The Golden Thread Clear Vision → Clear Priorities → Clear Path tBOJ: Season 3 drops in Jan! with Anthony Trucks, Dr. Benjamin Hardy, Jason Barnard, and more! Clarity Isn't Looking For YOU. You Have to Go Find It. Sometimes you’ve got to do what it takes. For me it was disappearing into the middle of nowhere for two days. Away from the office. Away from the routine. Away from the noise. Me, a hotel, flipcharts, and all of the coffee.Why? Not because I enjoy being somewhere so remote the only...
13 days ago • 2 min read
The Golden Thread Clear Vision → Clear Priorities → Clear Path Why Traction Creates New Problems Most business owners think the hard part is getting off the ground. ‘Fraid not. New pain starts after you get traction. Welcome to the messy middle, aka business purgatory. The messy middle is the stage where your business is successful enough to be chaotic, but not designed well-enough to run without you. It’s the point where: 🔸 The founder can’t personally keep all the plates spinning anymore. 🔸...
20 days ago • 2 min read
The Golden Thread Clear Vision → Clear Priorities → Clear Path If I could ask one favor of you: If you find this email valuable, forward it to one business owner who gets it. They can subscribe here. Let's be that founder-to-founder support system we all need. 🤝🏻 You Can’t Outwork a Leadership Problem If you’re like I was - and I hope you're not - you're spending too much time still trying to outwork the problems.I'm telling ya, that’s not the answer. That’s being a good employee, not a good...
27 days ago • 4 min read
The Golden Thread Clear Vision → Clear Priorities → Clear Path If I could ask one favor: If you find this email valuable, forward it to one friend who gets it. They can subscribe here. Let's be that founder-to-founder support system we all need. 🤝🏻 The Founder's Guide to Handcuffing Yourself to Your Business. Guaranteed. Most founders don’t realize they’re the ones tightening the cuffs. To the business owner who says they want freedom. And tries to figure out “How can I get all this stuff...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
The Golden Thread Clear Vision → Clear Priorities → Clear Path Everything Gets Redesigned Eventually Last week Kelly and I went to an Alpha School showcase. And I appreciated it for reasons I wasn’t expecting. Alpha School is a fascinating concept. Self-paced learning. AI feedback loops. Mastery instead of memorization. All very important to us. But what really caught our attention is this: It’s a school built around: - appealing to kids, - how they learn best, and - making good use of their...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
The Golden Thread business alignment ↔ leadership ↔ strategy ↔ systems Feeling Not Ready Is the Sign You Are You don’t get in shape before you hire a trainer. You hire the trainer to get in shape. A couple of days ago I had a great conversation with a founder who is two years in business. She’s sharp and has a great service. They’re growing and the momentum is picking up. When I mentioned quarterly planning, she said: “I don’t know about that... I can't see past one to two months ahead right...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
The Golden Thread business alignment ↔ leadership ↔ strategy ↔ systems If You Are the System, You Are a Bottleneck Last week I was on a call with a client who swore he didn’t have an operations problem. ‘We’ve got systems for everything,’ he’s telling me. ‘The issue is people not following them.’ So I asked him to walk me through his week. By Tuesday afternoon, he had personally approved four invoices, fielded a hiring question, fixed a client’s onboarding form, and rewritten a team email...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
The Golden Thread business alignment ↔ leadership ↔ strategy ↔ systems Moments of Proof vs. Moments of Truth My last company dominated client experience for a decade, in large part due to something I called Moments of Proof and Moments of Truth. Here's the story: I called a meeting and asked my team: “What is everyone else doing to deliver their best client experience?” We filled a whiteboard with the usual suspects. The things competitors brag about... Then I said: “Great. From now on, their...
2 months ago • 3 min read
The Golden Thread business alignment ↔ leadership ↔ strategy ↔ systems The Mystery of Misalignment As owners we’re always trying to nail down the problem. “We need a better strategy.” “It’s a people issue.” “Ops has always been our weak spot.” But in most cases, that’s a misdiagnosis. It’s not one problem in one area. It’s the lack of alignment between three things: ✅ Leadership ✅ Strategy ✅ Systems When those aren’t working together, the business drags. Any progress made is capped by how...
2 months ago • 2 min read