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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
There is something I keep noticing in the conversations I’ve been having with colleagues and clients this month. The pattern is consistent enough that I think it belongs here, in the wider community. For years, I was the person with the colour-coded planner, the non-negotiable morning routine, and the running list of serious, ambitious things […]