What Growth Actually Feels Like
BE Understand what it means to just “be”. It’s always been, “human being” not “human doing”. To understand your version of “be” is to assess, audit, and be aware of who you are at your core. The true you? Is that you on Monday? Only Sunday? All day? Everyday? No days?! It starts with getting […]
Lululemon Has $1.8B. Now What?
Maybe it’s the Vancouver air. Or Canada’s World Cup game today. But I’m feeling inspired by being up here today. So let’s look at a Canadian brand who has an interesting story unfolding right now. Lululemon’s brand has taken some hits. Stock pressure. Competitive pressure. Mistaking a Japanese taiko instrument for a Chinese dagu drum. All in all, […]
United
The World Cup starts today. Which means I am a kid in a candy shop. Not just because I love soccer or wrote Landon Donovan’s memoir. But because for the first time in 50 years I am going to witness a World Cup game live. I know there’s a big to do about the cost of […]
The Circuit Board Room
Everyone wants to be in the room where it happens. The place where the biggest decisions get made. Where futures are discussed. Where strategy gets shaped. The Board Room. But here’s the thing: You already are IN the most important board room you’ll ever enter. Actually, the most important board room is already IN you. […]
BOSS
I went solo this week on The Courageous Podcast. I don’t do that often. It’s only the second time I’ve taken all the air on the podcast for an unaccompanied drive. So why’d I do it? I had something to say. It’s not that I don’t have something to add when I’m in my usual role as “host”. But […]
Big Breaks Come From…
If I never… Went to college for Television-Radio, I never would have developed a creative portfolio. If I never… Make a portfolio, I never earn a summer internship at an NYC ad agency. If I never… Take that NYC internship, I never accept the job I didn’t want in Account Management. If I never… Accept that client […]
Regret Insurance & The Lobster
I’m presently writing this weekly dose on a train down to NYC. Earlier today, I addressed 1,100 or so folks at The Hartford in CT. In some ways, Courageous and The Hartford are in the same business. They are in the insurance business. So am I. As I shared with them (about them)… They are […]
Business Haikus
It’s been more than three years since my last installment of “10 Business Haikus”. Which means I’ve been overdue for a weekly dose with less words and more meaning. I love haikus because they force clarity. Just 17 syllables total — 5-7-5 — which means there’s nowhere for jargon to hide. Sometimes the sharpest truth about […]
Millions Out There. Pennies In Here.
~1% of the marketing budget. Often less than 0.1% of revenue. Sometimes just $10K–$185K a year. That’s what many companies spend on internal communications, the very function responsible for aligning the people who deliver the brand. We’ll invest millions telling customers who we are but barely invest in making sure our people believe it, feel […]
Feel What’s Real
Much has changed since 2010. Time machine back 16 years and we’d find ourselves in a world empty of Instagram, 23andMe, Sweetgreen, or Lyft. But what if I fumbled the date on my “Back to the Future” DeLorean and instead warped us to 1910? One thing you may be surprised to have found: A Hallmark Card. […]