This one's not for everyone

Not knowing what to do will be a terminal condition for most of us and for most of our ventures. There's just simply too much of the past slipping under our feet to reconstitute anything recognizable as "normal" in the next twenty years. But the lesson is obvious: Lead anyway.

You are in a class war (whether you like it or not)

The "no politics at work" vibe (often the wise choice) has led many leaders to miss the socio-economic forces changing the culture of their teams. Subtle and strange battle lines are being drawn. And it's all about class—no ascension to Marxism required.

A Bit of Disagreement... and Staying in the Conversation

I had a real life experience of of resistance and how easy distrust is. This episode is about that experience, about disagreement, about staying a conversation when we're seeing the same thing in from two different sides, and learning to pay attention.

A body of resistance, changing winds, and Justin Timberlake is here

I'm sensing a rising readiness to get back to growth, in the historic ways that people build, collaborate, and buy, an escape from click-chasing, clout-chasing, scale-chasing, and all that goes in its wake. The good news, the phenomenal news, is there is a way forward

Why They Like You But Won't Hire You: Selling in a Trust-Made Way

This episode is about why nice people get ghosted. Why saying "yeah, I can do that" on a sales call is a death trap. And why you're burning trust all the while they are telling you how much they like you...

What would make it beautiful? Trust, place, and the best question I got asked this week (so far)

We will need leaders who have done the work to be oriented to expansion. So many leaders are in reaction or contraction. Or defense. But expansion, opening up the capacious places so that new things can grow, is the only way we can move forward together.

"Offset": Meta gets one word right, the long tech winter, and derisking ventures in the age of AI

Big Tech enters its pivot era (Don't call it a comeback) and expects the world to say, "Cool, seems fine. You definitely know what you're doing." How not to do that.

Contrary to (some) marketing gurus...how trust works

It's another case of Marketers Ruin Everything™ as my colleague Lynn Swayze says. Marketing people are grabbing on to "trust" and dragging it by its tail through the savannah... let's discuss.

A Library of Trustmaking and Fighting Fire with Fire

Two critical and growing teams in this game of an economy we are playing, aren't getting what they need: Founders and Fractionals.

The Casino Nobody Warned You About: The latest AI chaos and fear-selling is back in vogue

A sh*tstorm of news from the AI front has settled in, raising the stakes on the fate of the universe, curing cancer, CEO avatars, and AI models so fearsome they dare not be mentioned. What's a CEO to do?

All I have to sell is scar tissue

This episode is what real venture change actually asks of you, and why it's not therapy, even when it feels like it. It's about why your marketing problem is almost never just a marketing problem. And it's about the only two things I've ever seen consistently move leaders forward.

The leader's modern dilemma: Surveilled but never seen, transcripted but never heard

Leaders are not being honest with themselves about the degradation of self-trust. They are being hollowed out by the sparkling lights of the online attention casino, extracting more and more from them with every click. I see it everywhere.