A few years ago, as I was preparing my “induction speech” as the incoming President of EO St Louis, waves of nervousness kept preventing me from getting my remarks where I wanted. I am typically not one to get stage fright, but in this case, the stakes felt a little higher to me. My term also coincided with our chapter’s 25th anniversary. We were inviting a couple hundred of our “alumni” in addition to the …
I\’ve been talking with some peeps about a leadership scholarship I am starting at my high school. They asked me to pass it on to them when it was complete…so I figured, I might as well share it publicly and hopefully inspire others to do something similar. My alma mater, Northwest High School is an interesting one: a big school with over 2300 kids and lots of really good people, but like a lot of …
Most creative solutions come from looking at the same problem in a new way; reframing by asking “What are we really trying to accomplish here?” over and over until a new insight is unlocked. It reminds me of a story I heard about a moving truck many years ago that was being driven through Colorado. They were navigating for hours through the tough windy switchbacks and ultimately came upon a tunnel that had been …
The finish line was in sight…so I went into a full blown, all out sprint. I wanted to finish my first half-marathon, my first race, leaving nothing out on the course. If I can only get to that finish line, all this pain will be worth the pride. As I approached all the signage and structures from where I excitedly began a little over an hour and a half earlier, I was really surprised at …
Have you ever been in a conversation and someone questions your idea or strategy making you get just a little frustrated and annoyed? Yeah, me neither. Recently this happened to me and I found myself getting a little short/snippy with my team and was not receptive to the suggestions and feedback they were providing. Fortunately, we’ve built enough trust as a leadership team that they came to me afterwards and had a courageous conversation, …
There is a lot of research around being in flow state or being in the zone, which happens when tackling difficult challenges that push to the upper levels applying skills and abilities. When in flow state, time disappears and a feeling of complete immersion and complete focus ensures. It’s most commonly experienced by people doing extreme sports and racing cars. These people are often referred to as “adrenaline junkies” as they continue to chase bigger …
I know with 100% certainty if not for Entrepreneurs\’ Organization and its Accelerator program, I would not be in business today. During our early days of growth when trying to get over the hump of my first few employees and $300k of revenue, I had come to a pretty resolute determination that owning a business was not something I was good at or should be doing. It seemed like no matter what I did or …
We just completed a 3.5 month sprint of acquiring a 25,000 square foot historic school building that will be the new home of The Conflux and goBRANDgo!. When I say sprint…what would normally be a 12-18 month process was crammed into one quarter. Moving with that speed enabled us to get a great price on the building. All real estate transactions have complications and challenges, but all the fast-moving parts of the timetable, historic …
The end of every year is always one of reflection for me, and this being the end of a decade, even more so. There’s a Chinese proverb that says you spend your first 25 years being born, your second 25 years learning, third producing, and fourth giving back. …and as I’m reaching not just the end of a calendar decade but soon in age as well, here is how I find myself somewhat lining up …
Culture. You can’t go anywhere or read anything without someone telling you about the importance of culture. But when you ask those dozen people what they think culture is, you’ll get a couple dozen answers that may or may not sound anything alike. It may be easier to start with what culture is not. It’s not ping pong tables, open bars, or an open floor plan. It’s not the vacation policy, management structure, or …
