Just got off the phone with Toto (aka Chet) not just on any highway but I-70 to St. Louis for a 3-day kickoff practice with a new client. . . this is the preferred way to start an engagement, but few do. We will be reading about it soon, I’m sure.
We were talking about 2020, client breakthroughs, upcoming practices, cool new insights, etc. . . and were just ready to say see-ya-later when he gave me some feedback about a word he wanted me to stop using. He asked me if I knew what it was. I threw out a few. “Nope” he said, “still don’t know? Don’t have a clue?”
When you’re blind you can’t see, unless you have a fellow builder with 20-20 vision. “Nope” I said, “what is it?”
“The word is ‘anyway’,” Chet told me. “You use ‘anyway’ like some people use ‘um’ as a filler, or as a coaster. Did you know that?”
I played back the tape of our conversation. I counted 3 or 4 anyways that I’d thrown in at the end of a couple updates I’d shared with him. In fact, they only came at the end, and most normal sentences don’t end in ‘anyway’ unless you force them too.
“It seems you use that as kind of a way to diffuse the impact of what you’re saying. . . you’ll be more effective just ENDING your sentences. Don’t buy them back, or minimize what you’ve just said.”
Thank you, Toto. I needed that, and I probably would have never seen this blind spot without a fellow builder helping me.
Becoming BUILT TO LEAD takes courage, and humility. Thanks for the courage to tell me something, Toto, that I would have been doing until 2020 without you. Our tagline is just not ‘anyway’ — it’s the HIGHway — namely “together we improve.”
[the END]
BUILT TO LEAD 
You are the berries Gurue. You just are…