Books – Page 5 – thoughtLEADERS, LLC: Leadership Training for the Real World

Nature as Coach: The 4.5-Billion-Year-Old Leadership Expert Right Outside Your Window

July 28, 2025/0 Comments/in Balanced Lifestyle, Books, Business Toolkit, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

Nature offers 4.5 billion years of leadership wisdom. Learn regenerative principles from forests, oceans & ecosystems to build resilient organizations.

Today’s post is by Dr. Kathleen Allen, author of Leading from the Roots: Nature-inspired Leadership Lessons for Today’s World.

What if the best leadership coach wasn’t found in an office or consulting firm, but in the world outside? What if a mentor with 4.5 billion years of experience in regenerative systems were available to you now?

Since life began, Nature has been running the ultimate leadership laboratory. Every ecosystem, from our forests to our oceans, has survived and thrived using regenerative principles that business schools are just beginning to pay attention to. Yet in my four decades of management consulting experience, I know that leaders who view their organizations as “living systems” have consistently created the most resilient, successful businesses.

Nature has always been an excellent model, mentor and muse for leaders, and perhaps even more so today. It’s the foundation for the regenerative leadership movement, and I’ve spent my entire career helping leaders incorporate lessons from Nature to create more successful teams and organizations.

What is regenerative leadership?

Regenerative leaders work with the energy and potential in a system, rather than trying to force it in a specific direction. They know growth doesn’t come from control, but from trust and alignment with Nature’s principles. Regenerative organizations have a strong focus on resilience and long-term goals that support the organization, the planet, and many generations to come.

Charles Darwin is often misquoted as saying “survival of the fittest,” but what he really said goes to the heart of Nature-based, regenerative leadership practices:

“It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most able to adapt to change.”

This subject is too complex to explain fully here, but I’ll try to give you some of the points that seem to resonate most with my clients and others I reach through my books and speaking engagements. Here goes!

Generosity as a growth strategy

Picture yourself walking through an old-growth forest. Beneath your feet lies one of Nature’s most sophisticated coaching models, the mycelium network. This underground web of fungi connects trees in a system many scientists call the “wood wide web.” Here, mature trees share nutrients with seedlings, send chemical warnings about pest attacks, and redirect resources to support struggling community members.

If Nature were coaching you on organizational leadership, this would be the first lesson. True strength comes not from individual performance, but from the health of the entire system. The largest trees in the forest aren’t hoarding resources. They’re the most generous, understanding that their survival depends on the thriving of the whole community.

A focus on the cycle, not the clock

If Nature could review your leadership strategy, it might wonder why so many organizations chase constant growth. It’s as if spring were the only season worth repeating. But Nature follows a deeper wisdom, what scientists call the adaptive cycle. This pattern includes growth, conservation, release, and renewal. It’s a constant feedback loop that creates all the necessary phases for resilience and sustained success.

In this cycle change is not a disruption but a vital phase. After periods of growth and holding on, Nature lets go. Structures break down, making room for renewal. People and teams need the same. Burnout is often the result of never pausing. Sustainability comes from aligning with the rhythms that truly support life, professionally and personally.

Nature’s model for interdependence

Traditional management practices view interdependence as merely task based. But as organizational consultant Ranjay Gulati wrote in a 2020 Harvard Business Review article:

“As organizations face increasingly unpredictable workstreams and workers co-design the organization alongside managers, our field requires a more comprehensive toolbox that incorporates aspects of agent-based interdependence.”

The ocean offers a profound model of interdependence. Beneath its surface lies a vast, living web of relationships. Currents circulate nutrients across thousands of miles, coral reefs act as cooperative neighborhoods, and even the smallest organisms influence the entire system. Each ecosystem functions through mutual responsiveness, constant feedback, and shared survival. This is the kind of energy we need to cultivate in our organizations.

Even predator-prey relationships in the ocean demonstrate this interdependence. Predators regulate populations, while prey species often drive migration patterns and influence ecosystem behavior.

These dynamics reflect balance, not domination. Regenerative leaders know that power circulates, adapts, and evolves through feedback and relationship, just as it does in the sea. Successful businesses today demonstrate that real strength comes not from command-and-control structures, but from relationships rooted in trust, reciprocity, and shared purpose.

Softness as a strategic advantage

Billionaire entrepreneur and investor Mark Cuban said recently that three soft skills, curiosity, agility and adaptability, are key to thriving in any era. This is also true for organizations.

Nature’s coaching on softness challenges everything we’ve been taught about leadership strength. The most adaptable organisms aren’t the hardest, they’re the most flexible.

Nature teaches us to create conditions in which change flows naturally, rather than driving it by force. Consequently, resistance becomes information rather than opposition, and flexibility becomes a major competitive advantage.

Monocultures create fragility so in Nature’s coaching model, diversity is a survival strategy. Diversity among teams cultivates different ways of thinking, and of solving problems. Oceans don’t thrive because they have different species. The different species represent a diverse set of roles, perspectives, and approaches to success. We need that paradigm now more than ever in our organizations.

Humans and Nature

We can forget humans are a species within Nature. We’ve evolved within its systems, not outside of them. We perform at our best when following the rhythms that have sustained our planet for thousands of years. When we look for guidance in times of great complexity, change, and uncertainty, what better coach than the most time-tested, adaptive, resilient system of them all?

The question isn’t whether Nature has wisdom to offer our leadership practices. It’s whether we’re ready to listen.

Thought leader, author and trusted advisor, Dr. Kathleen Allen helps organizations and executives create meaningful change using Nature as a model for more effective leadership practices. More at kathleenallen.net

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The 16th Century Word That Gives You a Strategic Advantage

July 21, 2025/0 Comments/in Books, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

By changing the way you approach stakeholder interests, you can drive better performance. Instead of using a sequential and conflict-driven approach, you can take a different tack that promotes harmony and collaboration.

Today’s post is by Nancy Falls, author of Corporate Concinnity in the Boardroom: 10 Imperatives To Drive High Performing Companies.

The year was 1531. It was the beginning of what is known as the Age of Discovery. Humans were busy mapping the world, constructing the first rudimentary watch, building empires in Persia, China and the new world. They build St. Peter’s in Rome, the first music conservatories and made discoveries in medicine, economics and astronomy. They brought potatoes from the new world to Europe. They started transatlantic slave trade, only to denounce it 50 years later. Machiavelli declared that the ends justify the means in The Prince. And just 13 years after that someone decided he was wrong and invented a word communicating the opposite thesis, that how things are done matters very much. That word was concinnity. The year was 1531.

If you are like most English speakers you probably don’t know this word. You should learn it.

Concinnity is the skillful and harmonious fitting together of the parts of something.

Many see the word and think consensus, which must be its grammatical first cousin. I look at the word and see lots of curves and circles. It just looks like unity to me.

And the word offers a breakthrough way to look at organizational leadership and governance.

Fishing For Job Descriptions

July 14, 2025/0 Comments/in Books, Business Toolkit, Career, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Training /by Trevor Jones

We often miss the mark when we write job descriptions. We’d be much better suited to understand the job vision before we list qualifications for a candidate.

Today’s post is by Bill Munn, author of Why Make Eagles Swim?

Dave is thirty-eight and manages a team of HR professionals. But he still remembers a peaceful day over thirty years ago when his father took him fishing for the first time.

For two weeks, Dave and his father had talked about the day they had planned. Dave’s dad described all the details of the sport – how to choose a lure, cast, tie a fisherman’s knot, and so on. Dave never tired of these descriptive details, which began to define fishing in his mind.

When the day of the outing finally arrived, they stayed on the lake from morning to dusk, covering all Dad’s favorite spots. Dave got to practice everything he had learned on shore.

But in the end, they caught nothing.

Dave was crestfallen. But later, he forgot his disappointment in the face of a big shock.

“How was it?” Dave’s mom asked when they walked in the back door.

“Fabulous,” his dad replied.

What? Dave thought. How can he think that when we caught nothing?

Later that evening, Dave shared his confusion with his father. The man smiled.

How Leaders Quench the Service Thirst of Customers

July 9, 2025/0 Comments/in Books, Customer Service, Guest Blogger, Leadership /by Trevor Jones

We’ve all heard the idea of being customer-centric, but how you utilizing your leadership to best serve your customers.

Today’s post is by Chip R. Bell, author of Kaleidoscope.

The very thirsty crow came upon a pitcher of water. But, the water was deep and the neck of the pitcher narrow. Aesop’s Fables tells us the rest of the riddle. The crow picked up small pebbles and dropped them one by one in the pitcher causing the water to rise high enough for a drink.

I needed a prescription refilled for an eye ointment, and my usual pharmacy was unable to get it for a week. So, I called the pharmacy attached to the local grocery store. The “I’m having a horrible day” cashier-receptionist answered my phone call to fill the prescription. When I arrived at the pharmacy, she stood guard over the cash register with a scowl telegraphing the same attitude I had heard on the phone. Behind her were the pharmacy manager and two pharmacy assistants.

“Are you having a great day?” I asked cheerfully in a rather loud voice. “Not particularly,” she said.

“Well,” I announced, putting a pebble in the water pitcher so to speak, “I am here to help your day get a lot better.” She was unmoved. One of the pharmacy assistants nervously smiled at my way-too-obvious attempt to get her “happy water” to rise in the pitcher.

“How much would this ointment cost without insurance?” I asked her in my very best happy-go-lucky cheerleader voice. I had Googled the answer in advance. “Three hundred and fifty dollars,” she answered. “Gee whiz,” I teased. “How much would it cost just to get new eyes?” The other pharmacy assistant laughed to herself without looking up. But the cashier was not joining in the fun. “I know you are going to fix me right up!” I added, still trying to alter the mood!

My last attempt at a bit of happy talk: “Is your day getting a little bit better?” I asked. “Not really,” she said, flatly.

The expressionless pharmacy manager standing six feet from her finally looked up from his work. His countenance clearly conveyed his condemnation. He was not amused at my attempts to elevate the attitude of his front-line ambassador. This pitcher of customer delight remained out of my reach as I vowed to go back to my old pharmacy where I didn’t have to work so hard to get a fraction of positive service.

How to Figure Out Where You Should Focus

June 30, 2025/0 Comments/in Books, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

True business leaders stay focused. This is crystal clear. But how can you make sure you are focusing on the most promising business opportunities that can lead your company to success?

Today’s post is by Sharon Tal, co-author of Where to Play.

In their best-selling book Creativity Inc., Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace present well known pieces of advice that lead you nowhere. One of them is “focus, focus, focus!” As they explain: “When people hear it, they nod their heads as if a great truth has been presented, not realizing that they have been diverted from addressing the far harder problem: deciding what is it that they should be focusing on. There is nothing in this piece of advice that gives you any idea how to figure out where the focus should be.”

Indeed, knowing that you need to focus is the easy part, but choosing which opportunities to focus on is a hard nut to crack. This is true for founders of a small startup, just as it is for managers of a large organization. In any case you will need to assess and prioritize your business opportunities to figure out what horse you are betting on.

Here are few tips that will help you to evaluate and compare your business opportunities in a systematic manner, so you can set your strategic focus more easily.

Spotlight on two key factors

Theories on motivation stress that a great goal should be desirable and feasible – both at the same time. A business opportunity is just the same: it should be highly desirable, i.e., offer a high potential for value creation, yet also highly feasible, i.e., bear limited challenges in capturing this value. So when you assess different opportunities for your company, make sure to evaluate these two key factors. Your aim is to focus on a high potential, low challenge opportunity.

Categorize your options

If you systematically evaluate the potential and the challenge of each business opportunity on your table, you can use it to categorize your options into 4 different types:

Four Lessons in Employee Engagement We Can Learn from Nature

June 25, 2025/0 Comments/in Books, Guest Blogger, Leadership /by Trevor Jones

Taking a few lessons from Nature about how to keep and engage employees.

Today’s post is by Dr. Kathleen E. Allen, author of Leading from the Roots

Most organizations struggle with generating authentic employee engagement. There is an unlikely teacher, however, that can provide some interesting strategies on creating stronger engagement within any team, business, or otherwise. That teacher is nature.

Entities that are managed and led based on nature are considered “living systems” rather than objectified organizations. Living systems are much more agile, and respond to feedback much more rapidly. As a result, those working within these organizations often feel they have a stronger voice within the operation – which leads to stronger engagement.

The idea of creating a “living system” organization might seem overwhelming or too abstract of a goal. Yet most companies that reflect these types of values started with very small steps. And engagement is an excellent place to start.

When it comes to using nature’s principles as a model for business, here are four significant lessons that could help boost employee engagement:

ONE: Design the organization so engagement is essential.

Nature is designed from the start by the relationship between sunlight and photosynthesis. Sunlight is a free resource that sends energy to the earth. It only works, however, if there are leaves, algae, and grass that photosynthesize the energy of the sun into life-giving nutrients.

How to Inspire Your Team to Embrace a Sense of Urgency

June 16, 2025/0 Comments/in Books, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Training /by Trevor Jones

Your team needs to move with a sense of urgency. This doesn’t mean moving fast – it means moving with purpose. A group of firefighters can provide great insight into what moving with a sense of urgency means.

Today’s post is by Tom Pandola, author of Light a Fire Under Your Business.

One of the big issues in business today is how to motivate a young workforce. Anyone in a leadership position knows how difficult it can be to instill a certain level of engagement within their employees and associates. This can be a difficult task, but if you are in a leadership position and accountable for accomplishing important work through the efforts of others, you need to start leading as though it matters.

Much of what I have learned to be true about the subject of leadership was learned during my 25 years of firefighting in Los Angeles. The topic of motivating a sense of urgency within a workforce reminds me of one of the first greater alarm fires that I responded to as a rookie fresh out of the fire academy.

Try to picture a large commercial building in flames, with smoke billowing high into the sky. Imagine all of the actions taking place by the multitude of firefighters carrying ladders and hose lines in every direction, fire engines pumping large amounts of water, and the continuous roar caused by the fire consuming everything inside the building, including the structure itself. I could feel the adrenaline coursing through my veins, and I was certainly taking on every task given to me with what I would consider an enormous sense of urgency!

Running toward the burning building tasked with delivering a piece of important equipment that was needed inside, I was confronted with an obstacle: a large pile of fire hose which resembled spaghetti on a dinner plate. I was moving fast with no time to slow down! So, I attempted to leap over the pile. As I caught my foot on a loop of hose, tripped, and fell face down onto the concrete sidewalk – my helmet along with that important equipment I was carrying all went flying. Everything that I was trying to deliver was now skidding across the ground with such a noisy clatter that it caught the attention of everyone within a hundred feet of me.

Stunned, I looked up and realized I had landed sprawled out at the foot of the deputy fire chief, who was in command of operations. Read more

3 Secrets to Unlocking the Power of Leading by Inclusion

June 9, 2025/0 Comments/in Books, Guest Blogger, Leadership /by Trevor Jones

Chick-fil-A has a special culture and its business performance is outstanding as a result. There are 3 secret keys to unlocking the power of inclusion that drives a great culture.

Today’s post is an is by Dee Ann Turner, author of It’s My Pleasure.

Archived Post: This blog was first published in 2016. We’re bringing it back to spotlight a topic that’s worth revisiting.

I will never forget my first days at Chick-fil-A’s corporate headquarters. Landing the job was a huge blessing and a personal victory. After two initial rejection letters and about six months of follow-up phone calls, I finally secured my first interview with the company. Four months of subsequent interviews, reference checks, and skills testing later, I had an entry-level position in Chick-fil-A’s human resources department.

No one could have possibly known that more than 30 years later, I’d still be with Chick-fil-A, serving as a Vice President.

All those years ago, at the company Christmas party about a month after I joined the team, I experienced an introduction to Chick-fil-A founder Truett Cathy’s unique leadership style firsthand. The entire staff was treated to dinner at one of the nicest hotels in Atlanta, and every employee had been assigned a seat. I was dumbfounded when I discovered that along with several other recent hires, I – a brand new, 21-year-old administrative assistant – was seated at a table with Truett.

Truett widened his circle to include us that night for several reasons. One was to make us feel welcome. He was always going out of his way to let anyone who crossed his path know that they were valued and respected. “Dee Ann, we’re not really in the chicken business,” he used to say. “We’re in the people business.” But he had another reason for enjoying dinner surrounded by all of our new faces: he used that time to model and explain Chick-fil-A’s principles to us because he was counting on us to live them out. That’s how culture is created.

It was the first example of leading by inclusion that I’d ever seen, and it made a profound impression.

Inclusion is one of the most effective strategies leaders can use. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the least leveraged. In my new book It’s My Pleasure: The Impact of Extraordinary Talent and Compelling Culture, I share practices behind the exceptional business model Truett created when he founded Chick-fil-A more than 60 years ago. One of the most distinct aspects of our model is the manner in which Truett led. One of the fundamental pieces of his leadership was inclusion.

At Chick-fil-A, all of our leaders foster a habit of inclusion that takes the following forms:

Spending Time with a Broad Cross-section of Staff

Like his father Truett, Chick-fil-A’s current CEO Dan Cathy knows that inclusion is one of the pillars of strong leadership. Dan makes a point to spend time with employees at all levels and in all areas of our business, and to seek out their opinions. One of his favorite tasks is personally checking in with Operators – our franchisees – and their teams around the country.

These interactions benefit each individual as they improve our company as a whole. Different perspectives can stimulate new ideas or recommit leaders to core values. Solutions that might otherwise never be heard are given the opportunity to be voiced. Leaders and staff connect as people, nurturing the sense of family that makes Chick-fil-A’s culture so uniquely powerful.

Harnessing the Power of “And”

Inclusion also comes into play when we consider whom we value on our teams. When it comes to stewarding talent, leaders are often tempted to focus either on rising stars or veteran voices. But feeling the need to choose between new and seasoned talent is a false dilemma. In fact, great leaders understand that most “either/or” choices should be avoided. Instead, focus on how to craft an inclusive solution that relies on “and.”

At Chick-fil-A, we are constantly striving to both support and draw from our brilliant talent on both ends of the experience spectrum. We are most successful when we inhabit what I like to call “the place where endurance meets momentum.” This is where knowledge is combined with new energy, and context supports the future. It’s also definitively inclusive.

Fostering an Abundancy Mentality

When we lead by inclusion, we’re also able to create an environment with an abundancy mentality. When our staff feels that there is enough opportunity for everyone, it empowers them as it pushes our business forward. Team members can applaud their peers’ victories when they recognize that another person’s success does not limit their own potential.

A team’s abundancy mentality starts with an inclusive leader, who supports the dreams of others and exhibits obvious optimism. These leaders are confident mentors who enthusiastically celebrate other people.

When you lead by inclusion, your business will benefit. But you and your staff will gain so much more than higher profits. Inclusion helped Truett build his most enduring, important legacy: Chick-fil-A’s compelling culture, which continues to inspire and influence everyone it touches.

Dee Ann Turner is Vice President, Corporate Talent, for Chick-fil-A, where she began her career more than 30 years ago. Her first book, It’s My Pleasure: The Impact of Extraordinary Talent and a Compelling Culture, reveals never-before-shared secrets behind building and maintaining Chick-fil-A’s revolutionary business model.

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6 Steps to Achieving Your Goals in 90 Days

June 2, 2025/0 Comments/in Books, Communications, Entrepreneur, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Sales /by Trevor Jones

Achieving your goals is all about taking tangible steps every day. If you change your time horizon and ask yourself six simple questions, you’ll find you’re achieving your goals more rapidly than you ever thought possible.

Today’s post is by David Horsager, author of THE DAILY EDGE: Simple Strategies to Increase Efficiency and Make an Impact Every Day.

I met an eighty-eight-year-old man named Orville at my health club. I first noticed him one afternoon while checking in at the front desk. He was stumbling along behind me. There was no way this man, slowly shuffling along the path to the gym, was going to do any kind of meaningful workout! Orville patiently moved, inch by inch, into the weight-training area, picked up some dumbbells, and, with an audible grunt, started his routine.

One day I happened to see Orville out of the corner of my eye, stepping onto one of the treadmills. I was across the room, and he was already reaching for the start button. Too far away to help him, I just stood there and watched. As the treadmill came to life, Orville took one small step, and then another. The machine picked up speed, but miraculously, so did his legs. Within a minute, he hit full stride, running like a man half his age!

At this point the reality of the situation dawned on me. Orville’s problem was not with his legs, it was with his vision. He couldn’t see where he was going. Though Orville did nothing to cause his vision problem, it is a powerful example of how limited we are when we lack clarity and vision.

How often do leaders and employees lack clarity in their communication, and as a result, drive forward ambiguous goals?

I think 90 days is the best timeframe for most goals. A year is too long – see how few people keep New Year’s Resolutions? Twenty-one days is too short for most real change. However, in 90 days, I was able to lose 33 pounds! And I’ve seen people triple their sales in 90 days.

That’s why I like the 90-Day Quick Plan. It is a strategy for clarifying how you are going to achieve your most vital goals.

Pick an area of your business or personal life that you’d like to address, and then ask six questions. Don’t wait to start because the plan should take less than thirty minutes to create. All you need to do is ask and answer these six questions:

The Hidden Cost Of The Cape: Why High-Performing Women Must Stop Ignoring The Signs Of Burnout

May 19, 2025/1 Comment/in Balanced Lifestyle, Books, Career, Guest Blogger, Leadership /by Trevor Jones

Lynn Blades reveals why ambitious women must stop ignoring burnout, offering practical strategies to set boundaries, prioritize self-care, and lead sustainably without sacrificing health, success, or well-being.

Today’s post is by Lynn Blades, author of THE QUIET BURN.

I can’t count the number of times a client has called in tears, overwhelmed from stress, or physically ill on the border of burnout. By that time, it’s often too far along for a quick fix. I have two decades of experience as an executive leadership coach working with women across the Fortune groups and globally successful entrepreneurs. I have witnessed a distressing pattern: brilliant women wearing the Superwoman cape only to watch it fall from their shoulders as they disintegrate into smouldering ashes. Heads up ladies, Superwoman is a cartoon character. I should know.

For years, I ignored the physical, mental, and emotional signs of burnout. A decade ago, my doctor told me I needed physical therapy for my deteriorating lower back. But I prioritized work deadlines, client demands, and personal obligations instead. I told myself I would get to it later. “Later” turned into five years, and by then, the damage was irreversible. I was crippled by acute pain that robbed me of mobility. Ultimately, I underwent major spinal surgery. I’m now the owner of a titanium cage, three three-inch screws holding me up not to mention months of gruelling recovery. This lesson did not have to be learned the hard way.

Ignoring your needs does not make you stronger. It breaks you.

Why Do So Many Women Ignore the Signs?

As women, society conditions us early on to prioritize other’s needs over our own. We wear selflessness as a badge of honor. We are rewarded for saying “yes,” and made to feel guilty for establishing boundaries. Add to that the unspoken rule in corporate and entrepreneurial environments: you must be twice as good to get half as far.

The result?

Many women impose internal pressure to overdeliver, to outperform, to say “yes” when they should say “no” — all at the expense of their health, sanity, and spirit. We feel societal guilt for looking after ourselves.

In a recent Deloitte study, 53% of women reported feeling more stressed this past year than the year before, and nearly 40% cited burnout as the main reason they left their companies. Don’t make the mistake in thinking burnout disappears with a weekend off or a week of vacation. It can take months or even years, to recover from full-blown burnout depending on severity.

Recognizing Burnout Before It Becomes Crippling

Burnout is a serious condition marked by emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and a reduced sense of personal accomplishment.

You’re entering the danger zone if you are experiencing any of the following:

Constant fatigue, even after rest

Increased detachment/irritability

Working harder but producing less

Chronic back pain, migraines, and digestive issues

Emotional numbness

Ignoring these signs can lead to grave consequences — physically, emotionally, personally, and professionally.

Boundaries Are Not a Luxury. They Are a Leadership Skill

Embrace the power of saying “no” — unapologetically and without guilt.

Saying “no” to energy drainers creates space for what sustains you.

Self-care is not selfish. It is self-respect.

You cannot pour from an empty cup. You cannot lead, innovate, or inspire if you are running on fumes.

Establishing and maintaining boundaries:

Only attend essential meetings

Let go of control and delegate when possible

Block time in your diary for things that nourish your mind, body and soul

Be willing to disappoint others rather than betray yourself

Recovery: Rebuilding After Burnout

If you find yourself in a state of burnout or dangerously close, do not despair; recovery is possible. However, it must be intentional. Here are few things I recommend to my clients (and what I followed myself after my surgery):

Prioritize sleep — healing requires consistent sleep hygiene

Bring in a pro — coaches, therapists, and medical professionals can provide structure and support

Scale back — ruthlessly reassess what is essential versus what can wait

Reconnect with your “why” — remind yourself of your values, beliefs and purpose

Gently move your body — healing physically also heals mentally

Reconnect with nature — get outside, take time to stare at the sky and smell the roses

Practice radical self-compassion — the road back is not linear

Closing Thoughts: Choose Yourself First

Drop the cape. It was never meant to be worn forever.

Real strength is not in how much you can endure. Real strength is knowing when to step back, when to recharge, and when to choose yourself.

Don’t be a martyr. You owe it to yourself, your loved ones, and your legacy to lead from a place of wholeness.

If you recognize yourself in this message, act now. Your body, mind, and future self will thank you.

Lynn Blades, Founder of Legacy Leadership, is the author of THE QUIET BURN: The Ambitious Woman’s Guide to Recognizing and Preventing Burnout. www.lynnblades.com

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Successful Leaders Do These 3 Things to Reach Outside Their Comfort Zones

May 12, 2025/0 Comments/in Books, Business Toolkit, Career, Entrepreneur, Guest Blogger, Leadership /by Trevor Jones

Reaching outside your comfort zone is critical for success in business and in life. If you want to be successful, follow these three tips.

Today’s post is by Andy Molinsky, author of Reach.

If you play tennis, you’re probably familiar with the concept of a “second serve.” In tennis, you have two chances to serve the ball, so on the first you can really put everything into it, with little risk since you always have that second one to fall back on. The key is how you approach the second one.

When I was much younger, I learned that it was OK – critical even – to learn how to hit a powerful second serve – something that would be nearly as effective as the first – with lots of spin to it. But that took time and effort and many, many failed attempts – even in game-time situations.

The easy solution in the moment would have been to tap that second serve right in – risking little, but also not developing for the future. But I’m very glad I got the advice I did to risk it early on, and learn from experience and failure, because now I actually have a second serve I can use effectively – something that’s actually an asset –a weapon – and something I can use in real game time situations.

And, as I’ve learned from my own experience, as well as from the experiences interviewing managers, executives, and entrepreneurs for my book Reach, having the courage to take a leap is just as important in business as it is on the tennis court.

So, what are the best practices for willing yourself to take that leap and do something you know will help you in the long run, but which feels risky, awkward, or uncomfortable in the short term?

4 Questions to Make Difficult Switching Decisions Much Easier

May 5, 2025/0 Comments/in Books, Business Toolkit, Customer Service, Guest Blogger, Sales, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

In an age of too many options, four simple questions can provide a clear approach to making those frequent decisions in a way that saves us time.

Today’s post is by Jack Quarles, author of Expensive Sentences

We live in a time of unprecedented options. Those of us in developed economies of the 21st century, even with average incomes, have more choices than ever before in what we eat, what we wear, our jobs, where we live or travel, our entertainment and education… and the list goes on.

Our ability to customize the details of our lives is dazzling, but it is not free. Abundant options require abundant decisions, and decisions require energy. Life’s never-ending buffet brings byproducts: too many options can paralyze us, and fear of taking the wrong option can haunt us.

We can benefit from thinking about how we make decisions, and intentionally adopting practices that help us manage the cost of decision-making and feel more confident in the choices we do make.

Let’s examine a class of decision that we face every day: stay or go, fish or cut bait, keep on the same path or change direction. More specifically, we’ll consider people and companies we pay, whether at work or at home:

Do I like my accountant, or is it time to switch?
Should I change gyms?
Do we need a new marketing consultant?
Is our lawn care guy charging us too much?

There are both cost and benefit components to these questions. If your gym is nearby and your friends go there, it may be worth twice the price of a different gym with the same equipment because you’re more likely to go and use it. That’s an easy case. Other decisions aren’t so easy, and sometimes those questions of “Am I paying too much for this?” keep lingering in our mind without a clear answer.

Replacing Gray with Black and White