Home | Friday Forward

Closing Time (#150)

Penned on November 15, 2018

Let’s face it, it's pretty easy to be a great leader and kind to others when things are going well. When sales are doubling or your company has raised millions of dollars, being positive, doing the right thing and keeping the troops motivated doesn’t take a lot of skill or effort. It’s when adversity hits that you see people’s true colors and how they perform under pressure. How they act when their backs are up against the wall and there are no good options is often the truest reflection of a person’s character. For me, this is the real test of leadership. I have lost respect for many leaders in my career after seeing them turn from Jekyll to Hyde after…

READ THE REST >

WELCOME TO FRIDAY FORWARD

Friday Forward started as a note that I sent to my Acceleration Partners team each Friday morning. The goal was to provide inspiration around the concept of improvement and growth. I hoped to encourage our employees to want to achieve more in all areas of their lives, challenge their self-limiting beliefs and realize their true potential.

Soon, employees started sharing these notes with colleagues, friends and family who then reached out asking to be added to the list. As that list grew, I decided to open it up to anyone who wanted to receive the message.

Today, thanks largely to word of mouth, Friday Forward reaches over 100,000 people in fifty countries on six continents though e-mail, company intranets and Slack channels. I love hearing the stories of how Friday Forward is motivating teams, inspiring people to take action and apply the different concepts of capacity building, motivation, resilience and gratitude in their work and life. I’d be honored to have you join the community today.

Breaking Barriers (#149)

Barriers are meant to be broken, even when doing so seems unachievable. Nowhere is this truer than in running. The first major running barrier was broken by Roger Bannister, who, on May 6, 1954, busted…

Art of Brevity (#148)

Last week was the deadline to turn in the draft of my next book, Outperform, which will be released next Fall and features the principles of capacity building in Friday Forward. Before submitting it, I…

Getting Warmer (#147)

Two weeks ago, the world’s leading climate scientists, in conjunction with the United Nations (UN), published a pretty devastating report on global climate change. Their consensus is that humans have just 12 short years to…

Practicing Distraction (#146)

I can say with confidence that I am probably the least popular person in my household this week. While there are likely a few reasons that I would be up for this distinction in any…

Giver’s Gain (#145)

Cutco knives are to direct selling what Harvard is to business school. The legendary knife company has put hundreds of thousands of students through its sales training program, sent them out into the world to…

Winning Moves (#144)

Bobby Fischer is known as one of the best chess players of all time. He first learned the game at age six and went on to become the youngest player to win the U.S. Chess…

Good Intentions (#143)

Theranos was a company positioned to revolutionize blood testing. Just a few short years ago, the company was hailed as Silicon Valley’s next great “unicorn.” Investors valued it at $9B, making Theranos’ founder and CEO,…

World-Class (#142)

Ann Miura-Ko grew up as a first-generation American. Like millions before them, her parents immigrated to the U.S. in search of a better life and more opportunity. Her parents also had high expectations of their…

Respectful Disagreement (#141)

In the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographical book, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, author and American historian, Doris Kearns Goodwin, tells the story of President Lincoln’s decision to fill his cabinet with political…

Virtuous Cycle (#140)

A few weeks ago, I had some philosophical debates with a few people who were reviewing the close-to-final draft of my second book. I was seeking their input as I tried to determine whether the…

Send this to a friend

Your emailRecipient email