Leadership

“I can trace my life in guitar riffs and bass lines.”

There was a season of classic-rock discovery – The Police, Led Zeppelin, Hendrix, The Grateful Dead – when every solo felt like a rite of passage. Then came a hard-rock adolescence powered by AC/DC, Metallica, and Guns N’ Roses, amps cranked to eleven and rebellion echoing off the walls. Two decades later, my soundtrack widened: reggae’s heartbeat, instrumental hip-hop’s swing, the polyrhythms of African jazz, the velvet textures of neo-soul.

I…

"Trust is the bridge between the known and the unknown." – Rachel Botsman

This piece of art by the best-selling author Rachel Botsman, titled "Roots of Trust," reveals something quietly profound: trust is not built in the abstract; it is rooted in human systems – roles, relationships, patterns, and behaviors – stretching outward like branches from a single, often unseen source. I came across this image recently and was captivated by how it reimagines trust not as a vague ideal but as an evolving,…

"The key to transforming anything lies in our ability to reframe it." – Marianne Williamson

Have you ever found yourself caught in a loop, facing the same decision, challenge, or internal monologue, over and over, with no clear way forward? That feeling of mental gridlock is more common than we admit, and it isn’t a reflection of weakness or lack of capability. It’s a signal: an invitation to shift the frame. Because sometimes the issue isn’t the problem itself – it’s the lens through which we’re…

“You are what you practice most.” – Richard Carlson

We often think of practice as something you do to get somewhere else. You practice the scales to master the piano. You rehearse the pitch to land the deal. You run drills so you can win the game. But here’s the deeper truth: we are always practicing something, consciously or not. The question is, what are you practicing?

Are you practicing being reactive or being creative? Are you practicing rushing or cultivating calm? Are you practicing self-do…

"Words are the bridge between worlds. Conversations are where universes collide and something new is born."

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to miss the extraordinary simply because it’s become ordinary? The sun, for example, radiates energy across 93 million miles of space, and we casually complain, “Ugh, it’s hot.” We carry in our pockets a device more powerful than anything used to land a human on the moon – capable of accessing the sum total of human knowledge – and we use it to “like” me…

“Silence isn’t emptiness. It’s where everything essential begins.”

We are born into a world already humming with noise. It is not just the sounds of life itself, but the constant static of expectation, distraction, and performance. From the moment we arrive, we are saturated with messages telling us what to do, who to be, and how to succeed. And most of us, understandably, spend years trying to tune in, adjusting ourselves to fit the bandwidth of the world around us. But every so often, we encoun…

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do that.”

After more than 10,000 hours sitting across from founders, executives, change-makers, and seekers, listening not just to their goals but to their challenges, tensions, and unspoken longings, I have come to believe this: Most people are not trying to become something new, they are trying to remember who they were before they forgot. Leadership, it turns out, isn’t just about acquiring skills or managing better; it’s ab…

“The only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad.” — Salvador Dalí

This surreal image, featuring Salvador Dalí mid-air as cats, water, and furniture fly around him, isn’t a composite. It took 28 tries, real thrown cats (no CGI in 1948), and a wildly creative photographer (Philippe Halsman) to pull it off. What we’re seeing isn’t just an absurdist spectacle; it’s a full-body commitment to imagination. Dalí called it “painterly physics.” But more than that, it's a lesson in what’s …

“As I speak, I create. As I create, I become.”

There’s a quiet kind of power that most people overlook. It’s not found in strategy decks or performance reviews. It doesn’t come from hustle or productivity hacks. It begins in something more elemental, more ancient – something we do every day without fully understanding its potential. It starts with our words. What we say, out loud or even just to ourselves, doesn’t merely describe our lives; it shapes them.

You may know “abracadabra” as a magician’…

“True power lies in the tension between control and surrender.”

There’s an art I have fallen in love with, one you might not expect from a leadership advisor. It’s not particularly common or practical, but I find myself returning to it again and again as a metaphor for everything I believe about how great leadership is formed. That art is glass blowing.

Several years ago, my wife gave me a class as a gift. I stepped into that workshop as a curious novice, surrounded by fire, fragile material, and …