Inspiration Is the Gateway to Creativity
I was a few pieces short of finishing a 4th of July Liberty puzzle when I gave up looking and went to make dinner. An hour later, standing at the stove, I saw exactly where those pieces were supposed to go. It wasn’t because I was thinking about the puzzle, but something else caught my […]
The Gateway to Problem Solving
The Problem on the Board In Vistage, we use a process called issue processing. A member puts a problem on the board, the group asks questions, lots and lots and lots of questions. After that round of questions, we go back and ask both the room and the member if we still want to focus […]
The Room Changes When You Stop Performing
I was standing on a stage in San Diego watching something happen that I don’t think the panelists even realized they were doing. Four women — executives in biotech, each with impressive credentials and plenty of reasons to stay safely on-script — were doing something different. They were listening to each other, building on what […]
The Story That Stopped Me
I’ve been soliciting all of you to send me your own CHART stories. A few weeks ago, someone sent me one. I’m going to share Jenny’s story (I have permission and encouragement to use her name) with you because it is a clear, real-world example of the CHART framework — and because it’s still unfolding, […]
You Won’t Know You Were the Spark
Think about the person who changed the direction of your life. Maybe it was a teacher who said something offhand after class or a mentor who asked the one question nobody else had thought to ask. It could have been a stranger at a conference who told you the truth about something you’d been avoiding […]
The Moment Just Before
We love to talk about transformation after it happens, whether it’s the bell ringing after the last chemo treatment, the boundary finally set after years of silence, or the career rebuilt from scratch. We tell those stories in the past tense with the clarity that only hindsight provides. We know how they end, which makes […]
Not All Transformation Looks Like Change
There’s a version of transformation we expect in stories. Someone hits rock bottom, or as Joseph Campbell would call it, they face “the belly of the whale.” They struggle, rise, and come out visibly, undeniably different on the other side. We love this arc because it’s legible. We can point to the before and the […]
We’ve Confused Bouncing Back with Never Landing
Last week in my Vistage meetings, I passed a box around the room. I had placed an object in it and told the attendees that they had to guess what was inside the box. People shook it, smelled it, tilted it, watched each other’s faces, listened to one another’s guesses, and glanced at me to […]
Resilience as a Practice, Not a Trait
Nobody arrives resilient, at least not with a tiny emotional tool belt and a laminated certificate that says, “Congratulations, you are now ready for suffering.” Wouldn’t that be nice? We tend to talk about resilience as if it is a personality trait. Some people have it. Some people don’t. Some people are sturdy oak trees […]
Stop Editing Your Own Story
There’s a story you’ve been telling to others, maybe for years. You know the one. It has a beginning, a middle, and a tidy lesson tucked neatly at the end. The rough parts have been smoothed over and the embarrassing details have been quietly removed. The moment you fell apart completely is only mentioned briefly, […]