Empowering Leadership and Music Articles
Each article uses our empower framework that we also use for our leadership coaching services.
wondering Belonging … what actually lasts (Time)
… another late Thursday night in the lab. 8 weeks into debugging the new Space Shuttle display system we were designing… 6 weeks late. As before, I had a great partner - quiet -...
Belong as a real partner?
Belong as a real partner? Be a 15-year-old boy, in a suit at Kroger’s, buying Tampons on a Friday afternoon. Embarrassed… but there I was. I found my first real partner at 15. A...
How will you engage Belonging?
… as I looked in the right-side mirror to change lanes, it was vibrating… then it cracked… then blew off! Just like that, I could not see anything down the right side of the car...
What helps you renew to Begin Again?
It was December… the needle on my gas gauge had dropped below empty an hour back… at night… in a blinding wet snow… in a front-wheel-drive sports car,...
observe… what makes you Begin Again?
observe… Yep - that is a wrecked car in a LinkedIn post. I lived through it. Mostly. Now that I have your attention… who is the one person on your team you have...
How do you engage the “Find My Life” button?
… once again out in the garden, disaster struck. I was listening to a great program about the 100th anniversary of Tony Bennett’s birthday that is today… I...
renew your Mind… or…
The worst stretch of my career had no name... ...for about a year. I was leading in technology, at IBM and elsewhere, and I was performing at a level that looked, from the...
execute when You Oughta Know…
Nobody clapped when I logged the last of the 2,500 hours... By the time the letters MCC arrived, the work was already done ... hours, logged 1 at a time, most of them in rooms...
letting your Mind wonder…
I cheered for a middle seat on a red-eye from SFO... ...before that, stopping felt like losing. I can still tell you exactly what I was thinking, which was nothing useful. I was...
Mind observations…
Mind observing your ego? Bring your family so we can get to know you ... the words that stood between me and a job that would move the needle on my career, my life, and… my...
What partner eases your Mind?
I have not created anything alone since I was 14... Craig is the reason a lot of this work exists. He is a serious musician, and I am the guy who at best, plays bass in his...
Mind management
Mind management… A bear walked across my deck in Virginia… I stood perfectly still ... completely calm, absolutely terrified. Both. At the same time. I did not resolve that...
Safe to engage your Mind?
what engages your Mind? I played it safe for 2 years...Bass, in my church band. I knew the part cold. I never played anything that could go wrong, and nobody ever noticed,...
A renewing Outcome
The summer of 1976 was full of global events. Bur for me, I had 2 remaining Outcomes to close before heading off to college. First, ironically, I had gotten good enough at Student Congress – an actual NFL event – to qualify for the National Debate Tournament in Colorado Springs. Second, I had been selected as an exchange student for the Lions Club to spend 6 weeks in Sweden. The bad news is that those events overlapped.
execution Outcomes
High School’s end was rapidly approaching, an Outcome we had all been working towards for 12ish years. Our class was graduating in a momentous year – 1976 – the Bicentennial, so additional press coverage by the newspaper and local TV station was invited. Over 3000 were gathered in the local Junior College auditorium for the event, including my own grandparents from both sides. I was not… I was sitting across the street at a donut shop with a legal pad and a pen….
Outcomes to make you wonder
Wandering through my High School years, I played a bit in politics. It was an interesting use of my ability to speak and think on my feet. I was on the Student Congress as a Sophomore and a Junior. I was not a very active member, but I loved wondering how we could get 30 people to agree to any Outcome. I am never sure who or why, but someone nominated me for a very prestigious event, particularly in Texas: Boys State.
observing Outcomes
By my Junior year in High School, I had found at least the beginnings of who I was becoming. Now officially on the Debate Team, I spent the summer at a camp for Debaters at TCU. Yes… I am a real nerd who actually spent two weeks preparing, studying, and practicing the debate topic for all of the NFL that season…
Seeing partners Outcomes..
Texas is not friendly to mass transportation. A mix of the frontier mentality, setting out to control your destiny, and then floating in oil, everywhere you go is in a car. Particularly as you came of age, you would get your license and head out on the town… which I couldn’t until I was a senior in high school – an Outcome assured when my parents put me ahead a grade way back in Kindergarten.
managing Outcomes
Coming of age in Tyler – deep East Texas – many things managed my trajectory through this season… and into the better part of my life. My parents didn’t let me “work” so I could focus on my “job” … to get good grades, the doorway to what would be coming. Work hard, study hard, and that will pay off with Outcomes… which, to be honest, were pretty unspecific.
engaging Outcomes
We hear a lot about Outcomes these days, and one of the reasons I wanted to write about Cat is that his career has a lot of ups and downs. As you saw in Decisions last week, he was once again on the upswing. By the end of this week, the Outcomes take a very different tack in his life. The soundtrack of the music and my life rarely sync up so completely, and I remember these albums coming out, and hearing some deep meanings that were obvious… at least to me…