The Twenty Percenter
Weekly advice for top business professionals.
25 First Downs (2 Min Read) | Vol. 222 PSA: If you missed my announcement about changes to The ONE Thing, click here. September 25, 2026 “The score takes care of itself.” – Bill Walsh 25 First DownsQ4 starts next week. And, huzzah, it’s also football season. Which means I get to tell you about …
Picking the Slow Line Every Time (2 Min Read) | Vol. 220 September 18, 2026 “It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.” — Elinor Smith Picking the Slow Line Every Time Many years ago, …
Who Walks Out (2 Min Read) | Vol. 220 September 11, 2026 “Once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t …
You Can’t Begin until You End (2 Min Read) | Vol. 219 September 4, 2026 “It isn’t the changes that do you in, it’s the transitions.” — William Bridges You Can’t Begin Until You End This week on the podcast, I talked with Shannon Anderson-Finch, an executive coach who spends her days with people in …
Three Blank Lines (2 Min Read) | Vol. 218 August 28, 2026 “We are not defined by our toughest seasons or our worst mistakes. They are part of the story but not the whole story.” – Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe Three Blank Lines I’ve failed. Plenty. I’ve failed at personal projects. Failed to make a profit. …
222 Seconds and Eight Years (2 Min Read) | Vol. 217 August 21, 2026 “The best thing we do is Every Day. And the hardest thing we do is Every Day.” – Buzz Williams 222 Seconds and Eight Years On July 18, Josh Kerr ran a mile in 3 minutes and 42.66 seconds. Sixty thousand …
Ask a Better Question (3 Min Read) | Vol. 216 August 14, 2026 “The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he’s one who asks the right questions.” – Claude Lévi-Strauss Ask a Better Question We were standing outside Pena Palace in Sintra, Portugal, trying to decide where to go next. Our …
The 26-Lane Workday (3 Min Read) | Vol. 215 August 7, 2026 “It is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuel is equivalent to a diminished consumption. The very contrary is the truth.” — William Stanley Jevons The 26-Lane Workday Texas has the widest freeway in the world. The …
Type 2 Fun (3 Min Read) | Vol. 214 July 31, 2026 “A lot of what we do just isn’t real fun, but it needs to be done. And you can either laugh at yourself or you can whine about it. I think laughing at yourself is much more healthy than whining.” – Dr. Rainer …
Brave New World (3 Min Read) | Vol. 213 July 24, 2026 “One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.” — Abraham Maslow Brave New World Last month I gave a keynote that scared me. Not the …