For a season of my career, I set up meeting rooms at a large hospital. Every room had to be ready, down to the last chair, before the first person walked through the door.
I worked days, and now and then I picked up a second shift. Same building. Same rooms. Same tables and chairs. Same work. Diffe...
A friend called me late one Friday evening more than a decade ago. At that point in my career, I would have let any other name go to voicemail. I was working 50 to 60 hours per week in my full time role as a safety and human resource manager and every bit as much in the business Cindy and I had star...
The first thing you noticed walking into the cabinet plant was the air. You felt it on your skin the moment you came through the door, warm and heavy. That was by design. Wood never stops reacting to the air around it. Let the humidity drop and a board that was straight yesterday starts to buckle, s...
A positive self-image is not something you either have or do not have. It is something you can intentionally cultivate through reflection and consistent action.
Organizational psychologist Tasha Eurich's research found that about 95 percent of people believe they're self-aware, yet only an estimate...
Low self-image is the number one confidence killer.
It does not announce itself with drama. It shows up in the quiet ways leaders shrink, overcompensate, or quietly sabotage their own influence.
Two dangerous expressions appear most often.
The first is overconfidence — an inflated self-image that...
Self-accountability is not a personality trait. It is a repeatable system. These four pillars can also be found in my Leading at the Next Level lesson, Owning Your Results: Closing the Gap Between Plan and Performance.
Most leaders already know they should own their results. The gap is not awarenes...
Still far from being the most talented in the workforce, or even in my home department for that matter, I built some solid career momentum through 1998 and into 1999. My role as bouncer for my former coworker’s sister had turned into far more than that initial evening of her driving and me being a h...
Even at fifteen years old and riding a bicycle to the job sites each day, showing up on time consistently and giving it everything I was capable of - even when I wasn’t capable of all that much - helped me earn moderate respect from the men I was trying to keep up with. Carrying that same work ethic...
Knowing that I had so much untapped potential academically stung a bit, even if that was only subconsciously at the time. If I was doing anything back then to intentionally grow just the slightest seed, it was through my role in the workforce. I produced solid results and had some great opportunitie...
Self-development often stalls because of unclear starting points, inconsistent effort, or mindset barriers that surface when challenges arise.
The solution is simpler than you think. As John C. Maxwell says, "Leadership develops daily, not in a day." Real growth happens through small, intentional d...
Five miles or so from where Cindy and I have lived since we got married, there's a giant oak tree by a sharp turn on a gravel road that could have spelled my demise had I been two feet farther to the right. It was 1995 and I was on my way to meet some friends to engage in a variety of inappropriate ...
