What is transformation? It's not moving things around or adding or removing things in your life.

If the circumstances of your life change but you're the same, there's no transformation.

Transformation means YOU evolve as a person.

This is what it looks like.

30th November 2006 - my most memorable birthday gift.

I woke up on my 28th birthday and rolled over to check my laptop, as I always did, to check how much money I had made.

That year, I had created a network of 2000 websites and gotten them to rank in Google for all sorts of keywords, in order to generate ad revenue. I was feeling good, as they had generated over $1,000 the previous day.

When the report appeared, I froze.

Reported revenue was $0.00.

Nil.

Nothing.

I checked my traffic report, and my sites had received no visitors.

They were all dead.

I felt cold even as my heart raced.

There must have been some mistake.

But even as I scrambled and my mind struggled to look for hope, I knew what had happened.

I searched for my websites in Google and found no trace of them. They had been purged.

Hundreds of hours, months of work, completely erased.

I felt horrible, empty - but worse than that, I knew it was what I deserved.

I had created no value - my sites were junk sites filled with recycled...

Overheard between son (6) and daughter (9) on the sofa.

Son smiling, "I think I'm cheekier than you".

Daughter, looking at him thoughtfully,

"I think we have the same cheekiness. You just use it more."



I recently did a fun and powerful exercise with other coaches where we highlighted qualities in ourselves that we wanted to bring out.

Then we role-played taking on those qualities.

And the amazing thing is, whether it was cheekiness, creativity, boldness, power, compassion, lightness, or vulnerability - everyone could harness those qualities simply by CHOOSING to do so.

Even if they felt unfamiliar.

That indicates that they were always there.

As I continue this journey, I keep uncovering qualities in myself and in others, that have been hidden or ignored.

One executive had gotten used to leaving his heart at home.

Another had locked away joy and freedom.

I myself believed the lie that I was missing power and connection, and that's just for starters.

Unsurprisingly, we wander around feeling...

Ken Norton just sent a great newsletter, titled 'The Tools Don't Matter'.

Here's an excerpt:

"if I give you advice, you just might follow it. More to the point, if I engage you in this conversation, I’m lending credence to the misguided belief that PM tools matter MORE than other fuzzier things that truly are important." 

I recall when I started creating a PM training program, I signed up to various PM Slack communities to learn from my customers. 

I found what Ken highlights: Many questions about tools, details, methodologies. Few questions about what really mattered. 

But these downstream decisions emerge from fuzzy things upstream. Things like awareness, clarity, intuition, connection, courage, communication, creativity. 

Fuzziness makes people uncomfortable. 

In my coaching work with leaders, we rarely talk about tools and details. 

We talk about how they work, how they think, what they believe, how they see the world, what is driving their...