The Heart of the Matter
The Heart of the Matter is a free newsletter for motivated professionals who want to create meaningful change in the modern workplace. Delivered to your inbox twice a month, this newsletter is designed to help you lead with greater clarity, confidence, and authenticity.
The Heart of The Matter: Holiday Bonus Edition
Are you the rock or the glue? I had dinner recently with a couple I've known for years. We were talking about their life together, raising kids, managing careers, navigating the chaos of everyday existence. "I'm the glue," the wife said, smiling at her husband. "And he's the rock." It wasn't a complaint or a boast. She connects, mediates, remembers, and creates flow. He anchors, decides, protects, and holds steady. The glue and the rock. Each complemented the other. There was no hierarchy...
Are you listening to your tired self?
Who doesn't need to rest? All of us do. Whether you’re frazzled and stretched too thin or moving through your days with apparent calm, whether you’re an executive or caring for everyone at home. If sleep is your only form of rest, you might technically get your eight hours, but that doesn’t mean your mind has quieted. Neither does it rest your heart nor your spirit. Every year, we assume the slower pace of the winter holidays will refuel us. We’ll have a few days off, time with family, and a...
The Heart of the Matter: Your Guide to a Centered, Confident Self-Assessment
November Roundup: Your monthly mix of fuel for action and food for thought. Your self-assessment form just arrived, looking nothing like your colleague's across town. You might face metrics and ratings while they write narrative responses, or receive a vague "reflect on your year" while they work through specific categories. Yet beneath these different formats, everyone's really asking the same thing. What difference did you make? Last week, we talked about becoming like a Weeble, these...
Are you letting performance reviews define you?
The Season of Self-Assessment Think about a win you pulled off this year. A moment where your skill or judgment made a difference, where your effort paid off. Now, try saying this to yourself: "I made that happen." Did you do it? Did you immediately add qualifiers like “but the team helped” or “it wasn't that hard”? And, if the words didn’t come, sit with that for a second. Why can't you claim your own accomplishment without apology? Year after year, during performance reviews, I watch...
The Heart of the Matter: The Leaders We Choose to Follow
October Discussion: Your monthly mix of fuel for action and food for thought. In conversation with journalist and author David Gelles on power, complicity, and corporate conscience. This month, instead of my usual resource roundup, I'm sharing a conversation that brought me back to the questions at the heart of my work. What makes certain leaders so compelling that you abandon your own judgment to follow them? I was introduced to David Gelles in the mid-2000s, when we were both exploring the...
You are so lucky to be here.
“You are so lucky to be here.” The Founder spread his arms wide like Oprah as he welcomed my "class" of new hires to our prestigious real estate firm. Twenty-somethings squeezed into suits we couldn't afford, we were lined up in front of him to listen to his rags-to-riches story, which left us simultaneously inspired and intimidated. Other leaders echoed the same message: we were special because they’d chosen us. Learn to do as they did, and we’d succeed. We were desperate to prove we...
The Heart of the Matter: Let Wisdom Be Your Advantage
Resource Roundup: Your monthly mix of fuel for action and food for thought. "When you learn, teach. When you get, give." Maya Angelou Every December of my childhood, my parents held a holiday open house that stretched from noon until night. People would drive an hour just to be there, and without fail, friends of mine and of my brother would gravitate to the living room where my father sat in his chair. By late afternoon, they'd be clustered at his feet, drawn in by his warmth and genuine...
Do you know how to recognize wisdom?
Pay attention to who people seek out when problems get complicated. They're probably the wisest in the room. Nate stood apart from the credentialed experts at the executive search firm where I worked. We'd been brought in to diagnose why a client's hiring operation wasn’t working and to offer solutions. While the traditional consultants analyzed the client’s processes, Nate analyzed their people. He spent extra time with them, asking unexpected questions and noting the differences between the...
The Heart of the Matter: Make Your Anger Work For You
Resource Roundup: Your monthly mix of fuel for action and food for thought. “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” James Baldwin Last newsletter, I told you to get pissed off. Genuinely, righteously pissed off enough to confront whatever holds you back, stop waiting for permission or the perfect moment, and insist on recognition that matches your contributions. That struck a nerve. I heard from many of you with your own stories of being...
Sometimes the best career move is to let yourself get pissed off.
Sometimes the best career move is to let yourself get pissed off. If it's been over a year since they promised you that promotion, let's call it what it is: a lie. You keep a level head when things at work don’t go your way, but after months, or even years, of patience, what do you do when you still don’t see the progress you’ve earned? Lawrence, a senior manager I coached, spent eighteen months waiting for the director title his boss always promised would come in "just one more cycle."...
The Heart of the Matter is a free newsletter for motivated professionals who want to create meaningful change in the modern workplace. Delivered to your inbox twice a month, this newsletter is designed to help you lead with greater clarity, confidence, and authenticity.