Last week I had the privilege of sharing a stage with Horst Schulze, the legendary co-founder of Ritz-Carlton. I‘ve heard Horst speak several times throughout the years, and it is always refreshing. At 86, this straight-talking German businessman opened with his trademark question: "Do you want me to be nice or do you want me to be honest?" The audience chose honesty, and they definitely got a dose of it!

While Mr. Schulze is best known for his approach to hospitality, he had plenty of straightforward business insights that I found insightful. While some of the principles seem deceptively simple on the surface, they're the very things most organizations consistently fail to execute.

According to Horst, great businesses do four things exceptionally well:

1. Keep existing customers: The easiest customer to have is the one you have right in front of you. Don’t lose them.
2. Acquire new customers… ideally through existing ones.
3. Maximize revenue from each customer...without losing them: When you add as much value as possible, you’ll find the result will be that the customer will spend more money with you.
4. Operate as efficiently as possible without compromising quality: Be careful with this one – this is about streamlining, not cost cutting at the expense of the customer experience.

Each of these could warrant its own post, but I want to focus on that first point: Keep the existing customer.

My natural tendency is always looking ahead to the future and the next opportunity. But the leaders and organizations that stand the test of time share one critical trait: they fiercely protect relationships with people who have already put their trust in them.

Think about it:

• The neighborhood restaurant that remembers your name, your favorite order, and your anniversary
• The family-owned hardware store that's survived three big box competitors because they know their customers' projects and preferences
• The nonprofit that makes existing donors feel so valued they become lifelong champions

We're constantly bombarded with messaging about growth, expansion, and chasing the next big thing. Meanwhile, the goldmine of existing relationships is often an underappreciated asset.

Here’s my challenge to you: Find time today to do one simple thing to show appreciation to an existing customer. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Do it today.

Pick up the phone.
Write a handwritten note.
Send a thoughtful email.
Do something that shows genuine appreciation and adds value to their life or business.

The most successful organizations I've worked with don't just chase new customers—they obsess over keeping the ones they have.

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When was the last time you became a customer of your own business?

I'm not talking about knowing your product’s features. I'm talking about actually experiencing what it's like to navigate your company from the outside in.

Last week, Cliff Robinson, the COO of Chick-fil-A, was sharing with our team his challenge to be a customer. There are many benefits of this:

• Seeing what your physical looks like from the vantage point of a customer
• Interacting with the employees on the front line
• Navigating the check-out process from the customer’s perspective

One of the greatest benefits of looking at your business from the perspective of a customer is identifying well-intentioned internal processes that are making a customer’s life more difficult.

I saw this clearly the last time I went to the doctor. I filled out three pieces of paperwork where I was required to put the same exact information each time. I can only assume that is because on the doctor 's side, it is easier on them if I repeat the same information every time (I’ll spare you my separate rant about customer service in the healthcare industry).

It usually begins with good intentions. Your team has a meeting where someone says, "Wouldn't it be great if customers could...":

• Fill out this additional form
• Provide more detailed information
• Adapt to our scheduling system

Seemingly great suggestions, but customers don't care about your administrative workflow or documentation requirements. They care about solving their problem with minimal friction. Now, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t look for more efficient ideas, but we shouldn’t do them at the expense of the customer.

Yet businesses create procedures that make perfect sense internally while creating maddening experiences externally. Your process has become their problem.

Consider these examples of companies I use that have effectively improved my customer experience:

Delta Air Lines has improved their app experience not by chasing technology trends, but by obsessively removing customer friction points. On a travel day, when on a different page of their app, I used to have to click multiple times to get back to my boarding pass. Now, no matter where else I am in the app, my boarding pass stays accessible at the bottom of my screen.

Or take Enterprise Rental Car. One of the most frustrating parts of renting a car is all of the things I have to say “yes” or “no” to, often because of the legal requirements imposed on the rental car companies. Enterprise makes it easier by streamlining the process – getting me from counter to highway with minimal friction. They've mastered what I call "process invisibility"—handling complexity without transferring that complexity to the customer.

Here are a few questions you can ask about your customer experience to measure how well you’re doing this:

1. Who's carrying the complexity? If your internal simplification creates external complication, you've failed.
2. Is this step necessary for the customer or just convenient for us? Eliminate or reduce anything that doesn't directly serve the customer's goal.
3. What emotion does this step create? Frustration is friction's emotional signature.

Here's my challenge: Become your own customer. Don't just walk through the process—experience it with fresh eyes. Look over a first-time customer’s shoulder as they navigate your business.

Where do they hesitate? What confuses them? When does their enthusiasm diminish? Those moments are your friction points.

Then ask: "How can we make this simpler?"

In today's marketplace, the businesses that thrive won't be those with the most features—they'll be the ones that master the art of friction elimination.

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The term leadership was popularized and utilized so much that it became a buzzword. The result of the term being used so broadly is that it can lose its importance.

Every great organization (and even the mediocre ones) talk about developing leaders. But in times of uncertainty, when the customer counts are down and the future looks less certain, the work of building leaders moves to the backburner.

The saying goes something like this: "We don't have time for leadership work right now. We need to focus on the real issues."

Here are some of those "real" priorities:

• Enhance our brand positioning or perception
• Increase operational excellence
• Drive customer loyalty
• Improve employee retention

Here's the uncomfortable truth:

‍If you're focusing on any of those elements without addressing leadership first, you're guaranteeing failure.

Leadership has become what I call a "prosperity pursuit"—something organizations invest in when times are good. It's treated as a nice-to-have rather than the foundation that determines success in every other area.

This is backward thinking. Leadership isn't the cherry on top—it's the bowl that holds everything else.

Consider Captain David Marquet and the USS Santa Fe. When Marquet took command, the submarine ranked as the worst-performing vessel in the fleet.

One year later, that same submarine with the exact same crew became the highest-rated in naval history.

What changed? Not the equipment. Not the crew. Not the mission.

Only the leadership approach changed.

Marquet transformed a command-and-control environment into a "leader-leader" model that pushed authority to where the information lived. The results were extraordinary—and they happened during high-pressure situations, not during peaceful times.

Here's the paradox:

‍Organizations invest in leadership when they can afford to, but they need the results leadership provides when they feel they can least afford it.

When uncertainty rules,

• strategy without leadership is just wishful thinking
• culture without leadership is just empty platitudes
• operations without leadership lacks a commitment to excellence
• talent without leadership will leave

If you're facing uncertainty right now, here's my counterintuitive advice: Find time to develop leaders. Leadership isn't what you work on when everything else is going well. It's what determines whether anything else goes well at all.

During certainty, mediocre leadership can hide. During uncertainty, leadership quality becomes the differentiator between organizations that merely survive and those that emerge stronger.

Are you treating leadership as a "good times" luxury, or as the foundation that will determine your success through uncertainty?

Find some strategic people practices to double down on this week, even though times are challenging.

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Today is Tax Day. The good news, this post isn’t about taxes!

A few weeks ago, I found myself surrounded by some of the most successful executives and entrepreneurs I know. The conversations were fascinating, the connections valuable, but something struck me as the weekend progressed.

I noticed how many of these incredibly accomplished individuals—people who had achieved more financial success than most could dream of—were constantly comparing themselves to others at the table. Despite having beautiful homes, thriving businesses, and financial security, there was an undercurrent of discontent. They were measuring themselves against peers who had bigger exits, larger investment portfolios, or more impressive real estate holdings.

It reminded me of a story I've always loved about Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller. At a party thrown by a billionaire hedge fund manager on Shelter Island, Vonnegut mentioned to his friend Heller that their host had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its entire history.

Heller's response was profound:

"Yes, but I have something he will never have—ENOUGH."

I’ve talked about the Value Equation before. But this experience made me consider a new equation. Let’s call it the Satisfaction Equation:

The math here is straightforward but powerful. Most people try to increase satisfaction by increasing what they have.

“If I could just get a little more money…”
“If my house was a little bit bigger…”
“When I get my new car…”

The challenge is that as we increase what we have, we also tend to increase what we want, leaving satisfaction as this elusive thing that we can never fully experience. While this is a great motivator for us, none of us wants to live our lives in a state of perpetual unhappiness.

However, there is another way to be more satisfied: decrease what we want.

This isn't about settling or lacking ambition. Rather, it's about distinguishing between meaningful growth and the endless pursuit of more for its own sake.

One of the greatest threats to our sense of "enough" is comparison. In today's world, we're not just keeping up with our neighbors—we're comparing ourselves to carefully curated social media profiles, industry success stories, and wealth rankings.

When we allow our definition of "enough" to be determined by external comparisons rather than our actual needs and values, we surrender our potential for contentment to forces beyond our control.

So how do we have a proper perspective on satisfaction?

1. Define your personal "enough." What level of resources would truly meet your needs and align with your values? It’s helpful to define enough, and realize that as you progress in life.
2. Practice gratitude deliberately. Research consistently shows that gratitude recalibrates our perception of what we have. Find ways to be thankful for what you have.
3. Invest in experiences and relationships. When we focus on things, there will always be someone who has more. The real riches in life are relationships and time together.

I’ve heard it said, “Wealth is like sea water—the more we drink, the thirstier we become.” This truth applies far beyond money.

The truly wealthy person isn't the one who has the most, but the one who needs the least to be content.

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Last week I wrote about being a human being, not a human doing, and I was surprised at how much it resonated. Activity alone is not strategic. Instead, we must ensure we are working on the right things.

Former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, would evaluate his day from the perspective of a lion, asking himself: “Did I chase mice or hunt antelope today?”

The concept is recounted in multiple books, including Tools of Titans, by Tim Ferriss.

A lion is fully capable of capturing, killing, and eating a field mouse. But it turns out the energy required to do so exceeds the caloric content of the mouse itself. So a lion that spent its day hunting and eating field mice would slowly starve to death. A lion can't live on field mice. A lion needs antelope.

Antelopes are big animals. They take more speed and strength to capture and kill, and once killed, they provide a feast for the lion and her pride. A lion can live a long and happy life on a diet of antelope.

The distinction is important. Are you spending all your time and exhausting all your energy catching field mice? In the short term it might give you a nice, rewarding feeling. But in the long run you're going to die.

So ask yourself at the end of the day, "Did I spend today chasing mice or hunting antelope?"

This isn't just clever imagery - it's the stark difference between busy leaders and effective ones.

In sales, your "antelope" are those strategic clients who can transform your business, not the dozen small accounts that keep you running in circles.

In leadership, it's tackling your organization's #1 problem head-on instead of obsessing over processes that barely move the needle.

The mice will always be there - those quick wins, those easy tasks that make you feel productive. They're tempting because they're immediate and visible.

But at the end of the day, a menu of mice still leaves you hungry.

Hunting an antelope requires more effort, more focus, more courage. Doing so demands that you say "no" to good opportunities so you can say "yes" to great ones. It forces you to think beyond today's satisfaction toward tomorrow's feast.

At the end of each day, ask yourself one simple question - "Did I hunt antelope or chase mice?" Your honest answer will tell you more about your leadership effectiveness than any performance review ever could.

We must make the decision daily to pursue the big opportunities instead of the small.

Last week, I returned from a stretch of travel only to dive headfirst into a whirlwind of activity: an event at my son's school, baseball games, recital practice, Savannah Bananas games, and church commitments. By Sunday afternoon, I found myself itching to tackle my to-do list for the upcoming week.

I'll be transparent with you: I'm wired in a way that the more I do, the more worthy I feel. It's a trap I fall into repeatedly – sometimes focusing more on quantity than quality, more on activity than accomplishment.

Do you ever feel that way? Do you find your worth in what you do, not who you are?

This mindset reminds me of a beautiful poem I recently came across about "A Girl Who Didn't Stop." She climbed every mountain without pausing at the top. She danced through fields until each blade of grass was covered in dew. The sun knew her name, and so did the moon.

But beneath this constant motion was a fear – "a fear of sitting still; that if you're not moving forward, it must mean you never will."

The poem concludes with a profound realization: "For she was a human doing, human moving, human seeing; but she had never really taken the time to be a human being."

The poem’s conclusion is a profound realization for me.

How many of us are "human doings" rather than human beings?

When we're constantly in motion, we miss the richness of life. We sacrifice depth for breadth, presence for productivity.

In leadership, this can be particularly harmful. Leaders who are always doing often fail to:

1. Recognize opportunities for strategic conversations with clients
2. Listen deeply to their team members
3. Pause to reflect on important decisions in the business

The most effective leaders I know aren't those who do the most; they're those who know when to stop, reflect, and simply be.

I love this quote from Peter Drucker: “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”

My challenge to you isn’t to be less productive. Rather, it's a call to work on the right things – the things that align with your deepest values and purpose. It's permission to pause, to breathe, to be purposefully present in your life and leadership.

The next time you feel the urge to fill every moment with activity, ask yourself:

• What am I avoiding by staying busy?
• Where could I benefit from slowing down?
• How might stillness enhance my leadership?
• What would it look like to find worth in being, not just doing?

So today, I invite you to join me in this counterintuitive journey – to find the power of purposeful presence. Exchange endless activity for intentionality on the most important things.

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Longevity has been a buzzword over the last couple of years. There’s no shortage of information. Eat this. Wear this monitor. Read this book. Listen to this podcast.

I think what we consume and do not consume matters. I’m making efforts to be healthier. But I also believe that many of those who thrive into their later years are people who live with the deepest sense of purpose. Purpose is different than simply being happy, it’s about pursuing things that matter.

A groundbreaking 23-year study has just confirmed what I've seen firsthand: having a sense of purpose is actually a stronger predictor of longevity than life satisfaction. This research reveals a profound truth that challenges our modern obsession with the pursuit of happiness.

The evidence is compelling. Researchers who followed participants for more than two decades discovered that when purpose in life (meaning) and life satisfaction (happiness) were compared head-to-head as predictors of longevity, purpose emerged as the clear winner.

This isn't just interesting science – it's a wake-up call for how we structure our lives and organizations. We've been sold a cultural narrative that happiness should be our ultimate goal. But what if that actually limits our potential and even our lifespan?

Adam Grant captured this brilliantly when he noted: "It's nice to feel happy today. It's important to have something to strive for tomorrow."

Think about it: happiness is fleeting. It comes and goes based on circumstances. Purpose, however, can carry you through both the mountain peaks and the valleys of life. Purpose guides you when everything else seems uncertain.

What This Means for Leaders

As leaders, we have a responsibility that extends beyond creating "happy" workplaces. The real challenge is helping our teams connect with something meaningful – work that serves a purpose beyond the paycheck.

I've often said, "When the purpose is clear, the mundane becomes meaningful." This simple truth can transform how your team approaches even the most routine aspects of their work.

One of the most impressive examples of purpose-driven leadership I've seen comes from KPMG's "10,000 Stories Challenge." When KPMG's leadership realized they needed to strengthen their organizational purpose, they didn't hire consultants to craft a statement. Instead, they invited their 27,000 employees to share stories about how their work was making a difference.

The goal was 10,000 stories. They received 42,000.

This initiative fundamentally changed how employees viewed their work. By articulating how their individual contributions served a greater purpose, people discovered new meaning in tasks they had previously considered mundane. Pride in employees’ work increased, and more employees reported that KPMG was a great place to work than previously.

How to Prioritize Purpose

Purpose isn't something you find in a weekend workshop. It's cultivated through intentional choices and consistent action. Here are three strategies I've seen work for leaders at all levels:

1. Connect your daily tasks to your deeper values. Even mundane work can be meaningful when you understand how it serves something you genuinely care about.
2. Invest in legacy thinking. Regularly ask yourself: "What am I building that will outlast me?" Over the past year, I’ve been exploring how to do this with my friend Eric Blumenthal on our podcast Legacy Makers aimed at encouraging dads.
3. Surround yourself with people who value your purpose. Your perspective is shaped by the people you spend time with. We see this beyond our professional work: one study showed that grandparents who helped with care of their grandchild had a 37% chance of living longer over a 20 year span.

Remember this:

Purpose is both a compass and an anchor. It provides direction when we're uncertain and stability when we're overwhelmed.

The next time you find yourself chasing happiness, pause and ask a deeper question: "What gives my life meaning?" The answer might not just improve your day – according to the science, it could extend your years.

And that's a purpose worth pursuing.

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Last week I was in Texas sharing strategies that individuals and businesses use to create authentic connections with customers. The principles I shared address a fundamental truth about human relationships: meaningful connections don't happen automatically—they require intention.

These principles extend far beyond traditional business-customer relationships. The same approach applies whether you're a nonprofit connecting with donors, a teacher engaging students, or a leader motivating your own team.

Here’s the bad news: creating authentic connections requires more work, more intentionality, and more energy. There's no shortcut.

Here's the good news: the results of those connections pay extraordinary dividends!

When you genuinely connect with someone, they become more than just a customer or client. They become a promoter—someone who actively tells others about their experience with you. This word-of-mouth advocacy is exponentially more powerful than any marketing campaign you could devise.

Paradoxically, the path to reaching the most people is to focus intently on impacting a smaller group exceptionally well.

Mass marketing aims for breadth, but depth creates true loyalty.

ADDO recently summed this up in a new video: The Paradox of Scale.

Want to grow your business and expand your impact? Start with the personal. So how do we do this?

A great place to start is by asking questions like:

• What does this specific customer need right now?
• Who is one person you can write a personal note to today?
• How can you improve the experience for the individual right  in front of you?

These aren't soft questions—they're the hardest-hitting growth strategy you're not using.

The answers should make you stop seeing your customers as numbers and start seeing them as individuals with unique needs and aspirations. And here’s the secret: what’s personal is universal. Scaling impact doesn't mean depersonalizing; it means personalizing so effectively that your approach naturally appeals to a broader audience.

Today, I challenge you to identify one relationship you can deepen through intentional, personal connection. It might be the smallest action that creates the biggest ripple in your business or organization.

Your next breakthrough might not be in a grand marketing plan; it might just be in a simple conversation.

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Last week I shared the language of leadership from Winston Churchill, which reminded me of another Churchill example that has grown increasingly meaningful to me over the years.

The year was 2011. It was our inaugural ADDO event. Around 700 leaders gathered for the ADDO Gathering, headlined by several prominent leaders, including Hall of Fame Football Coach Vince Dooley.

Coach Dooley was a mentor and a friend. He passed away a few years ago at 90 years old. Even at the time of him speaking at our event, he was almost 80. He was far more than just a football coach who had won a national championship. He was a historian, a horticulturist, and a Marine – a renaissance man if there ever was one.

He stood on stage that day and repeated the Winston Churchill quote that has since become etched in my mind:
"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."

I'll be honest – as someone still in my twenties at the time, I wasn't sold on that line. Does it really take courage to continue? And is that really what counts? In my mind, winning counted. Results counted. Achievement counted. Again, I hadn't even reached the age of 30.

But time has shown me that Churchill (and Coach Dooley) were right. With age comes experience, and with experience comes wisdom.

I've had my share of successes over the years. Moments where the vision came together perfectly, where the team executed flawlessly, where the impact exceeded expectations.

But I've also had business deals where I swung and missed.
I've felt the sting of criticism from colleagues I respected.
I've experienced moments that tested my resolve.
I've endured the sleepless nights wondering if an initiative was worth continuing.

And I'm guessing, if you've lived long enough, you have too.

So my encouragement today is simple but important: continue.

Continue when you encounter resistance.

Continue when you experience rejection.

Continue when you feel like no one understands your vision.

Continue when the path forward isn't clear.

Continue when you're tempted to take the easier route.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: if you have a pulse, you have a purpose.

And since you have a purpose, the world needs what you have to offer.
And since you have something to offer, we need you to continue.

Your courage to continue might just be the difference between a good idea that dies and a great impact that transforms lives.

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