Author: Rachel Hanson

My 8.5 month old son is crawling. Short distances distances at first, of course. He's been working at it for a couple weeks now, but the coordination of it seemed to elude him. Then boom. Last night it was like a switch flipped and he suddenly figured out the movement and put it all together. … Continue reading Crawling

Redwood trees, famous in part for how big and tall they grow, are not solo artists. In fact their roots are too shallow to sustain them - they'd topple over without support. Their roots are in fact a root system - intertwined with the roots of other Redwood trees. That system allows them to grow … Continue reading Roots

Before we can go forward with clarity, we start by looking back. Any client of ours starts with Discovery - an 81 question document that digs into who you are, what you believe, and what got you where you are now. If we're going to get more clarity on the direction you're headed, it's important … Continue reading Look back to go forward

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