Hey Reader, Think about the best leader you ever wanted to work with. Someone whose opinion you really cared about, whose projects you wanted to be on, and whom you wanted to impress. Maybe you’d been watching them from a distance for a while, waiting for the moment you’d finally get to work alongside them. And when that moment came, it was different from what you’d expected. They were as sharp as you’d imagined. They moved fast in meetings, spotted gaps in arguments, and set a high standard....
7 days ago • 3 min read
Hey Reader, We’ve all probably been through this situation: You’ve woken up, and all you want is another hour in bed. You know you love your work, but you just need a little more time to mentally prepare, put off a rough day, or just delay the rest of the world for a while. That feeling is normal. Sometimes all we need are those extra five minutes. But sometimes we can have a string of those days in a row. At first we tell ourselves it’s just a rough day. Then it might turn into a rough week,...
14 days ago • 3 min read
Hey Reader, There’s a certain kind of energy that appears while preparing for something that’s high-stakes. You’re doing all the work. You’re familiar with the process, and still there’s this knot in your stomach whenever you think about the big moment. Somehow, no matter how much you prepare, there’s always something that you second-guess. The version of yourself that could handle everything effortlessly just doesn’t seem to appear. I don’t think there’s a single leader who hasn’t been in...
21 days ago • 3 min read
Hey Reader, A friend of mine reached out to me a while back. He's a senior leader who has spent decades building a career he was genuinely proud of. The kind that looks impressive on paper and earns respect in any room. He had the title, a strong team, and hit financial goals. But something had changed. He told me he needed a path that felt closer to his own idea of success. The next time we met in person, we talked through what his new path might be, and I asked him what his version of...
28 days ago • 3 min read
Hey Reader, Most of us are carrying deadlines we’ve never said out loud. Life figured out by 30. Married with kids by 35. Big promotion by 40. Nobody hands it to you on paper, but you feel it. The timeline of where you're supposed to be by now, and how far ahead or behind that makes you. In my own career, I’ve struggled with using speed (or the corporate-polite word, trajectory) as a way to measure my worth. I wanted to make partner as much as anyone, and the “when” sometimes looked more...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Hey Reader, A few years back, I was working with a CFO, and early on in the project, things were looking rocky. Each time we met with him, he’d seem unsatisfied even though we were doing good work. None of us could figure out what we were getting wrong. There was one weekend when I couldn’t let it go. I was the lead on that project, so it was on me to understand why he was so frustrated with us. When I thought about it more, I realized that the work itself wasn’t the issue. How we...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Hey Reader, When did you last do something specifically to get better at your job? If you’re having trouble coming up with an answer, you’re not the only one. Most of us leaders follow the same path without even realizing it. Early in our careers, our main focus is on developing our skills. Great organizations invest in our learning, training opportunities, and chances to grow. We’re paired with mentors who are genuinely in our corner, and we spend days or weeks each year centered on growth...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Hey Reader, There was a period in my career where I went from exceeding expectations to just meeting them. I got passed over for a couple of opportunities that I’d normally be a shoo-in for. Nobody said anything at the time. There wasn’t a grand intervention to get me back on track. But inside, it felt like I was going through a crisis. I was the person who delivered results. I was the leader people could count on. And soon I realized that I saw “meeting expectations” as an attack on my core...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Hey Reader, I’ve noticed there’s one person who’s come up in the last few newsletters that I haven’t named yet: My mentor, Mike. Over the past 15 years, we’ve worked together on countless projects, navigated some tricky situations, and had a lot of honest conversations with each other. Reflecting on my years of working with Mike, I wanted to spend this week exploring what it means to be a good mentor. A lot of us might have been the mentee over the course of our careers, but might not have a...
2 months ago • 3 min read