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.

I Was Wrong

I thought climate change was overblown. Not a casual opinion. A considered one. I had spent decades inside corporate structures, watching how data gets weaponised for agendas on every side of every argument. I was skeptical of the volume. I thought the urgency was exaggerated and that business, if it got serious, could course-correct. That...

The Muscle Left the Building

It’s the last weekend in August. Which means September begins shortly. And we all know what that brings. Our energy changes, our focus gets very clear, and with four months left in the year, some of us, after taking stock of our progress this year, declare our efforts as simply not enough. Yikes! Optimism does...

The Door We Lock Ourselves

A woman told me last week that her life’s work can’t be translated into business language. Twenty years of trying, she said, and the honest answer is it simply can’t be done. I spent more time obsessing about that response than I meant to. Here’s what I eventually decided. The only way she’s ever reached...

Luck With a Maintenance Contract

Two weeks ago, my city flooded for the first time in almost a hundred years. Sixteen inches of rain fell in three days. A week later, every street told the same story: front lawns stacked with floorboards, carpet, mattresses, gym equipment, baby cribs. Everything that used to live in someone’s basement, sitting on the curb....

One more Courage to Live, Love and Lead

This is the final piece in the trilogy: Think Big, Choosing Vintage First, and Steward the Planet. And fair warning: this one is likely the most provocative. I need you to set aside your beliefs about organized religion and whatever else you’ve come to believe over your life, just for the next few minutes. You...

More Courage to Live, Love, Lead

This is part two of the series: Think Big, Choose Vintage First, Steward the Planet. This one is about Choosing Vintage First. First, my definition. Take your age today and subtract 60. Whatever you had at that point in your life is vintage. Its time has gone. Think fashion, design, colours, cars, homes. If you’re...

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....