I stood in front of my class yesterday and invited them to sketch a five-year leadership plan. That invitation arrived with a confession. I am not, by reputation or by habit, a serial planner. At least not if we define a plan as a crystalline template that foresees every twist in the next … [Read more...]
Archives for July 2025
The Domain You Never Claimed
Why your name is the professional real estate you didn’t know you were losing There’s a quiet but consequential mistake that even the most ambitious professionals make. It isn’t about strategy or skill or networking. It’s about something much simpler and surprisingly overlooked - your … [Read more...]
The Vineyard, the Vanity Appointment, and the Value of Trust
There’s something oddly profound about a colleague thanking you for letting them take a day off to go to a vineyard - or to a vanity appointment. Not because the request is groundbreaking, but because the honesty behind it is. No cover-up, no excuses, no medical emergency inserted to justify time … [Read more...]
Why I Love the Simplicity of the Eisenhower Matrix
Most days don’t fall apart because we don’t work hard. They fall apart because we don’t work right. We pour energy into things that are loud but meaningless, urgent but inconsequential. And somewhere in the middle of meetings and messages and multitasking, the stuff that actually matters - the … [Read more...]
Cool Is Not What Most Think It Is
A recent CBC article caught my eye. It referenced a study by researchers at the University of Michigan and the University of Southern California that tried to pin down the modern definition of "cool." According to their findings, the traits that make someone cool today include being extroverted, … [Read more...]
We Were Promised Innovation, But Got Infinite Scroll
In a recent reflection, I wrote about how our ambition seems to have quietly shifted from chasing the impossible to chasing attention. How so many today are “building with their backs to the future, shaping their efforts for today’s applause instead of tomorrow’s legacy.” That piece focused on … [Read more...]
The Quiet Strength of Forward Motion
We often think of leadership as grand gestures or confident speeches. But some of the most powerful leadership moments happen in quieter spaces - in a conversation with someone who’s struggling, in the pause between stories, in the subtle redirection of attention from the weight of what was to … [Read more...]
The Bubble Isn’t the Ocean
We all live in bubbles. Not the fragile kind that float in the air and burst with a touch, but the invisible kind - durable, deeply embedded, and often unexamined. They are formed by what we inherit and what we endure. Our bubbles are filled with our upbringing, our culture, our traumas, our … [Read more...]
Decide or Discover – But Not Both at Once
We spend a large part of our professional lives in meetings. Some are energizing, many are draining, and far too many are just ... confusing. In my current role at the Ottawa Community Foundation and through my years in executive leadership, meetings with different teams, partners, funders, and … [Read more...]