The Investment Capital Growth Blog

Contributors: Kevin Cashman, Global Leader, CEO & Executive Development, Kevin Cashman, Global Leader, CEO & Executive Development, Kevin Cashman, Global Leader, CEO & Executive Development, Ronald Porter, Senior Client Partner, Global Human Resources Center of Excellence, Ronald Porter, Senior Client Partner, Global Human Resources Center of Excellence, Juliana Barela, Vice President & General Manager, RPO, North America, Elise Freedman, Senior Client Partner, Workforce Transformation Practice Leader, Dennis R. Baltzley, Ph.D., Global Solution Leader, Leadership Development, Andrés Tapia, Senior Client Partner, ESG and DE&I Strategist, Andy De Marco, Vice President, Human Resources, Americas, Divina Gamble, Office Managing Partner, Washington DC, Senior Client Partner, Co-Leader of Nonprofit Practice, Stuart S. Crandell, Senior Client Partner at Korn Ferry, and edited by Cliff Locks, Investment Capital Growth, Managing Director, and Executive Coach.

Contributor: Peter Diamandis, Founder, X Prize Foundation and Chairman of Singularity University and edited by Cliff Locks, Investment Capital Growth, Managing Director and Executive Coach

Contributor: Peter Diamandis, Founder, X Prize Foundation and Chairman of Singularity University and edited by Cliff Locks, Investment Capital Growth, Managing Director and Executive Coach

Contributor: Melissa Hadhazy, Senior Client Partner and Cheryl D’Cruz-Young, Senior Client Partner, ESG and CPO Center of Expertise at Korn Ferry and edited by Cliff Locks, Investment Capital Growth, Managing Director, and Executive Coach

Money can’t buy loyalty. It just rents it for a while. If employers believe that higher wages alone can stop the Great Resignation as people quit their jobs at the highest rates on record, they’re probably in for a disappointment.

As bosses look for answers, culture is at the forefront—and the stakes are higher these days for almost every company on the planet. We’ve witnessed seismic shifts across the workscape, the likes of which haven’t been seen since the Industrial Revolution. We’ve gone from subways and freeways to home office bedrooms and kitchen table desks. Liberating, but also isolating.

Culture can be the missing link. Unfortunately, it can also be a bit of a conundrum.

Ask six people to define culture and you’ll probably get 12 different answers. Some say it’s mission and values. For others, it’s Ping-Pong tables and work attire. However, culture really boils down to just one definition: It’s how things get done.

Culture will vary, company to company, industry to industry. It’s never one-size-fits-all. Culture needs to be lived, breathed, and experienced every day.

Companies have a culture quandary.

Having the right culture, at the right time, and with the right people can elude many companies. Often, it’s more art than science. In a survey our firm conducted, nearly three-quarters of executives described culture as being extremely important to organizational performance. Yet, only a third said that their culture was fully aligned with their business strategy!

We need to ask ourselves: How do we continue to empower people? How do we interact with and help each other? What should collaboration look like? How will the best ideas emerge? Do we need to be in physical proximity so that the happenstance of meeting in the hallway or getting coffee can spark insightful conversations? Or can we replicate that in other ways?

Lead by example.

The leader plays a disproportionately large role: Culture starts at the top, where it is created and shaped. Given all we’ve been through over the past few years, leading is all about “grace”—that inner voice that constantly whispers, “It’s not about you.”

When leaders make others’ success their priority, they help define and differentiate the culture. That’s why our Korn Ferry Institute describes leaders as having two core roles today. First, they are the culture champions: the role models who embody the mindset, beliefs, and desired behaviors. Second, they are the culture architects who make sure that the right structures are in place to support those desired behaviors. Leading by word and by example can ensure that a healthy, inclusive culture takes root and grows.

The culture fit factor

We all know the questions people ask as they weigh whether to stay in their current jobs or pursue new opportunities: “What is it like to work there? What’s the culture like? What are the people like?”

What they’re really asking (in many different ways) is simply: “How will I fit in?”

We’re all vulnerable, we all have insecurities. We want to be loved, to belong, and to be part of something bigger than ourselves. It’s the culture that opens the door and reassures people, “You matter, you make a difference, you belong here.”

There are unwritten rules.

Policies and procedures certainly have their place as an important way for guiding people to come together as a society, a community, or an organization. But these structures alone do not adequately describe culture. For that, we must look to the unwritten rules—and every organization has them.

It’s “code” for how things really get done. For example, there’s the entrepreneurial culture where it’s all about performance, and the norm is to “ask forgiveness, not permission.” Other places are far more hierarchical. But within every company, there are informal networks and unwritten rules that will never be found in any employee handbook.

Culture should be on the walls and in the halls and, most importantly, in the hearts and minds of every employee. Elusive to define, powerful when deeply felt, it is best experienced together. Indeed, it may be the difference between people staying or going.

Let’s work together and help you move towards your vision of success faster; schedule a call: www.calendly.com/clifflocks

Contributor: Gary Burnison, Korn Ferry CEO, and edited by Cliff Locks, Investment Capital Growth, Managing Director, and Executive Coach

As new competitive realities emerged during the pandemic, many companies embraced digital transformation. Most adopted tools such as Teams, digital payments, and marketing automation to improve productivity.

However, digital transformation can’t be viewed in an incremental, linear fashion. Siebel founder Thomas Siebel refers to digital transformation — the confluence of cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, and the internet of things (IoT) — as a “mass extinction event.”

Entire industries and businesses will either adopt these technologies or be eliminated.

By reaching critical mass, the interconnectivity of billions of devices will drive the value created through big data and advanced analytics.

The bridge we must cross is from levering technology to improve service or reduce cost, to utilizing digital transformation to redefine our core product in a way that creates new demand and drives enterprise value.

Consider the case of an orange farmer. His core product has been found in nature for thousands of years and is a commodity.

What if the seeds he uses to grow oranges could be selected for ultimate flavor and yield by AI, planted and picked by autonomous vehicles, harvested at the ideal time based on moisture, heat, sunlight detected by IoT sensors, and sold at the highest market price based on advanced analytics?

While the product may be ostensibly the same, the grower would be far more competitive and profitable and would deliver a superior product using tools that are already commercially available today.

We must leverage these tools now, or face the consequences. Here are 4 ways digital transformation is taking form:

Let’s work together and help you move towards your vision of success faster; schedule a call: www.calendly.com/clifflocks

Contributor: Marc Emmer and edited by Cliff Locks, Investment Capital Growth, Managing Director, and Executive Coach

For many Executives and CEOs, leadership development is an ongoing challenge, and not just because they’re short on time. The problem comes from having too many options for leadership development activities, and too few ways to measure the ROI of those methods. How does a leader know whether it’s worth it to take that training program, watch that webinar or read that book?

Adding to this challenge, Executives and CEOs are under increasing pressure to expand their leadership competencies in a fast-changing world. In Deloitte’s Global Human Trends survey, 80% of respondents agreed that 21st-century leadership has “new and unique requirements” important to their organization’s success.

Here, we look at seven leadership development activities Executives and CEOs can use to develop as effective leaders, considering the potential perks and pitfalls of each option.

1. Books

It’s no coincidence that many world-class leaders, such as Warren Buffett and Elon Musk, are also voracious readers. Reading spurs creative thinking, builds vocabulary, sharpens communication skills, and encourages reflection — all qualities that are important for strong leadership.

As a tool for leadership development, books present two main challenges: One, it’s easy to fall into the trap of passively reading about ideas instead of actively applying those ideas. Two, it’s hard for Executives and CEOs to know what to read, considering the sheer number of titles available (Amazon alone has more than 60,000 books on leadership).

Two suggestions: One, consider this list of leadership books recommended by Vistage members and executive coaches. Two read something that has nothing to do with leadership at all. “Absorb yourself in a work of fiction, like The Alchemist from Paolo Coelho” to reduce stress, sharpen your focus and open your mind to new ideas, says Gair Maxwell, a Vistage speaker.

2. Online learning

There’s a lot to love about online learning: It’s convenient — something you can do at any time, on any device, and from any place in the world. It’s customizable — allowing you to learn at your own pace and focus where you want to. It’s effective — often featuring visuals and interactive components that make it easier to retain information. It’s also usually less expensive than in-person courses.

The downside? Online learning doesn’t allow you to have face-to-face interactions or informal conversations with peers, both of which are highly valuable for leader development. You might also find it hard to stay motivated and engaged in leadership training when the material is delivered remotely. Finally, online courses usually aren’t useful for building relationships or expanding your network.

3. Seminars

Whether delivered through a one-day workshop or a week-long business school program, seminars are a great way to take a deep dive into a leadership issue and develop stronger leadership skills. They get you out of your day-to-day routine, give you the time and space to focus, and create opportunities for networking with industry leaders. Most leaders also find it energizing and inspiring to learn directly from experts.

However, seminars fall short if they emphasize content more than context. This is a common problem among leadership development programs, note the authors of the McKinsey Quarterly article, Why leadership development programs fail. “Too many training initiatives … rest on the assumption that one size fits all and that the same group of skills or style of leadership is appropriate regardless of strategy, organizational culture, or CEO mandate,” the authors write.

4. Webinars

Leadership development webinars offer a convenient way to access expert insights from anywhere in the world. Typically catering to specific audiences with specific challenges, they offer targeted learning in a condensed timeframe. Recorded webinars offer additional convenience for Executives and CEOs who don’t have time to attend a live session or may want to revisit content later.

Webinars present a few drawbacks, however. First, many may limit your ability to ask questions of experts. Second, they can be difficult to engage with if you’re distracted by other tasks, such as answering email. Third, they demand a larger time commitment than, say, skimming a whitepaper.

5. Industry associations

Joining an industry association offers a few advantages: They can help you easily connect with a group of like-minded leaders. Some offer exclusive professional-development opportunities, such as conferences and meetings. The reputable ones can boost your professional credibility or the credibility of your firm. And associations that maintain a membership directory may help you find new clients or new partnerships.

The main downside of industry associations? They can be limiting if they only connect you with people who already run in your professional circle. Most of the time, these memberships won’t help you gain access to diverse perspectives and ideas from outside your sector.

6. Executive coaching

Executive coaches are great for helping Executives and CEOs explore issues from multiple angles, bringing attention to blind spots, and getting to the root of a problem quickly. Great coaches also know how to keep Executives and CEOs motivated, focused, and accountable for their actions.

“Leaders need coaches for the same reason that great athletes need a coach: They provide feedback.

“Tiger Woods needed a coach because he couldn’t see his own backswing. You need a coach to give you feedback on whether what you’re doing is working, and whether it’s the right thing to be doing.”

For all its benefits, however, traditional coaching has a few potential drawbacks. First, some people who claim to coach are not qualified to do so or haven’t delivered results. Second, some coaches focus too much on giving advice and too little on giving actionable steps. Third, short-term coaching sessions (e.g., those lasting one day) don’t usually provide lasting benefits. Fourth, a coach only has one opinion — their own — which can limit your perspective on an issue.

7. Peer advisory groups

As a complement to traditional coaching, peer advisory groups can make a significant difference in a CEO’s leadership development. They’re especially valuable for CEOs who feel “lonely at the top” and need support working through complex challenges or making tough decisions.

The best peer advisory groups are made up of high-potential leaders who come from diverse companies, industries, backgrounds, and areas of expertise. In this setting, group coaching helps leaders gain fresh insight, broaden their perspective, pressure-test their assumptions, and avoid the trap of confirmation bias.

Vistage Chair Ginnie McDevitt has witnessed the power of peers in her own Vistage group. As an example, she remembers how one business owner in her group couldn’t figure out why his company’s sales were slumping until he started talking about it with his Vistage peers. “The group challenged his assumptions,” McDevitt says, “and made him think about his problem completely differently.” Following the advice of his peers, the business owner changed his strategy and turned around his sales in just nine months.

This is not an isolated instance; it’s a typical one. Vistage analyzed the growth data of its member companies and found they grew 2.2x faster than non-member companies.

Which leadership development activities are the best?

The best approach is a comprehensive one, where Executives and CEOs draw upon multiple resources to address their weaknesses and hone their strengths.

Let’s work together and help you move towards your vision of success faster; schedule a call: www.calendly.com/clifflocks

Contributor:  Vistage Staff, edited by Cliff Locks, Investment Capital Growth, Managing Director and Executive Coach

The pandemic has left scars for some businesses, but overall Vistage members are optimistic. The 2021 Q4 CEO Confidence Index showed that 74% of CEOs are projecting increased revenues for the year ahead.

Despite the positive outlook, there are challenges. And inflation tops the list of concerns. The effects of inflation are not exclusive to manufacturing and the supply chain. According to the Survey, increasing wages accounted for 72% of rising costs.

Savvy CEOs are finding silver linings and creative solutions to drive higher revenues while retaining employees and changing customer relationships. In a recent member roundtable for The CEO Pulse: Inflation Resource Center, three members share their approach to inflation.

Let’s work together and help you move towards your vision of success faster; schedule a call: www.calendly.com/clifflocks

Contributor: Vistage Staff and edited by Cliff Locks, Investment Capital Growth, Managing Director, and Executive Coach

The accelerating advancement of exponential technologies is actually old news.

So, what’s the new news?

That formerly independent waves of exponentially accelerating technology are beginning to converge with other independent waves of exponentially accelerating technology.

In other words, these waves are starting to overlap—stacking atop one another, producing tsunami-sized behemoths that threaten to wash away (read: “reinvent”) most every industry in their path.

For example, the speed of drug development is accelerating. Not only because biotechnology (sequencing, CRISPR, etc.) is progressing at an exponential rate, but because AI, quantum computing, and other exponentials are converging on the field.

When an innovation creates a new market and washes away an existing one, we use the term “disruptive innovation.” Such as when silicon chips replaced vacuum tubes at the beginning of the digital age. That was a disruptive innovation.

Solitary exponentials disrupt products, services, and markets—like when Netflix ate Blockbuster for lunch—while convergent exponentials wash away products, services, and markets, as well as the structures that support them.

No industry is immune.

As an entrepreneur, being able to see around the corner of tomorrow and being agile enough to adapt is critical to your success.

In today’s blog, I’ll share 4 emerging models (based on converging technologies) that will redefine business over the next few decades.

Let’s dive in…

4 BUSINESS MODELS THAT WILL SHAPE THE NEXT DECADE

As you read through these business models and the supporting examples, ask yourself: How can YOU leverage them for success?

(1) The Crowd Economy: Crowdsourcing, crowdfunding, leveraged assets, and staff-on-demand—essentially, all the developments that leverage the billions of people already online and the billions coming online.

Example: Airbnb has become the largest “hotel chain” in the world, yet it doesn’t own a single hotel room. Instead, it leverages (that is, rents out) the assets (spare bedrooms) of the crowd, with more than 5 million rooms, flats, and houses in over 100,000 cities across the globe.

(2) The Smartness Economy: In the late 1800s, if you wanted a good idea for a new business, all you needed was to take an existing tool, say a drill or a washboard, and add electricity to it—thus creating a power drill or a washing machine. In the 2020s, AI will be the electricity. In other words, take any existing tool, and add a layer of smartness.

Example: We all know the big names incorporating AI into their business models—from Amazon to Salesforce. But more AI startups arise each day: 2,300 AI-related startups around the world raised over $70 billion in 2021, more than double the amount raised in 2020.

(3) Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs): At the convergence of blockchain and AI sits a radically new kind of company—one with no employees, no bosses, and nonstop production. A set of preprogrammed rules determines how the company operates, and computers do the rest.

Example: While DAOs are just beginning to emerge, the platform DAOstack is working to provide these businesses with tools for success. For example, a fleet of autonomous taxis, for instance, with a blockchain-backed smart contracts layer, could run itself 24/7, including driving to the repair shop for maintenance, without any human involvement.

(4) Metaverse: We no longer live in only one place. We have real-world personae and online personae, and this delocalized existence is only going to expand. With the rise of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality, we’re introducing more layers to this equation. You’ll have avatars for work and avatars for play, and all of these versions of ourselves are opportunities for new businesses.

Example: Today we have all mastered Zoom. Tomorrow, we’ll be diving deep in the SpatialWeb—moving back and forth between multiple virtual worlds and our physical reality using technologies like Vatoms (virtual atoms) and SpatialWeb.net to navigate the Metaverse.

FINAL THOUGHTS

What you should remember as you think about how to leverage these new business models is that the rate at which technology is accelerating is itself accelerating.

Yet even in this dynamic environment, countless businesses are still anchored by a mentality of maintaining—competing solely on operational execution.

But as an entrepreneur, it’s more vital than ever that you leverage these business models for success in the decades ahead.

Each one is a revolutionary way of creating value—each is a force for acceleration.

What challenges or problems will you solve with these new business models? How will you use them in your next venture?

Let’s work together and help you move towards your vision of success faster; schedule a call: www.calendly.com/clifflocks

Contributor: Peter Diamandis, Founder, X Prize Foundation and Chairman of Singularity University, and edited by Cliff Locks, Investment Capital Growth, Managing Director and Executive Coach

Welcome to this latest of unprecedented times, which is now being called an “unsettling monetary tightening cycle.” Inflation is sky-high, unemployment is under 4%, supply chains are a major challenge and the Fed just decided to stop babysitting the markets. Did you just sigh? Or choke? So did the global economy.

Barely a month and a half into the new year, executives worldwide are eyeing budget cuts, in an effort to hedge against impending lower profits in most industries. Sure, executives have a century of experience at trimming budgets, but this time they’re facing a confluences of often-contradictory financial indicators. Among the biggest: many leaders are staving off the great resignation by touting increases in bonus and merit pay, while the costs of goods and services also rise. “Companies’ costs are really going up crazily,” says Elise Freedman, workforce transformation practice leader at Korn Ferry. “Altogether it’s not sustainable.” It’s going to be an interesting year for budget planners.

To be sure, some businesses are nearly untouched by inflation, with plenty of profits to go around sans budget slashes. But for most, experts say that something must give—and it can’t be compensation (workers will quit) or prices (customers will leave), or materials prices (it costs what it costs). This leaves the spotlight on internal budgets.

Historically, organizations have trouble cutting budgets effectively. “My pet peeve is 10% cuts across the board,” says Andrés Tapia, global diversity and inclusion strategist at Korn Ferry. “Budget cutting should be strategic, not one size fits all.” But experts say too many firms commonly ignore this advice and do things like unilaterally ax expense accounts and travel allowances, which invariably turns off the executives who argue they need those perks to drum up business. Sometimes staffing additions are delayed, which succeed in reducing costs but may limit revenue sources.

Tapia says that leaders would do best to get out of the budget-cutting mindset, and instead focus on prioritizing. Perhaps instead of seven priorities, a company focuses on just three and adjust the budget accordingly. “It’s strategic. Just as everyone else is cutting spending by 20%, you spend more.” Advantage: yours. This strategy, experts say, proved successful for a slew of organizations in surviving the turbulence of 2008.

It can be very challenging to narrow down to a shortlist of priorities, says Nathan Blain, global lead for optimizing people costs at Korn Ferry. “Look hard at the bottom of your list, and ask, Do we need to do these initiatives? Can we do them another way? Or at a later time?” This initiative-based thinking can be extremely effective by ultimately avoiding the costs of entire programs. But it requires a shift away from the typical budget-creation mindset, where companies look at last year’s budget and add a bit to account for inflation.

Blain advises clients to also look at remote and hybrid arrangements, which are also still leaving money on the table for many firms. Most commonly, some travel and commercial leases can be targeted, as can the Achille’s heel of all businesses: complicated processes. You know you’re facing one when addressing a tech problem requires talking to four different help desk workers, or a financial transaction is proceeded by a dozen different risk calculations. Might six suffice? “Just make sure that you’re designing everything for simplicity. It’s good business hygiene.”

Let’s work together and help you move towards your vision of success faster; schedule a call: www.calendly.com/clifflocks

Contributor: Elise Freedman, Andrés Tapia, Nathan Blain, Korn Ferry, Senior Client Partners and edits by Cliff Locks, Investment Capital Growth, Managing Director and Executive Coach

What made Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, or Elon Musk succeed? Was it their technology or their mindset?

Personally, I think the mindset is an entrepreneur’s most critical asset. Yet few of us ever take the time to craft it — to purposefully select and sharpen the mindset(s) we desire.

Your mindset is the filter through which you see the world. It determines how you spend your time, what decisions you make, and where you invest your resources.

I’ve been asked over the years whether I’ve always had an Abundance mindset and an Exponential mindset… The answer is NO. They are both mindsets that I’ve crafted over the past 10 to 15 years.

So how do you craft and reinforce a mindset? Which mindsets am I most excited about? These are the questions I’ll explore in this blog.

Let’s dive in…

How mindsets work…

Before you choose which mindset(s) to focus on, it helps to understand how mindsets work.

Here’s an analogy: if you’ve been following developments in AI, you know that we can train neural nets to do image recognition. The challenge with these neural nets is that they’re only as good as the data you feed them.

For example, if you show the neural nets thousands of pictures of cats, and then you show them a picture of a dog, the algorithm will tell you that the dog is actually a cat. It doesn’t know any better.

The same is true for our brains, which are also neural nets.

If you constantly feed your brain with negative perspectives, your outlook will be negative. You won’t know any better.

So, how are you training your neural net?

Most of us don’t realize that we’re doing this training. It operates in the background. For example, through social media echo chambers or in our daily news intake of the CNN (Crisis News Network) or Fox.

So, what shapes your mindset? What are the things that have you trapped thinking the way you do? What would you need to change?

Crafting your mindset…

The two key inputs that shape our mindsets are the people we spend time with and the media we consume.

Life is who you go through life with

There’s an old saying in business that you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

If you want to be fit, hang out with friends who exercise.

If you want to think big and aspire to change the world, hang out with people who have Moonshots and a massively transformative purpose (MTP).

Garbage in, garbage out

Just as you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with, the same is true for ideas.

The news and media we consume are data that we allow to flow into our brains (AKA our neural nets).

What is your news diet? What kind of movies or documentaries are you watching?

What books or blogs are you reading? (Thank you for reading this blog!)

Do these inputs reinforce the mindsets you want? Or do they reinforce mindsets you’re trying to avoid?

As an entrepreneur, answering these questions is a critical part of your journey to be successful during this era of exponential change.

The next step on that journey is choosing the mindset(s) that works best for you.

Selecting your mindset…

There are MANY mindsets you can choose from. But for me, there are six specific mindsets that I find most powerful and important to hone during this era of exponential growth.

The following six mindsets are the ones I personally focus on:

1. Abundance Mindset: You have clarity, evidence, and conviction that technology is dematerializing, demonetizing, and democratizing products and services, creating increasing abundance on a global scale.
2. Exponential Mindset: You understand that computation and derivative technologies (AI, VR, 3D Printing, etc.) are growing exponentially. Thirty doublings drive a billion-fold improvement that the human (linear) mind finds difficult to grasp.
3. Longevity Mindset: You are focused on maximizing your health span, tracking the biotech breakthroughs able to add 20 to 30 healthy years onto your life and making “100 years old the new 60.” You seek key insights and early access.
4. Moonshot Mindset: You understand that most people are focused on incremental (10%) growth, but you seek 10x Moonshot growth. You desire tools and techniques that enable you to select and implement your Moonshots.
5. Purpose/Passion-driven Mindset: You seek to find, refine, or update your massively transformative purpose (MTP), which allows you to live a passion-driven life. You seek tools and a community to amplify and support your MTP.
6. Gratitude Mindset: You recognize how incredibly lucky you are on a personal and professional basis, and you take the time to acknowledge your blessings. You have created routines in your day that allow you to reflect on this, and to share this with those in your life in a way that brings you joy and uplifts those around you.

Which would you choose?

Can you imagine the benefits of having an Exponential or Abundance Mindset?

Would it help flip the way you see things? Instead of seeing a problem, can you see an opportunity? Remember that the world’s biggest challenges are also the world’s biggest business opportunities.

Let’s work together and help you move towards your vision of success faster; schedule a call: www.calendly.com/clifflocks

Contributor: Peter Diamandis, Founder, X Prize Foundation and Chairman of Singularity University and edited by Cliff Locks, Investment Capital Growth, Managing Director and Executive Coach

Here are two Moonshot Culture hacks I learned from Astro Teller, the world’s authority on Moonshots:

1. Train Your Team’s Thinking: This first hack helps to put your team into the Mindset of accepting and encouraging Moonshot thinking.

• Weird is Good: You give your team massive congratulations for any 10X idea—no matter how insane. Remember how fragile these ideas can be. If you show the slightest disdain for one of these ideas, it will be the last “Moonshot” idea that you get from that person.
• Quick Kills are Good: Once you instill the idea that weird is good, now you’re ready to show them that you actually value “intellectual honesty.” Work with them to explore whether the idea can work, or if there’s a fatal flaw. In most cases, you can kill the idea on the whiteboard before you even leave the room… If they are successful in figuring out why the idea won’t work, congratulate them again, and give them another hug and compliment.

Show your team that they can earn “bonus points” for: (a) raising a crazy idea, and (b) even more bonus points for then killing the idea!

2. Create a “Learning List”: Learning from your mistakes is critical to creating an environment conducive to creating and achieving Moonshots.

This is where the idea of a Learning List comes in. You can use it by following four steps:

Step 1: Ask your team to create a list of action items in order of priority.

Step 2: Once your team delivers you their action list, you say, “Humor me and re-order your list so that the items at the top of your list would teach you the most in this project, giving you the biggest insights that you don’t yet have.”

Step 3: You then say, “Now go do the top two things on your Learning List.”

Step 4: Finally, when they complete those top two items, ask them to create a NEW list organized by importance. Chances are that this new list won’t look anything like the original list. That’s why we do things in “Learning Order.”

The lesson from this hack is to fall in love with the learning process—not with what you’ve built.

How do you think these Moonshot Culture hacks will work in your company?

Are you clear on which of your team members are the right fit for the 1,000% Growth Team versus the 10% Growth Team? ”

Let’s work together and help you move towards your vision of success faster; schedule a call: www.calendly.com/clifflocks

Contributor: Peter Diamandis, Founder, X Prize Foundation and Chairman of Singularity University and edited by Cliff Locks, Investment Capital Growth, Managing Director and Executive Coach

Doing anything big and bold in the world is hard.

It takes passion, grit, luck, and often a decade or more of hard work to see a Moonshot materialize—much less succeed.

There’s no definite roadmap for a successful Moonshot. The path can be filled with obstacles.

But as Tony Robbins says, success leaves clues.

One of the key lessons I’ve learned from founding a number of successful companies and pursuing and achieving several Moonshots is the importance of what I call “staging your bold ideas.”

You have to break your bold vision into executable, bite-size chunks–what psychologists refer to as “subgoals.”

Let’s dive in!

Let’s work together and help you move towards your vision of success faster; schedule a call: www.calendly.com/clifflocks

Contributor: Peter Diamandis, Founder, X Prize Foundation and Chairman of Singularity University and edited by Cliff Locks, Investment Capital Growth, Managing Director and Executive Coach

Creating a world of abundance isn’t about creating a world of luxury—it’s about creating a world of possibility.

But how exactly do we create such a world?

Today we’ll explore a powerful concept called “the adjacent possible.”

This is theoretical biologist Stuart Kauffman’s wonderful term for all the myriad paths unlocked by every novel discovery—the multitude of universes hidden inside something as simple as an idea.

Abundance is one of those simple ideas.

And its time has come.

It is up to bold, exponential entrepreneurs around the world to unlock this adjacent possibility and help humanity live up to its full potential.

In today’s blog, I’ll discuss what the adjacent possible is, why it’s more relevant than ever, and how it can help us fulfill the promise of a truly abundant future—for everyone.

Let’s dive in…

WHAT EXACTLY IS THE ADJACENT POSSIBLE?

Before the invention of the wheel… the cart, the carriage, the automobile, the wheelbarrow, the roller skate, and a million other offshoots of circularity were not imaginable.

They existed in a realm that was off-limits until the wheel was discovered.

But once discovered, these pathways became clear.

This is the adjacent possible.

It’s the long list of first-order possibilities that opens up whenever a new discovery is made.

And our path of adjacent “possibles” has led us to a unique moment in time. We have wandered into a world where the expansive nature of technology has begun to connect with our inner desires.

As technologist Kevin Kelly explains it:

“For most of history, the unique mix of talents, skills, insights, and experiences of each person had no outlet. If your dad was a baker, you were a baker. As technology expands the possibility space, it expands the chance that someone can find an outlet for their personal traits . . . When we enlarge the variety and reach of technology, we increase options, not just for ourselves and not for others living, but for all generations to come.”

Over 50 years ago, Abraham Maslow pointed out that people whose basic needs were not being met had little time to spend on self-fulfillment.

If you’re trying to feed yourself or find medications for your children or survive other, similar threats, then living a life of possibility is not much of a probability.

But this is exactly, as economist Daniel Kahneman figured out, where the adjacent possible meets the road to abundance and produces some spectacular leverage.

THE ADJACENT POSSIBLE & THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

Several years ago, Kahneman set aside the question of cognitive biases and turned his attention to the relationship between income level and well-being.

By analyzing the results of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, which asked some 450,000 Americans what brings them joy, he discovered, as the New York Times aptly put it, “Maybe money does buy you happiness after all.”

The operative word here is maybe.

What the data show is that one’s emotional satisfaction moves in lockstep with one’s income—as income rises, well-being rises—but only to a point. Before the average American earns $75,000 a year, there is a direct correlation between money and happiness.

Above that number, the correlation disappears.

This tells us something interesting: that in the United States, the freedom to flourish—to truly enjoy a life of possibility—costs roughly $75,000 a year (in 2008 dollars).

But what’s really important is what that money buys.

The typical American spending breakdown shows that 70% to 80% percent of the money we earn goes to meet basic needs such as water, food, clothing, shelter, health care, and education.

That figure rises to over 90% in many developing countries.

But in our abundant future, the dollar goes further. So does the yen, the peso, the euro, and so forth.

This happens because of dematerialization and demonetization, saved time, and a thousand other reasons.

So, you have to wonder: what does it take to make a real difference?

Not much, it turns out.

Daniel Kahneman’s calculation has since been extended to the rest of the planet. On average, across the globe, the point where well-being and money diverge is roughly $10,000.

That’s how much the average global citizen needs to earn to fulfill his or her basic needs and gain a toehold toward much greater possibility.

There is no debate that life has gotten considerably better at the bottom over the last 5 decades.

The developing world has seen longer life expectancies, lower infant mortality rates, better access to information, communication, education, potential avenues out of poverty, quality health care, political freedoms, economic freedoms, human rights, and saved time.

WHICH WAY NEXT?

But that $10,000 tells us that we’ve actually come even further.

Thirty years ago, most well-off US citizens owned a camera, a CD player, a stereo, a video game console, a cell phone, a watch, and a whole bunch of other assets that easily add up to more than $10,000.

All these now come standard on today’s smartphones.

In our exponentially enabled work, that’s how quickly $10,000 worth of expenses can vanish.

And importantly, they can vanish without much outside intervention.

No one set out to zero the costs of two dozen products.

Instead, inventors set out to make better cell phones—the path of the adjacent possible did the rest.

This time around, we can squeeze a bit of randomness out of the equation.

We don’t have to wait for history to help our cause—we can help it ourselves. We know which technologies need further development, and we know how to go from A to B much faster than before.

Unlike earlier eras, we don’t have to wait for corporations to get interested in solutions, or for governments to get around to our problems.

We can take matters into our own hands.

Meanwhile, the one-quarter of humanity that has forever been on the sidelines—the rising billion—has finally gotten into the game.

Most importantly, the game itself is no longer zero-sum.

For the first time in forever, we don’t need to figure out how to divide our pie into more slices, because we now know how to bake more pies.

Everyone can win.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Proverbs 29:18 tells us: “Where there is no vision, the people will perish.”

Perhaps that’s true, but it’s also myopic.

Abundance is both a plan and a Mindset.

This second bit is key. After all, our perspective shapes our reality.

So, while the Bible offers a warning, it’s helpful to remember that the inverse is also true: where there is vision, the people flourish.

The impossible becomes possible.

And abundance for all becomes imagine what’s next.

Let’s work together and help you move towards your vision of success faster; schedule a call: www.calendly.com/clifflocks

Contributor: Peter Diamandis, Founder, X Prize Foundation and Chairman of Singularity University and edited by Cliff Locks, Investment Capital Growth, Managing Director and Executive Coach

Nothing is more important than your Mindset in the new year…

Let’s dive in…

1. Create a Daily Gratitude Practice: Every morning during my 10-minute meditation, I focus on gratitude and how I can be 30% more joyful throughout the day. In the evening, when I’m going to sleep before I drift off, I recall the 3 things I am most grateful for from that day.
2. Let the Most Important People in Your Life Know How Much You Value Them: Who are the people you’re most grateful for? Tell them how much you appreciate them! After all, “life is who you go through life with.”
3. Double-down on Your Passion: Your personal passion is your highest calling… the challenge you’re in love with, and the vision you have for yourself. It’s also the emotional fuel you need to keep you going in the face of inevitable hardships.
4. Develop Your Massive Transformative Purpose (MTP): An MTP is a clear, succinct statement that guides you, empowers you, and helps you decide what to do—as well as what not to do. My MTP is… “To inspire and guide entrepreneurs to create a hopeful, compelling, and abundant future for humanity.”
5. Resolve to No Longer Resent Missed Opportunities: In a world of ever-increasing abundance, the future holds much more exciting, fulfilling, and profitable opportunities for you to pursue. Don’t regret the past. Live for your abundant future.
6. Go on a “Media-Diet”: Stop watching CNN, FOX, TikTok… Stop watching the dystopian news and wasting time on social media. This one step can boost your mood 10X.
7. Consume Optimistic / Future-Positive Content: There are a TON of incredible breakthroughs helping to create a world of abundance happening all the time. But you would never know this from the constant stream of negativity from most news outlets. Consider finding media sources that deliver you positive and optimistic insights.
8. Embrace Data-Driven Experimentation: Exponential entrepreneurs use rapid iteration and data-driven experimentation to foster creative solutions to previously unsolvable problems. What experiments can you run in 2022 to improve your business?
9. Digitize Everything You Can: Once you digitize a product or service, it jumps on the 6 Ds exponential roadmap and begins a journey towards becoming dematerialized, demonetized, and democratized. What parts of your business can you successfully digitize?
10. Identify and Pursue a Moonshot: Where can you go 10X bigger or better in your business while your competitors are pursuing incremental change? A Moonshot can fuel your life and make every day worth living to the fullest.

What other New Year Resolutions have you made? Email me at: [email protected]

Let’s work together and help you move towards your vision of success faster; schedule a call: www.calendly.com/clifflocks

Contributor: Peter Diamandis, Founder, X Prize Foundation and Chairman of Singularity University and edited by Cliff Locks, Investment Capital Growth, Managing Director and Executive Coach

When was the last time you felt grateful?

I mean truly grateful for all you have: your health, loved ones, the Moonshots you’re pursuing, the sunrise, and the extraordinary planet we inhabit.

In a world with an increasing abundance of opportunities and a dizzying rate of technological progress, we tend to live in a pervasive sense of “overwhelm.”

Overwhelm that can blind us to many of life’s simple joys.

What was once a technological miracle we now take for granted?

In part, this is because technology allows us to do so much more, so much faster, and so much cheaper and easier than ever before. We can fill every second of every day with increased productivity.

But it wasn’t always this way.

As a species, we used to work 80+ hours per week just to survive. To get access to basic food, water, and shelter. Life a hundred years ago was brutal, short, and filled with difficult choices.

Today’s exponential revolution has given many of us (though not everyone yet) a vacation from basic survival.

Being grateful means feeling and expressing appreciation and thankfulness for just how far we’ve come, and for what we have.

From a basic “standard of living standpoint,” each of us now has access to more fresh food, clean water, educational content, and medicines than kings and queens had just a century ago.

From an “entrepreneurial standpoint,” each of us has access to more communication capability, more knowledge, and more computational power than the heads of Fortune 100 companies just a few decades ago.

From an “impact standpoint,” each of us now has the privilege to work on a Massive Transformative Purpose. Taking on some of the world’s biggest problems is a luxury previously reserved for only the wealthiest philanthropists.

Problem-solving itself has been democratized, and we’re all better off because of it.

We should be grateful.

Being grateful involves regularly making the shift from expectation to appreciation, and from overwhelm to thankfulness.

It means constantly recognizing that we’re living in the most extraordinary time in history—that today is better than yesterday, and that tomorrow will be better still.

I believe that being grateful is especially important for entrepreneurs.

We have so many expectations for the future, and our role in creating it, that we often get impatient… why isn’t it here yet?!

5 BENEFITS OF GRATITUDE

Every morning, I try to get in at least a 10-minute meditation.

I’ll play a “100 Hz Binaural Beats” soundtrack on YouTube as background music (or the daily meditation from Sam Harris’ Waking Up course) and focus on gratitude.

It is an amazing way to start the day!

So, why should you focus on being grateful?

Here are 5 of my favorite reasons:

(1) You feel better! Expressing gratitude causes our brain to release dopamine and serotonin: the two crucial neurotransmitters responsible for our emotions.

(2) You make everyone else around you feel better as well! When you are in gratitude, you’re burning 30% brighter, 30% happier, and your mood influences everyone you encounter. You take the time to feel and express appreciation and thankfulness.

(3) As a leader, when you are grateful, it’s much easier to encourage your team to be grateful—which improves the relational well-being both for individuals and the group. 

(4) When you’re “in gratitude” you invest in relationships. Ultimately, “who you go through life with” is everything… Relationships bring joy, meaning, and love. And in your leadership role, you focus on what positive results you can create for others.

(5) You are more optimistic, more inspired, and healthier. And this attracts the most incredible talent and individuals into your orbit.

There is NO downside to gratitude, ONLY UPSIDE.

A SIMPLE PRACTICE

I will close with 2 simple gratitude practices that I use.

In the morning, during my meditation, I think about what it would be like for me to be 30% more grateful and 30% happier today. I imagine what impact this would have on those around me. And then I set that as a goal for myself.

In the evening, when I’m going to sleep before I drift off, I recall the 3 things I am most grateful for from that day. Amazingly, they rarely have to do with work or technology. They are most frequently about my boys, family, and friends. It keeps me grounded and helps me remember what matters most.

So, how would your life change if you were more grateful?

What are the 3 things you’re most grateful for in your personal life? In your work life?

Let’s work together and help you move towards your vision of success faster; schedule a call: www.calendly.com/clifflocks

Contributor: Peter Diamandis, Founder, X Prize Foundation and Chairman of Singularity University and edited by Cliff Locks, Investment Capital Growth, Managing Director and Executive Coach

Are you afraid of failure? Most people are. Do you know why?

I truly believe this and it’s one of Peter’s Laws, but how do we know that it’s true?

It turns out that there’s a predictable process for the evolution of great and breakthrough ideas. Ideas that are revolutionary.

I learned about this process from Sir Arthur C. Clarke, inventor of the geostationary communication satellite and author of dozens of best-selling science-fiction books, including 2001: A Space Odyssey.

In the 1980’s and 1990’s I had the great honor to know Arthur C. Clarke, he was “Uncle Arthur” to me, Bob Richards, and Todd Hawley: the three co-Founders of International Space University.

Clarke described three phases of a great idea:

1. In the beginning, people will tell you that the idea is “crazy”—that it will never work.
2. Next, people will say: “Well, it might work but it’s not worth doing.”
3. Finally, they’ll say: “I told you that it was a great idea all along!”

In today’s blog, I’ll share a story that perfectly exemplifies this evolution: NASA project manager Tony Spear’s efforts to land an unmanned rover on Mars in the 1990s.

It’s a story about steadfast belief in a breakthrough idea and having the passion and persistence to pursue that idea—even in the face of risk and opposition from experts.

In short, it’s a story about entrepreneurship.

Let’s dive in… 

PHASE 1: BIRTH OF A “CRAZY” IDEA

When Tony Spear was given the job of landing an unmanned rover on the Martian surface, he had no idea that Clarke’s three stages would be precisely his experience.

A jovial, white-haired cross between Albert Einstein and Archie Bunker, Spear started his career at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in 1962.

Over the next four decades, he worked on Missions from Mariner to Viking, but it was his final assignment, as project manager for the Mars Pathfinder, that he describes as his “greatest mission challenge ever.”

The year was 1997, and the United States had not landed a probe on Mars since July 1976. That was Viking, a complex and expensive mission, costing some $3.5 billion (in 1997 dollars).

Spear’s assignment was to find a way to do everything that the previous mission had done, just faster, better, and cheaper.

And when I say cheaper, I mean a whole lot cheaper: fifteen times cheaper to be exact, for a fixed and total development cost of only $150 million.

That meant all the expensive, traditional, and proven stuff was out the window—including the types of retrorockets for landing that worked on the Viking Mission.

To pull this off under these seemingly impossible constraints, Spear and his team had to do everything differently: from how he managed the mission to how they landed.

As Spear recounts the story of those early days, “That really scared people. At NASA headquarters, I was assigned six different managers in rapid sequence—each of the first five found a different excuse to quit from the project. Finally, I was assigned someone about to retire who didn’t mind sticking with me at the end of his career. Even the NASA administrator, Daniel Goldin, nearly flipped out when he received his initial mission briefing—he couldn’t get past how many new things we were trying out.”

PHASE 2: “WELL, IT MIGHT WORK BUT IT’S NOT WORTH DOING”

Among the many things Spear tried out, nothing struck people as zanier than using airbags to cushion the initial impact, helping the craft bounce around like a beach ball on the Martian surface, before settling down into a safe landing spot.

But airbags were cheap, they wouldn’t contaminate their landing site with foreign chemicals, and Spear was certain that they would work.

The early tests, however, were a disaster, so the experts were summoned. The experts had a pair of opinions.

The first was: “Don’t use airbags.”

The second was: “No, we’re totally serious, don’t even consider using airbags.”

“Two of them,” recounts Spear, “told me flat out that I was wasting government money and should cancel the project. Finally, when they realized I wasn’t going to give up, they decided to dig in and help me.” 

PHASE 3: “I TOLD YOU IT WAS A GREAT IDEA ALL ALONG!”

Together they tested more than a dozen designs, skidding them along a faux rocky Martian surface to see which would survive without shredding to pieces.

Finally, just eight months prior to launch, Spear and his team completed qualification testing of a design composed of twenty-four interconnected spheres, loaded it aboard the Pathfinder Mission, and launched it into space.

But the anxiety didn’t end there.

The trip to Mars took eight months, during which there was plenty of time to worry about the fate of the mission.

Spear recalls:

“In the weeks just prior to landing, everyone was very nervous, speculating whether we’d have a big splat when we arrived. Goldin himself was wondering what to do: Should he come to the JPL control room for the landing or not? Just a few days before our July 4th descent to the surface, the administrator took a bold tack, holding a press conference and proclaiming, ‘The Pathfinder Mission demonstrates a new way of doing business at NASA, and is a success whether or not we survive the landing.’ ”

The landing went exactly as planned.

They had spent one-fifteenth the cost of the Viking Mission, and everything worked perfectly—especially the airbags.

Spear was a hero.

Goldin was so impressed that he insisted airbags be used to land the next few Mars missions and was quoted as saying, “Tony Spear was a legendary project manager at JPL and helped make Mars Pathfinder the riveting success that it was.” 

FINAL THOUGHTS

Arthur C. Clarke was a close friend and a mentor of mine.

And he was right: demonstrating great ideas involves a considerable amount of risk.

There will always be naysayers.

People will resist breakthrough ideas until the moment they’re accepted as the new norm.

Every breakthrough idea I’ve worked on, from the International Space University (ISU) to the $10M Ansari XPRIZE, has gone through these three phases where people ridiculed us and stood by the sidelines, only to eventually celebrate the successes.

Since the road to abundance requires significant innovation (and revolution), it also requires significant tolerance for risk and failure and tolerance for ideas that strike most people as absolute nonsense.

Peter’s dear friend Burt Rutan, who designed and built SpaceShipOne, the brilliant vehicle that won the $10 million Ansari XPRIZE, put it best:

“Revolutionary ideas come from nonsense. If an idea is truly a breakthrough, then the day before it was discovered, it must have been considered crazy or nonsense or both—otherwise it wouldn’t be a breakthrough.”

What crazy ideas and Moonshots are you pursuing?

Let’s work together and build your Moonshot innovation, schedule a call: www.calendly.com/clifflocks

Contributor: Peter Diamandis, Founder, X Prize Foundation and Chairman of Singularity University and edited by Cliff Locks, Investment Capital Growth, Managing Director and Executive Coach

Like truth, art, or love—grace is often hard to define. But we know it when we see it, and when we experience it.

I’ll never forget—it was early in my days as a CEO. A member of our board, who was mentoring me, looked me in the eye and said, “I don’t just want you to be successful—I am going to ensure that you are successful.”

I was so moved by his words, which told me that he was invested in me. Looking back now, I see it as a gift of grace.

Unearned and unmerited, grace is the goodwill of human nature predisposed to helping others. And now, as we approach year-end and a time of reflection, we are reminded of the immutable power of grace.

Our colleague Dan, a global account leader in our firm’s Chicago office, told me just the other day about the recent passing of his older brother, Jeff, after years of battling type 2 diabetes, renal failure, and other medical conditions. Dan recalled how his brother, 12 ½ years older, had occupied a special place in his life—“part older brother, part trailblazer, who would show me the ropes of adulthood.”

As he prepared for the funeral, Dan confided that he wondered if Jeff knew how grateful he was for him: “Did he know the kind of influence he had on my life? Was he aware, as a pharmacist, pharmacology professor, and musician, of the impact he had on others’ lives? I think so, but you never know for sure.”

Yet even amid such grief, there was also grace, as Dan also shared: “In a true ‘circle of life moment,’ my niece (on my sister’s side) gave birth—just one day after Jeff’s passing—to a healthy baby boy. Another opportunity for gratitude.”

As we all strive to become our better selves, we can find inspiration in the five graces—gratitude, resilience, aspiration, courage, and empathy. Each captures an invaluable human trait, and together they literally compose the word “grace.” Here are some thoughts:

• Gratitude On the corner of my home office desk is a scrapbook: a celebration of the past 50 years of our firm. Whenever I need perspective the most, I turn to those pages and see the mosaic of colleagues’ past and present—the heart and soul of our firm—and I know why I am here. I see smiles and laughter and celebrations. I think of the stories people have shared—struggles, successes, and milestones along the way. We’ve congratulated each other on weddings and the births of children, we’ve comforted each other in times of illness, and we’ve expressed condolences on the loss of loved ones. Because when family and friends are deeply connected, that’s what they do. And for this we are grateful.

• Resilience. Over the years, and especially at holiday time, our parents, grandparents, and other relatives tell stories about their lives. These stories have a lasting impact, reminding us that there is always a way. I’ll never forget the story shared with me earlier this year by an executive about his mother who, when she was in her late 90s, contracted a serious infection that required hospitalization. As her condition worsened, the doctor gave the sad prognosis that she wasn’t going to make it. The time had come for the family to arrange hospice for her. Thinking that his mother was sleeping, the executive quietly approached the hospital bed and called out gently to her. Suddenly, this woman, who had seemed near death a few minutes before, snapped her eyes open and replied in a heavy Italian accent, “I heard what you and the doctors were talking about. I am not going anywhere.” Two weeks later, she was well enough to be discharged from hospice. Ever resilient, she lived another two years—nearly reaching 100 years of age! Moral of the story: never underestimate the indomitable human spirit. That’s the resilience that propels us forward.

• Aspiration. Hope, desire, longing, yearning, wish, aim… Each of these words speaks to an aspect of aspiration, but it is far more than all of them. Aspiration has nothing to do with those momentary wants—the kind of dreams that captured us as children. So many of us can remember sitting down with that thick Sears catalog and turning its pages full of pictures as we made our holiday lists. (One year, all I wanted was a Green Bay Packers jersey, helmet, and pads.) Aspiration, though, is far more than a passing fad or fancy. It is a vision—a goal—capturing no less than who we are and what we want to become. As we raise our sights, we elevate others.
• Courage. During these times of rapid change, things can get really uncomfortable. We’re in constant transition—like trapeze artists flying through the air. We can’t make the next trapeze appear automatically— we must wait for it. Then, as it approaches, we let go of the old trapeze so we can reach for the new one. At that moment—completely ungrounded—we need courage. Courage is not about having “no fear,” but rather to “know fear.” How else can we progress? By following our values and drawing from past experiences, we find a way forward—“knowing what to do when we don’t know what to do.”

• Empathy. We see people for who they really are, as we meet them wherever they are. This is the power of empathy—we can literally see it at work in our brains. As our Korn Ferry Institute explains, brain imaging shows us how different aspects of empathy engage our minds and emotions. First is cognitive empathy, which allows us to understand others’ emotional experiences while maintaining a healthy detachment. This is how we intellectually walk in someone else’s shoes. The second is sympathy—or emotional empathy—that allows us to feel what another person is experiencing. Too much sympathy, though, can make us feel pain as if it were our own. When suffering becomes too intense, we are prone to protect ourselves by putting up barriers. The third is compassion, or empathetic care, which we experience as concern for others. This form of empathy allows us to set aside our own concerns and reach out to help. Empathy is not just something we talk about—it must be felt by others.

Life and leadership are all about the journey and the grace-filled moments along the way. Indeed, that’s what truly matters—that’s what people remember the most. After all, grace is not defined by what we say, rather it is found in what others feel.

Let’s work together,  schedule a call: www.calendly.com/clifflocks

Contributor: Gary Burnison, Korn Ferry CEO and edits by Cliff Locks, Investment Capital Growth, Managing Director and Executive Coach