Presence Is a Leadership Skill
What presence actually means in a leadership context, why it is consistently undervalued, and what it costs when it is absent.
The Instrument, Not the Tool
Everyone at Cannes now holds the same instrument. What still can't be generated is the part only a lived, imperfect life can play.
You Are Not One Person
You are not a single unified self making rational decisions. You are a system of parts, each formed at a different point in your life, each still doing the job it was built for.
Why More Thinking Won't Solve This
Most of the leaders I work with have already spent a long time thinking about the thing that brought them here. It is still not moving. That is worth understanding.
What Grief Taught Me That Growth Never Could
The years I learned the most about myself were the years I would never have chosen. I am not saying the loss was a gift. I am saying what it revealed could not have been reached any other way.
The Space Between
Viktor Frankl wrote that between stimulus and response, there is a space. Most leaders I work with have gradually lost access to it.
Success as Avoidance
Achievement is extraordinarily good at keeping you moving. Moving fast is an effective way of not having to look at certain things.
What Runs the Show
The challenge that keeps recreating itself with a slightly different name is rarely a strategy problem. It is a pattern running beneath the situation, shaping every decision you make.
The Conversation That Isn't Happening
At a certain level of success, the honest conversation quietly disappears. Not because the people around you are not capable of having it. Because something in you stopped believing there was space for it.
The Ride In: How I Found My Way Home
After co-founding Surf the Greats, I faced a loss that stripped everything away. What followed reshaped how I live, lead, and work with others. The Ride In was born from that period: a space for leaders ready to lead from a deeper, more grounded place.