Leadership is Mental 63% of execs open this newsletter every week. Why? Because it’s blunt, useful, and occasionally rude about meetings. One sentence summary: Culture is not built by announcements. It’s built by what people think is normal. Dear Reader The day I peer-pressured thousands of adults I need to confess something. I didn’t grow my email open rate from 50% to 63% by becoming a better writer. I wish I could tell you it was craft. Or discipline. Or a sudden surge of literary genius....
13 days ago • 4 min read
Leadership is Mental 62% of execs open this newsletter every week. Why? Because it’s blunt, useful, and occasionally rude about meetings. One sentence summary: You can waste billions solving a problem that only exists because nobody asked a better question. Dear Reader Here is a sentence that should worry any senior leader: You can waste billions solving a problem that only exists because nobody asked a better question. The replay for my webinar “6 habits that help leaders stay productive AND...
20 days ago • 4 min read
Leadership is Mental 62% of execs open this newsletter every week. Why? Because it’s blunt, useful, and occasionally rude about meetings. One sentence summary: The tension between productivity and innovation is not a personal failing, it’s a leadership design problem, and most calendars are making it worse. Dear Reader Why Being Productive Might Be Blocking Your Best Ideas There is a strange performance expected of senior leaders these days. You’re meant to be productive and innovative....
27 days ago • 4 min read
Leadership is Mental 62% of execs open this newsletter every week. Why? Because it’s blunt, useful, and occasionally rude about meetings. One sentence summary: How unclear asks silently multiply your workload. Learn the OCD clarity protocol to communicate like an elite leader. Dear Reader The communication mistake that creates 10 extra hours of work I recently watched Frankenstein and, honestly, I bathed in the beauty of what horror stories can be when they’re done properly. Not the cheap...
about 1 month ago • 6 min read
Leadership is Mental Think better. Lead better. One sentence summary: Leaders who treat their routines, communication patterns, and decision processes as adjustable outperform those who treat them as fixed. Dear Reader I recently told a very senior client to “jiggle the system.” He’s in a different time zone. So that means coaching him requires me to be up at an hour that normally belongs to bakers and overachievers. Words were not flowing like they usually do. Sentences were… um......
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
Leadership is Mental Think better. Lead better. One sentence summary: We want to make being in the unknown a good thing.That’s the only way we will be willing to go into the unknown. Dear Reader Well that was fun! A couple of weeks ago I set myself a goal to get to a 60% open rate on my emailers. You can read about that goal here. My previous average was around 54%. And last week I hit 62.31%. Which is either a triumph of copywriting, or proof that enough people now treat emails like a...
about 2 months ago • 5 min read
Leadership is Mental Think better. Lead better. One sentence summary: Innovation fails when leaders focus on buy-in instead of safety. Dear Reader Why people say they want innovation… and then cling to the old way like it’s a family heirloom. I don’t understand the resistance, if I’m honest. I clearly said we were “innovating”. I sent the slide deck. I used the word future at least fourteen times. I even changed the font to something something sleek and modern, which, as we all know, is the...
about 2 months ago • 6 min read
Leadership is Mental Think better. Lead better. ↓ New reader? If you were forwarded this newsletter from a friend or colleague, and you’d like to receive it in the future, you can sign up here. Dear Reader I’m aiming for a 60% open rate. So I’ve made upgrades. (You’re welcome.) I have a goal: 60% open rate. Yes, I know. It's so deeply revealing of my desire to be liked by a spreadsheet. But I’m doing something about it, because hope is not a strategy and neither is “maybe my audience will...
2 months ago • 5 min read
Leadership is Mental Think better. Lead better. ↓ New reader? If you were forwarded this newsletter from a friend or colleague, and you’d like to receive it in the future, you can sign up here. Dear Reader You’ve been stirring your tea wrong all this time There’s a small, private tragedy happening in office kitchens everywhere. A leader, alone with their thoughts, picks up a spoon and starts stirring their tea in circles like they’re summoning the demi-god of energy-by-caffeine. Round and...
2 months ago • 5 min read