Author: Rachel Hanson

David Brooks has written about resume vs eulogy virtues. The norm for most of us is to spend most of our focus and our career years building resume virtues. I.e. the skills you build up and bring to the marketplace. The ones you would list on your resume. Most of us focus our efforts here. … Continue reading Resume vs eulogy

A client of mine wrote about his consistent worry that he's overworking his best people. So I asked him when he last asked them if they feel overworked? He hadn't. Funny. Slow down, ask the obvious questions. If worry is consuming you, time to write or go get curious. We tend to spend so much … Continue reading Worry

A client of mine is gearing up to start a BTL team practice. As we were discussing it, I reminded her that team practice isn't something magical, even though magic happens within it. It's simply a leader and their team coming together to take some regularly scheduled good hard reps, with the aim of mastering … Continue reading Excellence has a template

Great leaders know how and when to wield a high level of energy, similar to a skilled warrior in battle. They know how to turn the room, raise the energy level, lower it, turn the tide in a certain direction. Not everyone has that ability. But the ability itself is not what's impressive, it's the … Continue reading When to wield

You are not your stuff. Seems obvious, but we in the Western world consistently struggle with this. We accumulate more stuff as we age in an effort to better represent ourselves. Stuff becomes a stand-in for self. The bigger house, the faster car, the fancier title - all the better, because it signifies we're more … Continue reading Stuff and self

Writing is a skill just like any other. There are different ways to hone that skill and different ways to use the tool of writing. One of my clients is learning to write in a whole new way -  he's learning to write purely for himself. Not for how it'll be perceived, or what he's … Continue reading Writing

We all work, play, and perform best at different states of alertness and intensity. Experts would call this an arousal curve. In college athletics, we called it your hype number. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being high energy, where do you perform best? And how do you prepare best for how you'll … Continue reading Hype number

Leaders can easily get stuck in task orientation. This is especially true when they've recently been in a doer role and rewarded (promoted) for being a doer. There's a switch that must be flipped, if they're to be successful in a role that involves leading others. The switch must flip from being a performer to … Continue reading Doer to leader