You are going to have to decide what type of leader you want to be.” This is one of the critical thoughts I use to open conversations with new team members striving toward a first management position. This comment is usually met with a blank stare and comes across to most as jarring. Most want to climb the corporate ladder, as we typically call it, but few come at this first position with any grand vision for what type of manager they want to be. I opened my career out of col

Many years ago, I had a boss who shared some advice with me that became a North Star as I grew deeper into my career. I’ll start by saying I’m a person of faith and ask if you’re not to stick with me even though this blog may not be your cup of tea or your typical read. I ask because this blog is about work-life balance and spirituality and how those things entwine to create a life of fulfillment. Those who know me also know family and work to be extremely important to me. M

Throughout my 25 years as a manager, I’ve identified two key areas I often consider when hiring a new team member: do I hire for cultural fit, or do I hire because a potential new associate has the right experience. In a perfect world, you hire for both, the new candidate knocks it out of the park, and they check all the experience boxes with a personality that perfectly aligns with the current team. The transition is seamless. But, more often than not, I find that most poten

Looking Back to Look Forward In October of 2022, I wrote an article about the cookware and housewares industry at what felt, at the time, like a high point. The American consumer was locked down at home and buying everything imaginable for the kitchen. Companies could not get enough product into their warehouses. Brands that had historically struggled with unsellable inventory sold through everything they had, and then some pushing international suppliers for every container

Since leaving an industry-leading company after 23 years to forge a new path in the housewares industry, three and a half years have passed, and my view of the industry has changed dramatically. This time has allowed me to challenge many of my previous perspectives while testing some hypotheses about how our industry is evolving in the never-ending chase to connect with our end consumers and continue the development of new products that ultimately motivate the marketplace to

In August of this year, my wife and I celebrated 30 years of marriage. She has humored me and my crazy ambitions and goals and has always been my biggest fan, often telling me on the way out the door on another adventure, “Just make sure the insurance is paid.” Today, flying into Seattle on business, I was rewarded with an incredible view of Mount Rainier off the left-hand side of our airplane. (Included) I obsessed for years, as a young man, with Mount Everest and the women

Thirty-one years ago, on January 28, 1986, we lost Challenger on takeoff. Sixteen years ago, on February 1, 2003, we lost Columbia.Two of the saddest days in the history of our country, but rather than ponder the sadness and loss, I’d ask that we ponder what motivates great women and men to do incredible things and take mind-boggling risks and dream big?Where does an individual get the courage to strap on a rocket and 15 mins after takeoff in Florida is somewhere over Italy f

As I sit to write this latest blog, we are ten days past a new year, and I am exactly one week away from my 56th birthday. I hadn’t thought about it, but next week marks 10 years until my 65th birthday, that magical age most often known as retirement. As I considered next week’s milestone, thoughts began to percolate about what I wanted the next ten years of my life to look like. I didn’t know where to start, how best to approach this process, or even how to analyze and break

I would like to open up a dialog concerning a topic I’ve had on my mind for a few months: How late in a career is it too late to go back to school for an MBA or an Executive MBA? An EMBA is a personal topic I’ve pondered for a few years. I regretted not doing this when I was younger, but I didn’t have the means or access to more elite schools that I do now. I was also raised in a family that was extremely risk and debt-averse. I’m now ten years away from the average retireme