a few sticky problems seemed to materialize like magic.

I used my phone to record voice memos, then put a plan in place after getting back to my desk.

Stepping back from the day-to-day and taking time to think creates clarity.

To save lots of time over the long run, create a little time each day for clarity.

🤍🔔 ✌️

  The accidental non-profit  

Are you running an accidental non-profit?

You might be if there are people on your team who you love, but:

- No one knows exactly what they do

- No one knows what they are accountable for doing

- You are certain about what they do + how bad they are at doing it

You need people who fit your culture like a glove.

You also need every employee to be excellent at their job.

Right people, right seats.

It's non negotiable. To be great, you have to have both everywhere you look in your company.

 you got this

After college, the only viable path forward for me was law school.

Or so everyone told me.

After all, I was a poli sci major - it was either intern on the Hill or get a law degree.

So I did several legal internships and spent a summer cramming for the LSATs.

Then I woke up one day during senior year and realized that maybe law school was right for my mom, but it sure as hell wasn't right for me.

I said to myself "You'll figure it out."

After graduation, my friends got jobs or went off to grad school.

I spent the best 3-months of my life backpacking solo around Europe.

Then I came home and figured it out.

Trust yourself, you'll figure it out.

Control is an illusion

Control is an illusion.

Control over your employees, clients, partners, the market, your spouse, your kids, the weather.

Instead of attempting to assert control, focus on more attainable and productive goals:

- Direction

- Alignment

- Collaboration

- Communication

You'll never be able to control those around you.

But you can attract like-minded people who share your vision and want to be a part of the dream you're building.

  Lights camera action

In a rut?

Stop thinking and start doing.

Mood follows action.

why no one likes your meetings

Dear Leaders,

Please stop treating team meetings as nothing but a long summary of things that happened since last week's meeting.

No one likes it when mommy and daddy are constantly checking to see if they've done their homework.

  Less is more  

I recently took a week off of work at home.

It turned out to be the most productive week I’ve had in months.

How is that possible?

I ended up working about ½ time, at a relaxed and easy pace.

(After all, I was off!)

I’d do some high priority work, then take a walk and read for two hours at the park, then go back to work for a bit.

The stakes were lower and the pressure was off.

I felt awesome, and that energy carried through to my work and my meetings.

A light, easy touch made work feel effortless and fun.

Drive results and feel good doing it.

Instead of working more, try working easier.

  Smarter not harder  

Here's a new idea for a measurement on employee performance reviews:

The average time it takes to reply to internal emails/Slacks.

With a negative assessment if the time-to-reply is too fast.

Why?

Because it shows that the team member lacks focus.

That they are not entering into a deep, productive state of flow while working on high priority tasks.

Measure and reward working smarter, not harder.

  Choose short-term pain  

You know that feeling when you start a new daily workout routine?

The one that makes you hurt just thinking about it.

Those workouts SUCK.

Until they don't.

Until they are just how you move through the world.

Eventually, that daily workout becomes a part of how you identify yourself:

As "the type of person" who does this workout every day.

Missing even a day makes you feel bad, getting the workout done makes you feel whole.

New behaviors, practices, and processes in the workplace are no different.

The way you hire, fire, review, reward, and recognize. How you use data to make decisions. How you live your values.

Real behavior change requires short-term suffering.

But the long term upgrades to your business and your life are worth it.

  Progress over perfection  

Things leaders think they need for strategic planning:

- The perfect plan that requires zero learning cycles

- The perfect laundry list of 20 high-priority goals

- The perfect quarter-by-quarter roadmap for the next 3 years

Things that don't exist:

- The perfect plan that requires zero learning cycles

- The perfect laundry list of 20 high-priority goals

- The perfect quarter-by-quarter roadmap for the next 3 years

That's why 99% of businesses fail at strategic planning.

   the traits of a leader  

Bad leadership:

- Leaders surrounded by "yes men/women"

- Just do it, don't worry about why

- Micromanagement

- Plays politics

Good leadership:

- Leaders surrounded by people who challenge them

- Communicates expectations, then creates an opening

- Shares a clear vision that attracts the right people

- Creates a meritocracy

 Finding flow

Consciously shifting from a state of constant pressure and stress to one of easy flow is the foundation for growth.

For me, it's led to:

- Less stress

- Business ownership

- Better relationships

- Increased productivity

- Improved physical health

- More enjoyment of work and life

I like the way you move

The six key components of running a great business:

- Vision

- People

- Data

- Issues

- Process

- Traction

How to get started:

- Agree on where you're going & how you're getting there (Vision)

- Actively use your values to attract the right team members (People)

- Maintain a pulse on the biz w/a handful of weekly metrics (Data)

- Develop a problem-solving muscle, cadence & rhythm (Issues)

- Identify core functions & simplify tasks w/broad checklists (Process)

- Take a structured approach to meetings that gets s*** done (Traction)

Changing ingrained behaviors requires a cultural shift and some initial discomfort.

Soon enough, the new way of doing things just becomes how you naturally move in the biz.

  Less is more  

I recently took a week off of work at home.

It turned out to be the most productive week I’ve had in months.

How is that possible?

I ended up working about ½ time, at a relaxed and easy pace.

(After all, I was off!)

I’d do some high priority work, then take a walk and read for two hours at the park, then go back to work for a bit.

The stakes were lower and the pressure was off.

I felt awesome, and that energy carried through to my work and my meetings.

A light, easy touch made work feel effortless and fun.

Drive results and feel good doing it.

Instead of working more, try working easier.

  Smarter not harder  

Here's a new idea for a measurement on employee performance reviews:

The average time it takes to reply to internal emails/Slacks.

With a negative assessment if the time-to-reply is too fast.

Why?

Because it shows that the team member lacks focus.

That they are not entering into a deep, productive state of flow while working on high priority tasks.

Measure and reward working smarter, not harder.

  Choose short-term pain  

You know that feeling when you start a new daily workout routine?

The one that makes you hurt just thinking about it.

Those workouts SUCK.

Until they don't.

Until they are just how you move through the world.

Eventually, that daily workout becomes a part of how you identify yourself:

As "the type of person" who does this workout every day.

Missing even a day makes you feel bad, getting the workout done makes you feel whole.

New behaviors, practices, and processes in the workplace are no different.

The way you hire, fire, review, reward, and recognize. How you use data to make decisions. How you live your values.

Real behavior change requires short-term suffering.

But the long term upgrades to your business and your life are worth it.

  Progress over perfection  

Things leaders think they need for strategic planning:

- The perfect plan that requires zero learning cycles

- The perfect laundry list of 20 high-priority goals

- The perfect quarter-by-quarter roadmap for the next 3 years

Things that don't exist:

- The perfect plan that requires zero learning cycles

- The perfect laundry list of 20 high-priority goals

- The perfect quarter-by-quarter roadmap for the next 3 years

That's why 99% of businesses fail at strategic planning.

   the traits of a leader  

Bad leadership:

- Leaders surrounded by "yes men/women"

- Just do it, don't worry about why

- Micromanagement

- Plays politics

Good leadership:

- Leaders surrounded by people who challenge them

- Communicates expectations, then creates an opening

- Shares a clear vision that attracts the right people

- Creates a meritocracy

 Finding flow

Consciously shifting from a state of constant pressure and stress to one of easy flow is the foundation for growth.

For me, it's led to:

- Less stress

- Business ownership

- Better relationships

- Increased productivity

- Improved physical health

- More enjoyment of work and life

I like the way you move

The six key components of running a great business:

- Vision

- People

- Data

- Issues

- Process

- Traction

How to get started:

- Agree on where you're going & how you're getting there (Vision)

- Actively use your values to attract the right team members (People)

- Maintain a pulse on the biz w/a handful of weekly metrics (Data)

- Develop a problem-solving muscle, cadence & rhythm (Issues)

- Identify core functions & simplify tasks w/broad checklists (Process)

- Take a structured approach to meetings that gets s*** done (Traction)

Changing ingrained behaviors requires a cultural shift and some initial discomfort.

Soon enough, the new way of doing things just becomes how you naturally move in the biz.

  A beginner’s life

I had no idea what I wanted to do after college.

My first big break was in a role selling commercial internet bandwidth.

After that, I worked for a magazine and threw parties at clubs.

Then I spent the next 15+ years pursuing digital marketing and entrepreneurship.

Now, I help leadership teams run better businesses and live better lives.

All these past roles helped shape me, but none etched my future path in stone.

You always have the power to reinvent yourself and recreate your world.

In case you missed it:

I recently joined Bennett Maxwell on his podcast, Deeper Than Dough for an exploration of the power of intentional living.

A conversation on mindset shift, observing emotions, and embracing alternative healing approaches leads us into discussion on:

- How prioritizing purpose can unlock remarkable results

- Architecting daily life to transform work into a source of fulfillment

- Allowing your ideal life to organically emerge

- Powerful techniques for managing thoughts to create lasting change

Check out the full episode here:  

   6 keys to unlock growth

There are 6 foundational areas of your business that can be improved:

1. Vision - clarity about where you're going & how you're getting there

2. Process - the most important things done the right way, every time

3. Traction - executing every day with discipline and accountability

4. Data - running the business on hard facts vs. ego and emotion

5. People - a framework for ensuring right people, right seats

6. Issues - knocking down issues as they arise, forever

That's it.

  14,000 hours with leaders → 7 a-has

The creator of the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS), Gino Wickman, completed 2000 full-day EOS client sessions last year.

That’s 14,000+ hours in the room with the leadership teams of 135 companies.

Here are his biggest “Ahas” about what makes a company truly great.

The best-of-the-best companies all:

- Have rock stars in every seat on the leadership team

- Are 100% on the same page with Vision and Plan

- Are fanatical about resolution

- Treat each other as equals

- Love working together

- Are open and honest

- Speak one language

The #1 factor that determines a great company?

It's all of these “ahas” combined.

A strong leadership team 💪

  the #1 indicator of new hire success

Let’s keep it real:

The majority of candidates have the required skills to perform the core tasks of most jobs.

The more nuanced skills or knowledge can then be taught.

It’s time that companies hire based on values as much (or more) as skills and experience.

  R-e-s-p-e-c-t find out what it means to your team

Consider two leaders at two different companies. 

A and B, each in the same role within their respective organizations.

Leader A holds a company-wide meeting on March 16th, 2020.  He encourages his team to stay calm, don’t panic, we have a plan.

Leader B holds a company-wide meeting on March 16th, 2020.  She tells her staff that she doesn’t know what is going to happen and that there is nothing in their strategic plan that accounts for a global pandemic. Then she assures them that leadership is committed to helping the team make it through this together.

Leader A takes the best approach here by showing calm strength and certainty, right?

Wrong answer.  Leader B’s honesty and vulnerability is real, connecting her with her team on a human level. 

Vulnerability creates connection.  Connection generates trust.  Trust leads to safety.  And safety creates rock solid teams.

People can smell inauthenticity a mile away, even when it's well-intentioned.

If you want to build a team that will run through a wall for you and each other, respect their humanity.

Sock it to me.

  KISS

Dear Leaders,

Speak as if you are addressing kids in grade-school. 

Jargon and long-winded = confusion and overcompensating

Short and sweet = clarity and mastery

  Your mind is a part of your body

Before you sit down to start the day, try this and see what happens 👇

- Move your body

- Focus on your breath

- Visualize the day ahead

- Clear your mind and be still

At the end of the day, compare the day’s results (along with your energy-level and mood) with the day before. 

Let me know how it goes!

  Birth of a dynasty

The "triangle offense" was the offensive strategy used by the NBA Chicago Bulls during their dynasty years.

Michael Jordan, the game's best and most creative player, operated within the triangle offense framework.  At first he was not happy about this, as he believed it would put a chokehold on his  innovative style of play.  

But it turned out to be the platform upon which MJ demonstrated his creative artistry at its very highest expression.

Why am I writing about this here?

Like MJ, visionary business leaders need a framework that channels, aligns, and unleashes human energy within a company.

In other words, structure = freedom.

 Simple, not easy

What does an extraordinary corporate culture look like?

It's not complicated.

A great culture is one where employees feel:

- Empowered

- Supported

- Trusted

- Safe

Building a world-class culture may not be easy, but it IS simple.

  It’s the journey

Let's imagine that you want to lose 20 lbs. in 6 weeks.

Every day you get on the scale to track progress, you feel:

- Anxiety - am I tracking?

- Angst - why is this taking so long?

- Potential disappointment - +1lb this week, agh!

- Ultimate let down - so I finally hit my goal weight, now what?

Now, let's imagine that you want to live a healthier lifestyle that includes intermittent fasting, working out every morning, and eating smaller portions of nutritious foods. Every day you wake up and:

- Don't eat until 10am - win

- Work out for 30 minutes - win

- Eat a healthy, natural breakfast - win

- Skip the sugar and cream in your coffee - win

Dropping those 20lbs, and then some, are sure to follow.

Fall in love with the journey–the outcomes will take care of themselves.

💗 -->🚀

  You can’t pour out of an empty cup

Remember that you can always 👇🏻 :

- Take a day off

- Take a 30-minute nap 

- Take an hour for a workout 

- Turn off notifications when you need to focus

- Prioritize your health and well-being over any task

Quality of life = quality of work

  Keeping your finger on the pulse

A Scorecard is a handful of weekly numbers that give you an absolute pulse on the health of the business.

There are 7 Fundamental Truths you must believe to squeeze the most value from a Scorecard:

1) A Scorecard requires effort to build and manage, but it's worth it

2) You CAN have accountability in a high trust, healthy culture

3) A Scorecard gives you a pulse and the ability to predict

4) You must inspect what you expect

5) What gets measured gets done

6) Managing metrics saves time

7) One person owns it

A great Scorecard provides you the ability to proactively get out in front of issues as they arise.

The ideal number of measurables in a company scorecard is 5-15.

Simplify your business, run a better business, live a better life.

   Silver linings

  If I hadn’t become chronically ill 10-years ago, I'd probably still be:

- working too hard

- drinking too much

- living life reactively

- searching for my why

Was getting sick good luck? Bad luck? Who knows.

Take things as they come, the moment itself is only the pebble hitting the pond.

  Finding your sweet spot

Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.

Work contracts to fit the time we allot for it.

So what does this mean?

More time = more time wasted

Less time = more focus

There is a sweet-spot.

The exact right amount of focused work to get stuff one while ending your day in time to play with the kids.

  Hard truths  

Dear Leaders,

Here are some facts that might make you squirm 👇

(Apologies in advance)

- If you’re too busy to take a day away from the office to think strategically, your business is poorly organized.

- If you’re too important to turn your devices off that day, you’re a bottleneck.

- If you can’t explain what you do to a 10-year old in 60-seconds, your business is too complex.

- If everyone in the organization can’t offer this same explanation, your vision is unclear.

It’s ok, all of these issues can be solved.

Move forward, run a better business, live a better life.

  The upward spiral  

The Upward Spiral of World-Class Companies 🌪️:

- Vulnerability creates connection 👇

- Connection generates trust 👇

- Trust leads to safety 👇

- Safety paves the way for the free exchange of ideas 👇

- The free exchange of ideas enables innovation 👇

- Innovation is at the core of the world's best companies

Leaders, it all starts with your willingness to be open and honest with yourselves and those around you.

  My crystal ball is broken  

Do you have a working crystal ball?

If not, then planning every single quarter over the next 3-years is goofy.

For better results in less time, try this 👇

Get your leadership team together away from the office, turn off your devices, then work towards a consensus on these 4 things :

- Who we are - your values

- What is our focus - your “sweet spot”

- Where we are going - your biggest goals

- Who is going to get us there - your customers

Answer these big questions and the strategic decisions will take care of themselves.

  What about Bob  

Meet Bob.

He’s been around forever. Everyone loves Bob. No one knows what Bob actually does.

Say hello to Anna.

Anne crushes her numbers every quarter. She thinks everyone else on her team is an idiot and that her way is not only the right way, it's the ONLY way.

If you can find a seat for Bob where he can be accountable for excellent performance, fantastic.

If not, Bob has to go.

Anne is a cancer. With every smirk and side-eye, she gives the team permission to act in the wrong ways.

Anne HAS to go.

Saying bye to Bob and adios to Anne is not only what's best for the company, it's what's best for Bob and Anne.

Right people, right seats.

To build a great business, you have to have both - everywhere you look in your organization

  Action > Everything  

Dreamers are a dime a dozen. You and your team are the Doers.

  Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication  

Leaders.

Keep paring down all the complexity:

- Value proposition

- Target customers

- Messaging

- Processes

- Vision

- Focus

Everyone in the business should breathe the same air and speak the same language.

Organizational clarity is a foundational building block of great companies.

  Old habits die hard  

A doctor recently told me that my left and right brain are at war.

That there is an ongoing battle between conscious and unconscious.

My conscious mind knows that a light, effortless approach produces optimal health and performance.

My unconscious brain is on a freight train riding off the rails.

The outcome of that ongoing battle makes it easy to lock in and focus on some days, and impossible to do so on other days.

This past week, my "monkey mind" has been winning the war. So here's what I'm doing today to acknowledge that fight and to supply munitions to the conscious mind:

- Blocking out time for a walk (leaving the device at home)

- Seeing the massage therapist and the chiropractor

- Having a conversation with a friend

- Blocking out time for quiet study

Old habits die hard.

Breaking free of old behaviors requires walking down a path paved with intention.

  Peanut butter and jelly  

2 types of leaders are required to grow a company:

- Visionary - big ideas, creative problem solver, strategy

- Integrator - the glue, drives accountability and execution, beats drum

That’s about it.

  Big questions, simple answers  

 Leaders, remind your team of the answers to these questions, all day every single day 👇

- What do we want from our culture?

- What are our priorities?

- What is our vision?

Your team will:

- Love you (right people - more please) 💕

- Hate you (wrong people - buhbye) 😡

After the haters self-select themselves out of the business, the team that’s left is your ride or die.

Stop asking more questions and find 1000x ways to continually repeat the right ones.

  Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication  

Simple advice that will change your life and your business:

- Work ½ time for 1 week - see how it impacts productivity and energy

- Prioritize 1-3 things to get done every day.  Do them & nothing else

- Think about outcomes as the byproduct of doing the right things

- Find time for deep thought and reflection.  Block it out, protect it

- Unless you are an EMT or ER doc, chill out.  It ain’t life or death

- To get stuff done, think smart, not more

  Sorry not sorry  

Dear Leaders,

Here are some facts that might make you squirm 👇

(Apologies in advance)

- If you’re too busy to take a day away from the office to think strategically, your business is poorly organized.

- If you’re too important to turn your devices off that day, you’re a bottleneck.

- If you can’t explain what you do to a 10-year old in 60-seconds, your business is too complex.

- If everyone in the organization can’t offer this same explanation, your vision is unclear.

It’s ok, all of these issues can be solved.

Move forward, run a better business, live a better life.

   I’ll tell you what I want what I really really want  

The 5 things that motivate great team members:

- Clarity about where we are going and how we are going to get there

- Accountability with objective benchmarks for excellent performance

- Trust that I have the skills, drive, and experience to contribute

- Autonomy to perform my job without micromanagement

- Recognition when I do my job well

It's that simple.  

And a zig-a-zig-AHHH!

  Weekend warriors  

  Get some rest this weekend. Your performance next week will thank you.  

  The path of the executive  

As your career evolves, so do the things that matter most 👇

Early career:

- Winning 

- Earning potential

- Climbing the ladder

Mid career:

- Mastery

- Security

- Mentorship

Mature career:

- Purpose

- Relevancy

- Making a difference

From chasing wins to crafting legacies, evolve passionately at every stage.

  Leaving the grind behind  

You don’t need to work 60+ hours a week to be successful.

Try this instead 👇

- Operating with less urgency

- Applying a light, easy touch to work

- Focusing less on outcomes and more on doing the right things

Lower the life-or-death stakes of every moment for a better life AND improved performance.

To do your best work and live your best life, relax and flow.

  The good, the bad, the ugly  

Dear Leaders,

Take a step back and look at the company you built.

You and your team created all the great stuff in your business.

You also created all the problems and dysfunction.

Take responsibility for all of it, learn the hard lessons, and move forward.

  An overnight success decades in the making

There is virtually no such thing as an overnight success.

People only witness the victory lap.

Unseen are the years of sweat and struggle before the triumph.

  When they roll their eyes, you know it’s resonating  

Leaders, repeat yourself every single day until you are blue in the face.

- Your values

- Your focus

- Your vision

- Your priorities

Your team will:

- Be inspired

- Gain clarity

- Poke fun at you

- Be all in (right people) 🎯

- Weed themselves out (wrong people ) 🏃 💨

  What A-players really want  

Top performers don’t want:

- pizza and cupcakes

- fancy dinners

- happy hours

- award trips

- foosball

What they really want is:

- trust

- clarity

- autonomy

- recognition

- accountability

Growth and learning > shiny stuff

  Life or death leadership

The biggest mistake I made as an entrepreneur:

Pushing too hard.

In my founder and startup leader roles, every moment was life-or-death, win-or-lose.

Now, I:

- Delegate the things I don't like and am not good at

- Make time for rest and deep thought

- Relentlessly focus on top priorities

- Actively seek joy in work

- Play the long game

Flow = Sustainable high performance

  Entering the danger  

  When a world-class leader senses tension during a team meeting, she goes there.  

  True grit  

My first sales job involved sitting in a boiler room cube and cold calling small businesses in New Jersey.

I got really sick one day and asked my manager to go home early.

He smiled, took some air golf swings, and said “You know what will make you feel better, Justin? 20 more cold calls.” 

Then he laughed and walked away. 

So I made 20 more phone calls.  It didn’t make me feel any better, but I lived.

While his methods may have been questionable (and, in retrospect, hilarious), he taught me a lasting lesson about grit and tenacity.

I ended up getting promoted several times and earning 6-figures at the age of 23.

  You might be over indexing  

99% of the leadership teams I see don't spend enough time working "on" the business:

- Regular off-sites to cultivate alignment and team health

- Scheduled, protected blocks to allow space for deep thinking

- Investing time and effort to make meetings sacred and awesome

Too much chaos 🤹🏽

Not enough clarity 🤍

   New school leadership  

How to do leadership 👇🏼

Old Way

- Being available at all times shows commitment 

- Remedy for burnout is a 6-day vacation

- Exhaustion is the proof of hard work

- Daily mantra: Crush it

- Activity = productivity

New way

- Boundaries that show a focused commitment to priorities

- Remedy for burnout = not getting anywhere near burnout

- Sacred, protected time blocks for deep thinking

- Daily mantra: Find flow

- Optimize for outcomes

Sustainable Performance > Rise and Grind

  The stages of start-up leadership  

Stages of a startup leadership team 👇

- Beginner

- 24/7 pants on fire

- Chief Everything Officers

- Vision and execution are the same thing

Intermediate

- 24/7 pants on fire

- Defined functions and leadership seats 

- One leader owns vision, another owns execution

Advanced

- Crystal clear roles and accountabilities for each leader

- Vision and execution orchestrated with perfect harmony

- Relentless focus to optimize results and organizational clarity

Accelerating the journey from beginner-to-advanced requires intention.

Don't fall victim to a life dominated by the tyranny of the urgent.

  Groovy greatness  

In a world of endless distraction, it pays to establish groove habits.

But what are “groove habits” and how do they work?

Groove Habits 101:

- Identify and write down your values

- Do the same for your long-term vision

- Post both vision and values somewhere visible

- Create a list of daily activities that uphold your vision and values

- Schedule those activities (the first 30-60 days are going to be uncomfortable)

- Repeat those activities every day until they are a part of your identity

When you stop just "doing" those things and start to feel like you are “the kind of person” that does those things, you’ve established a new set of groove habits that affirm a life lived with intention.

Groovy ☮️

  Your top 3  

"The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why." – Mark Twain

Fridays are cool, too. 🕺🏽

  Untangling the web

My life has been defined by chronic illness for most of the past decade.

And yet, I’m so fortunate. Here is what I discovered 👇🏻 :

- How to go from fighting to curiosity about what I had to learn

- A passion for neuroscience and the mind-body connection

- The secrets of sustainable high-performance

- A world of support and friendship

- My “why”

In even the worst of experiences, there are positives to be found and things to learn.

I’m here to help others benefit from what I’ve learned personally and professionally, without having to undergo the suffering.

Be present, focus on the long-game, trust the process, and know that you’re never alone.

  The trust equation  

Dear Leaders,

Vulnerability opens the door for connection.

Connection leads to trust. 

Trust creates teams that will run through walls for you.

To build that kind of team, the first step is to break down your own walls. 

.

  The tonic for toxicity  

Worried that your company culture is toxic?

Answer "yes/no" to the following questions 👇

- My leaders trust their people

- Everyone has bought into our vision

- Employees are not punished for being honest

- All team members understand the thinking behind our decisions

- Employees have the support and clarity they need to be their best

If you answered "no" to any of these questions, you might have a toxic culture.

To attract and retain world-class talent, create a world-class culture.

Not all meetings are bad, just yours

Here's why you dread meetings 👇🏻:

- The same issues come up every week

- Everyone agrees with the boss (or says nothing)

- Nothing ever gets decided on, figured out, or done

- They are 50% reporting reviews and 50% aimless discussion

Here's how to fix your meetings forever.

In your next leadership meeting:

- Whiteboard a list of all your "forever issues"

- Prioritize the top three most important

- Dig beneath the symptom of your top priority to identify the real root cause of the issue

- Discuss briefly with all stakeholders (repetition is politicking)

- Solve for the greater good of the business with specific, time-constrained, measurable actions assigned to a leader for ultimate accountability 

- Roll on to to your 2nd priority, rinse repeat

Develop this rhythm in every meeting, stop wasting thousands of hours, run a better business, have more fun, live a better life.

  it rolls downhill  

Early in my career, I was fired from a sales role.

I was the top sales performer in the company at the time.  So I asked the senior executive who fired me why I was being terminated.

"Performance" he replied.

The next thing he said was “You have 30 minutes to clean your desk and leave.”  Then my direct boss (who also was just fired) and I went and got a beer.

A few months later, the same exec who fired me was no longer with the company.  My guess is that when he asked why he was being terminated, the CEO replied “Performance.”

How a company’s leadership chooses to treat its people impacts all of its people.

To earn respect, always treat others with respect.

  I need it yesterday  

Dear Leaders,

Your lack of planning should not be your employees’ emergency.

  Fun day Friday  

It's Friday.

Great job adulting!

Want to be better next week?

Go play this weekend.

🧘🎳💃🏽 🎮🤸‍♂️🏌🏿‍♂️ 🍺 🎵

Adulting will be patiently waiting for you at your desk on Monday

  Who loves you  

Drinking too much alcohol is really bad for me because of a chronic illness.

When I was traveling a lot, people gave me a hard time for not drinking.

So I had a whole collection of excuses.

“I’m on medication / saving up for a wedding right after the conference / have a presentation early tomorrow AM.”

A lot of times I caved, drank, had fun, and then flew home and crawled into bed for a week.

Not drinking has never been about my opinion of others and has never had an impact on anyone else. 

I’m happy when people around me are having a good time, that energy is infectious.  I also love a nice glass of wine, a cold beer, a bourbon on the rocks, and have consumed more than my fair share of all of these over the course of my life.

So why did people get so upset when I wasn’t holding a drink?

There have been many times in my life when I was drinking and those around me were not.  If I’m being honest, I felt like their abstinence was a form of judgment, and that made me feel bad about my own choices.  I wanted the permission to drink that was implicitly granted by everyone around me engaging in the same activity.

Now it just makes me sad that I felt that I had to lie to save face.

The only reason people care what you do is because of how it makes them feel about themselves.

So always treat people right and then unapologetically do what’s right for you.

The only life you are living is your own.

  Going with your gut  

Early in my career I started a new job at a very traditional company.

Every time I questioned the way something was done, I heard “That’s the way we do things here.”

Every time I suggested trying something new, I heard “That’s not the way we do things here.”

So I stopped questioning and started doing.

One year later, I set an all-time company sales record.

Trust your gut and never let the naysayers get you down.

If people say you’re crazy, you just might be on the right track

I'm thrilled to share my recent podcast appearance on the  "Vertical Go-To-Market Podcast," where I delve into my transformative journey with EOS and its impact beyond business.

In this episode, you'll discover:

- My path to becoming an EOS Implementer.

- Overcoming challenges with EOS principles.

- The role of EOS in personal and professional growth.

Tune in here

I'd love to hear your thoughts or any insights you might have after listening.

  That which is in motion  

I have had:

- 10 surgeries 

- Countless sprains and breaks

- 10+ years of chronic illness and nervous system damage 

- Zero easy cures or answers

But I won’t let my son grow up without a Dad he can play ball with.

So last year I had my knee and shoulder operated on (again) in the space of three months.. 

The only failure is no longer trying.

Never live in fear.  Never give up.

  Time for a gut check  

Great leaders are motivated by:

- Duty to serve 

- Joy and enthusiasm for the work

- Vision for a better, brighter future

- People, and the desire to help them 

- Growth and a thirst for learning and improvement

The worst leaders are motivated by ego, money, power, status, and expectations. They are destined to be bad at their job and unhappy with life as long as they are in a leadership role.  They’d be happier doing something else, but their ego and/or the  external pressures they feel (whether real or imagined) won’t allow them to pursue a path of real fulfillment. 

What motivates you?

  Perks v. Purpose  

Parties, gym memberships, and pizza days are all nice.

But here is what great people really want 👇🏼 :

- Trust 

- Clarity

- Support

- Recognition

- Accountability

What do you get when you create this environment?

Combined with a clear vision that everyone is bought into?

🚀 Rocket fuel, baby. 🚀

  Smart comp or dumb money  

Dear Leaders,

The next time you are about to lose an awesome team member due to pay, consider the following:

- Cost of a vacant seat

- Cost of hiring lesser talent

- Cost of recruiters and staffing agencies

- Cost of time spent onboarding new talent

- Cost of time spent searching for and interviewing new talent

Then give that team member a raise.

The entrepreneur’s creed

Don’t grow just to grow.

Don’t scale just to scale.

Don’t do anything because that’s just what you are supposed to do.

For every decision big and small, know your why.

  Who loves you  

Years ago, a perpetually ticked off Southwest Airlines customer wrote a series of complaint letters to the company.

She hated the jokes.

She didn’t like not having an assigned seat.

She was not happy about the boarding procedure.

The last letter she wrote made its way to CEO, Herb Kelleher.

Herb penned this note in response:

“Dear Mrs. Crabapple, We will miss you.  Love, Herb.”

You can’t be all things to all people.

Know your customer and focus 100% on making them happy.

  Priority #1  

Remember that you can always 👇🏻  :

- Take a day off

- Bow out for a 30-minute nap 

- Devote an hour a workout 

- Turn off notifications when you need to focus

- Prioritize your health and well-being over any task

And STILL be successful.

To be fully happy with work, you need to be fully happy with life. 

  Taming the beast  

Steps to take control of a chaotic business :

- Define what is most important. This is your unique Vision

- Agree and align on the Vision with your leadership team

- Use your Vision as a North Star for making decisions

- Identify actions and behaviors to bring your Vision to life

- Do those things continually, make them habitual

Living and working with intention is not easy, but it can be simple.

  The road, not the destination  

Some hard-won lessons I’ve learned over the years:

- Life happens in the trenches

- Great habits eventually produce great results

- Most overnight successes are years in the making

- Anything worth having is worth working for

- The work can be its own reward

When you find joy in the journey, results are sure to follow.

 Your zone of genius

You were born a genius. 

You learned to walk, talk, play, and work.

Then you went out into the wild and created an entire world for yourself.

Think about all the places you’ve been and experiences you’ve had.

The evidence of your genius is all around you.

You are truly the master architect of your own life.

Never doubt your brilliance.

Always believe in your power to create the life you want to live.

  We never disagree  

Dear Leaders,

If your team never disagrees with you, it's probably not because they think you are always right.

  Now or later  

If you are stressed, tired, and pushing yourself past your limit, please read this short fable by Brazilian writer and author of The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho.

It will be the most powerful 60-seconds of your weekend.

"There was once a businessman who was sitting by the beach in a small Brazilian village.

As he sat, he saw a Brazilian fisherman rowing a small boat towards the shore having caught quite a few big fish.

The businessman was impressed and asked the fisherman, 'How long does it take you to catch so many fish?'

The fisherman replied, 'Oh, just a short while.'

'Then why don’t you stay longer at sea and catch even more?' The businessman was astonished.

'This is enough to feed my whole family,' the fisherman said.

The businessman then asked, 'So, what do you do for the rest of the day?'

The fisherman replied, 'Well, I usually wake up early in the morning, go out to sea and catch a few fish, then go back and play with my kids. In the afternoon, I take a nap with my wife, and evening comes, I join my buddies in the village for a drink — we play guitar, sing and dance throughout the night.'

The businessman offered a suggestion to the fisherman.

'I am a PhD in business management. I could help you to become a more successful person. From now on, you should spend more time at sea and try to catch as many fish as possible. When you have saved enough money, you could buy a bigger boat and catch even more fish. Soon you will be able to afford to buy more boats, set up your own company, your own production plant for a canned food and distribution network. By then, you will have moved out of this village and to Sao Paulo, where you can set up HQ to manage your other branches.'

The fisherman continues, 'And after that?'

The businessman laughs, “After that, you can live like a king in your own house, and when the time is right, you can go public and float your shares in the Stock Exchange, and you will be rich.”

The fisherman asks, 'And after that?'

The businessman says, 'After that, you can finally retire, you can move to a house by the fishing village, wake up early in the morning, catch a few fish, then return home to play with kids, have a nice afternoon nap with your wife, and when evening comes, you can join your buddies for a drink, play the guitar, sing and dance throughout the night!'

  Searching for meaning  

10 years ago, I was diagnosed with an incurable viral illness that destroyed my nervous system.

I was scared and depressed, robbed of the life I had always dreamed of.

But then I realized that I had a choice to make.

Let circumstances control me, or take control of my circumstances.

2 months later I went on a 100-day solo backpacking trip through SE Asia. I saw some of the most beautiful places on Earth.

I came home and co founded a music marketing technology company that today has 100+ employees.

Then I led the marketing team at a tech start-up in the emerging cannabis industry.

After that I helped drive explosive growth at one of the fastest growing digital marketing firms in the country.

Those challenges have made life interesting.

Overcoming my fear has made life meaningful.

  Where are you headed?  

Do you have a personal 10-year target?

Here’s mine, along with what it does for me:

80%+ physical, financial, and professional freedom.

Every day I look at my 10-year target on a whiteboard and ask myself, "Will the actions I take today move me away from or closer to this vision?"

It serves as a daily, decision-making North Star.

(It’s also saved my a$$ from making poor, impulsive decisions on more than one occasion.)

In a world of chaos and distraction, this simple statement keeps me centered on the path towards deep happiness and fulfillment.

  What’s yours?  

  Death and taxes  

You’re going to die.

I am too.

We are all headed to the same place. No amount of fear will prevent this fate.

So stop being afraid.

Move forward, with love and compassion for yourself and for each other.

Have the courage to take on new challenges.

Forget about the years in your life, focus on the life in your years.  It's the only thing we control.

Live fearless.

  The rising tide  

A scarcity mindset means that for every person that wins, someone else loses.

An abundance mindset means that we all win together.

  Which do you choose?  

This doesn’t work in parenting or leadership

Dear Leaders,

Saying how much you care about your team while bragging about yourself is not a good look.

Talk is cheap.  Walking the walk speaks volumes.

  The gap or the gain  

I’ve battled chronic illness for a decade. At times I’ve lost all hope.

Then Covid knocked me down even further.

Right as I was launching a new business, I could barely get out of bed for a month.

So I finally stopped fighting and started searching for what this experience could teach me.

And that’s when the pain finally started to fade.

I learned that gratitude is the answer to overcome seemingly impossible problems.

Obstacles are a part of life.

But gratitude is always a choice.

  Trust the process  

Goals = failure every day until you cross the finish line.

Including a focus on Systems = success every day when you do the right things.

Fall in love with the journey. The results will follow.

  The activity illusion  

Dear Leaders,

Activity does not equal productivity.

PS - Neither does responding to every Slack within 3 minutes.

The Top 5 Reasons Why Your Meetings Stink

Here's why your meetings are where productivity goes to die:

1) They are a laundry list of "stuff we did/that happened" (which makes the meeting feel like a weekly check-in with your probation officer).

2) The same issues are brought up and go unresolved every week, forever and ever.

3) Everyone ultimately agrees with the boss (or stays silent if they do not).

4) They are unfocused and all over the map.

5) Nothing actually gets decided on, figured out, or done as a result.

Want to run meetings that are actually worth your time and effort?

- Make them the place for raucous, impassioned, knock-down-drag-out debates about the root issues in your business.

- Develop a meeting discipline and cadence to solve those root issues, with clear accountability and alignment around time-constrained action plans.

How can everyone walk out of the room/Zoom on good terms after 60 minutes of shouting, tears, and blood letting?  Because:

- the team has a clear, commonly understood vision that serves as a North Star when problems arise and decisions must be made.

- everyone has had a chance to be heard, without politicking.

- the greater good always wins.

- your culture prioritizes any decision vs. no decision at all.

TLDR; revitalize your meetings by converting them from meandering time-sucks into decisive, solution-focused sessions where every voice matters and progress triumphs over politics.

Revenue vs Reality

Are your company goals tied exclusively to revenue?

If so, your team is likely confused and misaligned. Here’s why:

Acme Consulting’s 3-year goal is to hit $10M in annual revenue.  Simple enough, right?  Not so fast.

The head of sales has a picture in her mind’s eye of 100 clients each generating $100K in revenue.  The ops leader envisions 1000 clients at $10K a pop. The company founder sees 100 employees and three offices.  The head of HR imagines a hybrid office/remote team of 50 working out of HQ, along with a reliable crew of international contractors.

Yikes.

Want to dramatically increase the likelihood of hitting your goals?

Paint a clear picture of what the business looks like next quarter, a year, and three-years from now.  Imprint that vision deep within the leadership team’s collective skull.

Of course revenue targets need to be on this canvas.  So does profit.

Then add 10-15 descriptive bullet points that crystalize what the company will look like - hard measurables, plus things like new products or markets/verticals entered, # of employees and customers, big victories and recognition, technology additions, etc.

Once this picture is clear in the mind’s eye of your team, all departmental decisions that ultimately impact these singular outcomes can align. 

The odds of making your goals a reality just increased exponentially, sans the chaos, confusion, and tragic decisions.

The clock is ticking.

Simple, Not Easy

Simplicity is HARD.

In fact, one of the hardest things in the world is taking something that is complex and making it simple.  But if you can accomplish this - magic.

See: the iPhone

Ask any entrepreneur or leadership team if they want MORE complexity in their business.  They'll likely ask what you're smoking (and possibly if they can have some)..

Creating simplicity requires deep thinking, introspection and reflection.  It requires taking a step up and out of your business to look at all the moving parts and pieces.  Then seamlessly weaving them together.

Simplicity is HARD.

And nothing great in life - or business - ever comes easy.

The Numbers That Matter

You're on vacation.

You just woke up from a nap.  It's 2:30pm as you take your first sip of a fresh margarita.

(again, you're on vacation!)

You're sitting on the balcony, gazing out at the waves gently lapping the sandy shore.  It's day 7 of a two-week trip. You pop open your laptop to check in on last week's numbers.

You open a single-page document comprised of a set of numbers that define winning for your organization, that provide a pulse on the absolute health of the business.  5-15 measurables/KPIs that are more numbing than enabling, comprised of leading (vs. lagging) indicators that allow you to see into the future and make course corrections BEFORE ultimate outcomes are impacted.

After a 3-minute review of said report, you either:

1) Close the laptop, exhale, and call down to room service to order ahead for a....hmmm, let's switch it up...pina colada.

2) Email the head of ops to ask a quick clarifying question about an off-track number.

3) Check your leadership team's calendar and schedule an all-hands-on Zoom meeting first thing tomorrow morning while profusely apologizing to your spouse.

You just took an absolute pulse on the business in 180-seconds.  You just spotted any problems as they appeared and made moves to quickly solve for them.  Immediately, before those minor molehills became major mountains.

Does this sound like a fantasy?

(The two-week vacation and/or the at-a-glance pulse?)

It should be your reality.

LESS IS MORE.

A Future of Gratitude Or Regret

It's Monday morning.

You're staring blankly at your screen.  You just want to go back to bed.

Ok, take a deep breath.  Wipe the sleep out of your eyes and think about what you want your life to look like in 10-years.  You're going to blink and be in that place.  The place where your vision is either a reality or it isn't.

Now, will the next thing you do, and the thing after that, and the thing after that, move you in the direction of making your vision real? If so, choose to take a step in that direction.  With intention.

Feel your blood starting to flow?

(granted, that could also be the coffee)

And if you don't have a vision?  Well, guess the winds will blow you wherever they choose. 

Good luck.

The Reading List

My passions meet at the intersection of health + well being, business leadership, and human performance. Here is a short list of books read over the past few years that have impacted my thinking, behavior, and motivation:

- Traction by Gino Wickman

- Essentialism by Greg McKeown

- Breath by James Nestor

- Dopamine Nation by Anna Lembke, MD

- The Wim Hof Method by Wim Hof

- The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni

- Get a Grip by Gino Wickman & Mike Paton

- The Untethered Soul by  Michael Singer

- 10% Happier by Dan Harris

- The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday

- Fiber Fueled by Will Bulsiewicz, MD

- How to be a Great Boss by Gino Wickman and Rene Boer

- Life in the Fasting Lane by Eve Mayer, Dr. Jason Fung, and Megan Ramos

- Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport

- Mastery by George Leonard

- Atomic Habits by James Clear

- Leadership and Self-Deception by The Arbinger Institute

A master’s degree for about $250 or the price of a library card.

The Fuel For Your Fire

When my son was about 2 he opened the door to my office last week and poked his head around the corner.

He bopped his way over to my desk with a little grin and shouted "Daddy working!"  Then he climbed up on my lap and started pounding away on the keyboard.

He looked so proud, working like Daddy.

I've read a million books on motivation and drive.

But that single moment will fuel me for the rest of my career.

Make Your Values Mean Something

With 2024 kicking off, it's the ideal time for leaders to take stock and reassess company values (provided you have them!).  

Get your leadership team in a room and ask yourselves these questions:

 Are we using our company values to attract the right people and repel the wrong ones?

 Do our values reflect who we truly are, or are they aspirational (who we want to be)?

 Are our values accidental, or have they been intentionally fostered and cultivated?"

 Are our current values permission to play (i.e., minimum standards of behavior, like “hard working” and “integrity”) or do they represent what makes us truly unique and special?

 Were our values designed to solve a problem (i.e., “accountability” at an organization where accountability is an issue) or do they reflect how we actually show up?

The definitive thought-piece on organizational culture was written by Patrick Lencioni and published in Harvard Business Review.

It’s a must-read for all leaders and entrepreneurs who want to build something special.

Where Attention Goes, Energy Flows

  This image (from the book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown) has been on my office wall for years.   

Anytime I feel scattered or in a spiral, I look up at this, take a deep breath, and recalibrate to channel 100% of my focus towards the things that matter most. 

Of course, in order to harness your energy in the best way possible, you first have to identify what is truly important! This is a great time in your cycle to pause and do some deep thinking about what is most essential in your business and life before going head down into the new year.

Process Is Freedom

Most businesses struggle with constantly reinventing the wheel for even their most core functions. 

Why?

Authoring a 700-page SOP manual is the definition of pain and suffering.

Creating a doc that is destined to languish in the depths of a forgotten Google Drive folder--the juice just ain't worth the squeeze. 

It doesn't have to be this way - use the 20/80 rule to streamline and simplify core processes to ensure that the right things get done the right way, every time, by everyone. 

Here's a collection of short posts about how to stand up processes that make your business more scalable, efficient, and fun.

Cogs Or Colleagues

I recently had a conversation with a leader who said something that hit me like a ton of bricks:

"When your team feels disconnected from your vision, they just see themselves as button-pushing, paycheck-collecting cogs in your machine."

So many would-be great organizations struggle to bring their values down to the ground and stich them into the fabric of day-to-day business. 

Here's a great post by fellow EOS Implementer, Leonard Lynskey, that outlines practical, straight-forward ways leaders can bring their vision and values to life.

Your One Non-Negotiable 

Everyone loves Bob. But no one really knows what Bob does; they just know that he fits the culture like a glove and that he's an OG. Bob IS the company.

Anne crushes her numbers every quarter. She thinks everyone else is an idiot (and mistakenly believes that she does a good job hiding this) and that her way is not only the right way, it's the ONLY way.

If you can find a seat for Bob where he can be held accountable for producing consistently excellent performance, fantastic. If not, Bob has to go.

Anne is quietly chipping away at your culture in ways you can't even see. With every smirk and side-eye that you choose to ignore, your credibility as a leader takes a hit. Anne HAS to go.

Saying bye to Bob and adios to Anne is not only what's best for the company, it's what's best for Bob and Anne.

Right people in the right seats.

It's non-negotiable. To build a great business, you have to have both - everywhere you look in your organization.

   From Chaos to Clarity  

In my 20s, I possessed the ability to engage in linear, hyper-focused thought for hours at a time.

Fast forward 20+ years - my brain has been rewired and my body worn down. 

Umpteen devices forever ding and buzz, competing for attention and drowning my brain in dopamine.  I’ve battled chronic illness for a decade.

And yet, today I’m more productive than ever.

How?

I use an operating system, a framework that stands up guidelines.

Guard posts that channel energy efficiently, steering me clear of distractions. Guiding me towards goals and turning erratic energy into focused momentum. Adopting this approach, I've become productive and purposeful. 

Pick an OS, commit to it, use it to plan and execute your business and life.

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