In 1500 words or less, each post will give you something you can use TODAY to build yourself, your people and your organization whether your organization is a "for-profit" or a "not-for-profit."
Sometimes the best stories come from the moments that don’t go as planned, the detours, the surprises, and the little realizations you didn’t expect to have.
That’s where the experience becomes real, and a lot more memorable.
Everyone in the room knew the truth. I had heard it in conversations, one-on-one, behind closed doors. But when it was time to say it out loud, to stand behind it, there was nothing. No questions. No pushback.
Just silence. That’s when it hit me: culture isn’t defined by what people say in private. It’s defined by what they’re willing to risk saying when it actually matters.
I was lying on the ice, staring up at the lights, knowing I didn’t belong.
Everyone else was faster. Better. More natural.
I had no business being out there, and I knew it. In that moment, I made a decision: I was done.
I started to pull myself up, already planning how I’d leave, what I’d say, how I’d explain that this just wasn’t for me.
And then someone skated over.
Most people don’t go to conferences to change anything.
They go to feel like they are.
They take notes. They nod. They leave inspired. Then nothing changes.
A smaller group does something else. They pick one idea and act, when it’s inconvenient, messy, and unpopular.
That’s the edge.
It’s not access to ideas. It’s the courage to use them.
The difference isn’t what you learned. It’s what you chose to do with it.
Rigidity doesn’t usually announce itself.
It shows up as discipline. As process. As “the way we’ve always done it.”
But underneath, it’s often something else entirely: fear disguised as control.
And the longer we hold onto it, the more it quietly limits what we, and the organizations we are part of, are capable of becoming.
This is a longer read than usual, but it’s written that way intentionally.
Because the way we think about accommodations, fairness, and performance in the workplace is often oversimplified, and those oversimplifications shape how people are supported, evaluated, and sometimes misunderstood.
If you’ve ever questioned whether “treating everyone the same” is actually fair in practice, this is worth your time.
Most people don’t lose jobs because they can’t do the work, they lose them because of how they show up, day after day.
Everything you do is a test, and your reputation is built in the small, ordinary moments most people overlook.
Stand out by being reliable, curious, and willing to learn, consistently, not occasionally.
“Look at my feet while I’m talking to you.”
That sounds wrong. Disrespectful, even. It goes against what most of us have been taught about attention, engagement, and respect.
But what if it’s not wrong?
What if it’s not a correction of the person, but of the standard we’re using to judge them?
Most of the conflict we experience with people living with autism isn’t about effort.
It’s about misinterpretation.
We don’t just see behavior, we assign meaning to it.
And too often, we’re wrong.
Children’s and youth sports start and finish all the time, whether at the beginning, middle, or end of a season. What matters is not the scoreboard or the record, but the experiences they carry with them during the season, and especially when it ends.
Coaching minor sports is not about winning games. It’s about building confidence, creating belonging, and giving kids a reason to come back. If they come back, you got it right.
Most people think hiring decisions are about choosing the best candidate.
They’re not.
Hiring is about removing enough doubt to say yes.
And once you understand that interviews start to make a lot more sense.