A leader asked me recently how I help people escape the Golden Path Fallacy. The people I’m thinking of are successful. They’ve hit every wicket, taken the next job and the next promotion, most of it on good advice from people who meant well. And then one day they look up and something feels a…

Did the Navy mess up when they selected me to be a commanding officer? That was a real question for me before I took command. I’m hearing a version of it from leaders I work with stepping into bigger roles. They earned the promotion, and they know it. Then they’re in meetings with new peers…

I keep coming back to this idea. That if my purpose is only the next win, then I’m basically signing myself up to need another one as soon as this one is done. Another deal. Another project. Another client. Another thing to chase. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to win. I just think it gets…

How a leader handles things not going to plan is mostly set before anything goes wrong. It’s the mindset they walked in with. “𝘐 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵” is one mindset. When it goes off-plan, that’s a tough blow to recover from. Here’s a different mindset. “𝘐 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘭𝘶𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦…

As long as things are working, it is easy to stay in “if it ain’t broken don’t fix it” mode. And sometimes that makes sense. What happens when the environment changes faster than your current way of operating can keep up? AI is an obvious example right now. A lot has changed in the last…

One of the hard parts of stepping into something new is how quickly it can start to feel like it all rests on you. Like you’re supposed to have all the answers. Like you’re supposed to get it right the first time. Like needing help somehow means you’re not ready. I don’t think that’s true.…

You can be doing everything right and still feel restless. Successful by every measure other people can see, good at what you do, trusted with more of it. And underneath that, something feels off. The learning and the challenge that used to pull you in just aren’t there the same way. The tricky part is…

In the places where I watched people really keep growing, learning wasn’t a separate thing they left the job to go do. It was built into the work itself. That’s the difference I keep coming back to. We tend to treat learning like an errand. Go take the course. Get the certification. Step away for…