ISSUE #039 | THE LEADERSHIP CONTRARIAN

Amidst all the flurry of AI over the last 24 months, and recent reports of our possible doom, we’ve heard a multitude of stories about how AI might be the next tool to catapult humanity forward or to enslave us as our new master.

To make sense of it, writers have been citing history and the repeated challenges we humans have had with new technology over the centuries. Some of the fear was warranted, and some of it turned out to be overblown. And sometimes the warnings were half right.

ISSUE #038 | THE LEADERSHIP CONTRARIAN

Richard Wilhelm was German and a friend of Carl Jung. Wilhelm spent over twenty years traveling China as a missionary and a Sinologist, which is a researcher who studies the things of China. During the time they were friends, Wilhelm told Jung this story.

ISSUE #037 | THE LEADERSHIP CONTRARIAN

Food can teach us a lot about life and leadership.

I love good meatloaf, but that wasn’t always the case.

Meatloaf has received some bad press over the years. Some people love it. A lot of people hate it, as if they'd been subjected to some form of childhood meatloaf trauma.

ISSUE #036 | THE LEADERSHIP CONTRARIAN

They set a plate of carved meat down between the seven of us that somebody nicknamed the Beef Charcuterie Board. It was glorious.

We sat there for over two hours. Eating, laughing, going deep on what we were grateful for this year and what we'd learned the hard way. The conversation bounced everywhere, giving each other a hard time about nothing, then getting quiet enough to talk about the wins we were still excited about and the hard things we're still walking through.

I'll tell you why that dinner mattered so much in a minute. But first you need to know what the two days before it looked like.

ISSUE #035 | THE LEADERSHIP CONTRARIAN

I can't remember his name.

I remember his face. I remember the way he stood at the front of that room like there was nowhere else he'd rather be. And I remember that he didn't care how many chairs he had.

ISSUE #034 | THE LEADERSHIP CONTRARIAN

You've seen this interview.

Some founder who built something remarkable is sitting in a nice chair under good lighting, and the host asks the question they always ask: What taught you the most?

She pauses. Smiles a little. "Honestly? My biggest mistakes."

Everybody nods. It's humble. It sounds exactly like the truth. And a few million people walk away with the same conclusion: mistakes are the real teacher. Go make some.

ISSUE #033 | THE LEADERSHIP CONTRARIAN

I watched a room full of people spend an hour telling my friend Vicki what she meant to them.

It was her 60th birthday surprise party. About sixty people packed in, most of whom had known her for years, some for decades. Kathryn and I drove a few hours to be there.

ISSUE #032 | THE LEADERSHIP CONTRARIAN

We're Not in a Storm. We're in a Stormy Season.

A few weeks ago I was sitting with one of my coaching clients. She started her company more than fifteen years ago, and in the last year and a half it has taken off. People from all over want what she offers. It's been exciting, exhausting, and everything in between.

ISSUE #031 | THE LEADERSHIP CONTRARIAN

If you read our last issue, you know I ended up in emergency surgery.

I'm doing better. I'm healing well. But my life has changed, and here's the strange part - I'm not entirely sure how much.

Not because nobody's told me anything. Everybody has an opinion.

ISSUE #030 | THE LEADERSHIP CONTRARIAN

Last night, I woke up with a pain in my stomach.

Not the kind where you roll over, blame dinner, and go back to sleep.

This one stayed.

It ran through my upper abdomen and into my back. I shifted around. I got up. I lay back down. I tried to decide whether it was serious or whether I was being dramatic, which according to Kathryn, is not always a decision I am qualified to make on my own.

It was a long night.