Your Blindspot
TL;DR: Most of your decisions aren’t decisions. They’re old code running in the background. Subroutines you installed years ago, still executing today. Until you see them, they decide your career for you. Here’s how to catch them. I once watched a brilliant VP turn down a promotion. Not because the role was wrong. Because a […]
The Skill of Reinventing Yourself
The email lands on a Tuesday. Your role has been eliminated. So you do what everyone does. You polish the resume. You send it out fifty times. Then a hundred. Nothing comes back. Is anyone even reading these? No. Nobody is. Recruiters use AI to find candidates in 2026. If AI can’t find you, you […]
Retirement might never come for you
I was out for dinner last week. Nothing special, just a local place I like. A few tables over sat a guy, maybe mid-forties, the polished kind you see in IT leadership. He was there with his wife and two kids. And the whole time, his phone owned him. Work, from the look of it. […]
It’s about the person.
When I started out, I thought leadership was a checklist. Skills. Commitments. Accountability. Outcomes. I ran my teams like a system diagram, all boxes and arrows. Twenty years in, I barely lead anyone that way anymore. I used to lead the work. Now I lead the person. Early on, every conversation with my team was […]
Nobody starts out great.
One of my business partners asked me a question a couple weeks back that stuck with me. “What does it actually take to hire the rockstars everybody brags about? The Spotify, Netflix, Anthropic kind of people.” My answer surprised him. Sometimes it takes money. But most of the time? It takes a shot at glory. […]
Let the ink dry.
Three months in. Two solid clients. A real pipeline. And she wanted to scrap the whole thing. I was working with a former Fortune 100 VP last fall. Smart. Senior. She had finally landed on a positioning that didn’t make her wince when she said it out loud. Fractional COO for early stage healthtech. We […]
“I just know I’m in the wrong place.”
“I know I’m in the wrong place.” This feeling resonates in many careers, where the gap between knowing and doing leads to despair. The more time we invest in a job, the harder it becomes to leave, even if it no longer fits. The real question is: what is staying costing you? If you feel stuck, consider reassessing your environment and seek what truly fulfills you. Let’s explore this together!
The New Game of Building Relationships
In 2026, building relationships has transformed. Gone are the days of simply collecting business cards. Now, it’s about creating emotional connections through valuable content. With AI, anyone can connect with professionals. But beware: if you go dark, your presence fades. Building relationships is a resilience tactic. Discover how to thrive in this new landscape and keep your professional brand vibrant. Start mastering relationship building today!
You Sound Like AI
How Not to Sound Like AI When You Use AI in Executive Communication One of our directors sent his weekly update to the leadership team on a Tuesday. It was clean. Well-organized. Three tight paragraphs, each wrapping up with a tidy takeaway. His VP read it and thought: Did Marcus actually write this? Not because […]
The Science of Being Late, Notoriously.
Late again. The room goes quiet for a half-second. Everyone notices. He just can’t be on time. So disrespectful. That’s the story we tell. It feels true. It feels obvious. But here’s the problem. It’s usually wrong. Chronic lateness almost never comes from disrespect. It comes from a brain running on broken math — and […]