resilient capital keeper

As long as things are working, it is easy to stay in “if it ain’t broken don’t fix it” mode. And sometimes that makes sense. What happens when the environment changes faster than your current way of operating can keep up? AI is an obvious example right now. A lot has changed in the last…

In the places where I watched people really keep growing, learning wasn’t a separate thing they left the job to go do. It was built into the work itself. That’s the difference I keep coming back to. We tend to treat learning like an errand. Go take the course. Get the certification. Step away for…

You’ve already made the call. You just haven’t said it out loud yet. Not because you’re still deciding. You know the course. It’s because you know what saying it will set in motion. Once it’s out, the changes start. The people you’re responsible for get uncomfortable. They have to be brought along, motivated, helped to…

The bigger the decision, the less certain you feel making it. That caught me off guard the higher I moved in leadership. You keep waiting to feel sure. To have all the consequences resolved before you commit. On the decisions that carry the most weight, that feeling doesn’t really come. So the real edge becomes…

Have you ever caught yourself doing this on a call? I have. I’m with someone, supposed to be all there for them, and my head is still back on whatever I was chewing on before I got on. The strategy, the money, some problem I couldn’t shake. So I’m only kind of there. The more…

Wondering how to actually work with me? Here’s the simplest answer. If you’re operating at a new level, stepping into bigger responsibility, or moving into a new arena, the first step is a connection call. Not a sales call. A real conversation. A chance to meet, hear what you’re carrying, and see if there is…

An opportunity showed up last week. Pretty aligned with me. My purpose, my skill set. Stuff I’ve actually trained to do. And almost in the same breath, this voice in the back of my head went, “who are you to do that?” Dude. 26 years of leading. Training as a coach. And that voice still…

When the old arena goes away, it can feel like your purpose went with it. The title is gone. The uniform is gone. The mission, team, structure, and rhythm that helped make sense of who you were, all of that changes. For me, that old arena was the Navy. That was the container where a…

For a while, I was equating purpose with income. If this is my purpose, then this must be where the money comes from. I did not realize how much weight I was putting on that one equation. Because once those two things get fused together, the mission can start to feel like something you have…

When things get uncertain around you, it helps to know what is steady inside you. Not in some abstract way. I mean, actually knowing the inventory. The things you’re good at. The work that gives you energy. The values that keep showing up. The parts of your purpose that keep pulling on you. When the…

I finally got to reconnect with my friend Maurice Philogene on his Try Life On podcast. What made this one fun for me is that Maurice and I have a lot of resonance around the same idea, we just come at it from slightly different angles. At one point in my Navy career, my answer…

Most people think the transition starts with a job search. I don’t think that’s the hardest part. The harder part is figuring out what matters to you before life starts feeling urgent. Because once it does, reflection gets crowded out fast. You start doing. Sending resumes. Chasing interviews. Taking calls. Trying to create momentum. And…