Most people start their day by opening email. They spend the next eight hours reacting — putting out fires, answering questions, attending meetings that could have been messages. By 5pm, the to-do list is longer than when they started. Sound familiar?
The fix isn't a better morning routine. It isn't waking up at 5 am or drinking a green smoothie. It's something you do the night before — or at the end of your workweek. It takes fifteen minutes. And it changes everything.
Read MoreThere's a meeting that happens in almost every organization, in some form or another. Someone brings up a decision that was supposedly made three weeks ago. A few people look confused. Someone else says they thought it was still being discussed. The original decision-maker — if there even was one — goes quiet.
Sound familiar?
This isn't a communication problem. It isn't a culture problem. It's a structural problem, and it has a very specific cause: nobody was ever clearly named as the person who owned the decision.
Read MoreMarcus had it all mapped out.
He'd arrived at the office 45 minutes early on Monday — coffee in hand, a clean notepad, and a mental list of the three things he was finally going to get done this week. The proposal. The team restructuring conversation. The strategic plan he'd been pushing back for six weeks.
By 9:15, he was in an unplanned meeting. By 11, he was putting out a client issue that "couldn't wait." By end of day, the proposal was still open in a tab he hadn't touched.
Sound familiar
Read MoreCan leadership presence be taught… or is it something you either have—or you don’t?
It’s a question that comes up often in my work with leaders across industries—and even more so in education.
Because when you see someone with strong leadership presence, it feels almost intangible. They walk into a room and command attention without demanding it. They communicate clearly. They create alignment. People listen—and more importantly, people respond.
It looks natural. Effortless. Like something they were born with.
But that assumption is wrong.
Read More“Everything seemed fine… until it wasn’t.”
That’s how a COO described a conflict that blindsided his leadership team. Two high performers. One missed expectation. Weeks of quiet frustration. And then a blowup in a meeting that stalled an entire project and shook trust across departments.
The problem wasn’t talent. It wasn’t effort. It was communication — or rather, the lack of it.
Read MoreIt’s 10:17 a.m. You’ve already handled a client escalation, mediated a heated team disagreement, and jumped into a budget issue that “couldn’t wait.” Your calendar is packed for the rest of the day, and your inbox quietly accumulates dozens more demands on your attention. You feel busy, productive, and necessary—but somehow, by the end of the day, the work that actually moves the business forward hasn’t advanced at all.
If this feels familiar, you’re not alone. Many capable leaders get trapped in what I call the firefighting cycle: constant reaction, endless urgent work, and the illusion of progress. It’s exhausting, and it limits the true impact you can have on your organization.
Read More“Everything was fine… until it wasn’t.”
That’s how a COO described the conflict that blindsided his leadership team. Two top performers. One missed expectation. Weeks of quiet frustration. Then a blowup in a meeting that stalled an entire project and damaged trust across departments.
What went wrong wasn’t competence.
It was communication.
As the month of Adar begins, we’re told: “When Adar enters, we increase in joy.” Not buy joy. Not achieve joy. Increase it. As if joy is something that already exists inside us and simply needs to be uncovered, not acquired. Which raises a deeper question: if joy isn’t coming from more stuff, where is it coming from?
Purim answers that question in story form.
Read MoreWe work really hard to be happy.
We chase the shiny objects:
a bigger salary,
a better title,
a nicer watch,
a faster car,
a longer vacation.
We tell ourselves, “Once I get that, I’ll finally feel settled.”
And for a moment… we do.
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