I have traveled over 2 million miles in my career, coaching, nudging, teaching, influencing, laughing with, learning from and ultimately helping top executives and the companies they lead to grow, increase value, innovate, and be better versions of themselves.

 

My clients are leaders of every stripe: smart, confident, committed, and endlessly fascinating people. As I have helped them, they have taught me. They have all been important partners in my life and work to help me sharpen my saw and hone my business and consulting tradecraft.

 

I dislike neck ties. I do however, like casual, comfortable jeans. And I have a love of vintage clothing at home, at work and with clients. My personal style is reflected in my practice; I eschew the formal and rigid for the casual, creative but classic.

 

Creativity, design thinking and innovation is my stock-in-trade and now after 30-plus years of corporate consulting many call me the consultant’s consultant; teaching others to tap into the well of their imagination, to inspire and empower them to grow and reshape their businesses.

 

I like writing, have written several books on creativity and innovation. I wanted to distill my experiences and hopefully help others to improve their lives and businesses. Of all my writing, my favorite is Stimulated! the book I authored with my ultimate partner in love, Jeannine McGlade. I am humbled that Stimulated! has been so well received by so many.  And while I’m grateful for the praise and awards it’s received, I’m deeply gratified that is has inspired people to find better solutions, and improve their lives and businesses.

 

As much as I like writing, I LOVE to interact with clients personally in my seminars, classes and one-on-one training. I feel more comfortable when I can speak to people directly and teach them new concepts and help them unlock their own inner genius.

 

On a more personal note, only a few people know that I could have been a rockstar; I have everything I need except for talent, skill or any real musical ability. That said, I know a few riffs on guitar: Smoke on The Water, Walk This Way and Over the Hills and Far Away (to name a few) otherwise, the guitar on my podcast Consulting Unplugged is mostly for show.  (Shameless Brag Warning: I wrote a rock ballad for my beautiful wife based on a poem I wrote for her years ago inspired by our first plane ride together.) After finishing up my next book on consulting, I will likely write a book about the “love of work” and how if your work does not appeal to you romantically, then you are most definitely going to get bored or it will get bored with you - in short do what you love, love what you do.

 

My mission, after all these years of romping through airports, facilitating workshops, attending client meetings and collapsing at the days end in a somewhere, nowhere hotel, is to build the power skills of the next generation of advisors, entrepreneurs, innovators and change makers. And by power skills, I mean not only leveling up one’s business skills (expertise) but also revving up one’s social currency (ability to influence, empathize and network) – the essential difference maker in client success and delivering impact.