I received a call one evening a few years back from a friend named Rick, just a day or so after he watched me turn red-faced but choose to walk away rather than throwing someone out of a second story window. Early in that conversation, Rick said “I’ll bet you’re the kind of guy who would sacrifice $...
Had we signed the contract to partner with that institution in hosting our 2017 event, I have no doubt that attendance (and revenue) would have been significantly higher - that day. Living through each adversity prior to that provided a tremendous foundation for us to stand on in that moment, though...
Attendance at the event we hosted an hour north of us was just under half of what we had locally. Considering it was just two weeks after our local event, in an area where we had few existing relationships, and considering all the nonsense with the institution (whose campus was just a few miles away...
I’m forever grateful for the opportunities I’ve had throughout my life in a capitalistic society. Healthy competition between companies in the private sector forces everyone to work tirelessly toward building their best possible product or service. When all things are even close to being equal, qual...
As I closed Leveraging Leadership Growth, I stressed the importance of constantly working to grow and strengthen every professional relationship possible. When Cindy and I left our roles in large organizations, we both had extensive networks internally but found ourselves starting from scratch exter...
Cindy and I made some of the boldest leaps of our lives in 2016 and 2017, leaps that would have never happened without a complete willingness to accept full responsibility for our definite decisions. Even then, stepping away from both our full time jobs required every bit of unwavering courage we ha...
Looking back, several of the biggest leaps Cindy and I have ever taken occurred in a very short period of time. As I’ve shared several times before, I’m not detailing the adversities we encountered along the way for sympathy. And I’m certainly not bragging about it; I’m thankful Cindy tolerated me t...
I had accumulated four weeks of paid time off at the fifteen year mark in my manufacturing career, and I was on track to earn a fifth week when I hit twenty. I shared earlier how I had barely used 40 hours of that through the first eight months of 2014, and nearly all of that was in half day increme...
In opening this look at how stability can start feeling like a cage, I shared how I got involved in every aspect of that construction company I possibly could and how that helped me offset some of the monotonous drudge I felt from all the compliance related tasks in my primary role. Much of that inv...
Cindy and I had latched onto the makings of a clear purpose as our careers progressed, separately in our full time roles and together in each side hustle we pursued. That purpose allowed us to keep pushing forward through each adversity, even when we didn’t have as much clarity around it as we proba...
In Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill shared that “Unwavering courage is based upon knowledge of self, and of one’s occupation. No follower wishes to be dominated by a leader who lacks self-confidence and courage. No intelligent follower will be dominated by such a leader very long.” When Cindy left...
Cindy accepted a position with a company that was in the process of building their facility and brand new to our area around the same time I stepped into the HR/Safety manager role. As their very first employee, her responsibility was creating visibility, and thereby enlisting clients for that new b...
