2025 is almost here. What are you waiting for?

Leaders live in a world with complex challenges and increasingly uncertain outcomes.

This blog strives to bring simple solutions to provoke and inspire you to be a better leader and find greater fulfillment.

To be clear, a simple solution isn’t a hack. Often simple isn’t easy. The simple solutions I offer are impactful and worth your consideration.

The theme this week is “don’t wait.”

Don’t Wait

Don’t wait to be asked.

Don’t wait to be encouraged, or even given permission.

Don’t wait to be discovered.

Who is telling us to wait?

Maybe it is people with power over us. Who gave them that power?

Maybe it is voices from the past. People who loved us but projected their limitations onto us.

I believe the strongest voice of “Wait” comes from within.

That inner skeptical voice that is doubtful, exceptionally humble, and pessimistic.

The inner voice driving complacency and the comfort of the status quo.

That part of us that accepts, tolerates, and enables behaviors and environments that hold us back from our brilliance.

Maybe that inner voice is afraid of our brilliance. Those beautiful parts of you silently waiting to be Seen, Heard, Understood, Valued, and Appreciated, SHUVA. What higher expectations might be just on the other side of success?

Ouch!

The uncomfortable truth is the risk, vulnerability, and uncertainty that always accompanies change, growth, and new directions.

What might happen if you stopped waiting?

What might happen if we saw and appreciated more brilliance in ourselves and others?

Don’t Wait.

Take a small step today in the towards what you have been waiting for.

What have you been waiting for? What is one small step you could take today?

The clock is ticking.

I’m waiting for it to be safer.

I’m waiting for approval.

I’m waiting on a plan.

I’m waiting for life to come to me.

The clock is ticking. I will be dead someday. Do I still want to be waiting when that happens?

Whew! Hey Ken, that was a little rough bringing up the death thing don’t you think?

Well, perhaps.

But the fact of death does put life in precious perspective.

A 30 year old has 1,820 weeks until they are my age.

I have ~ 900 more weeks to live according to insurance companies.

What do you want to do with your life?

How do you want to be remembered?

What needs to be said before it becomes forever unsaid?

Sure, we will always be waiting on something or for somebody.

Patience is a virtue.

But I’m talking about the kind of waiting where we have given our power away; trusting others to know what is best for us.

Waiting for perfection which will turn into regret.

Imagine yourself far in the future. You are wiser and have the perspective time brings. You regret not doing something about a current issue. What is it?

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” John Lennon in the song Beautiful Boy

Take Your Time Back Coaching

One of the many reasons we wait is a feeling of “not having enough time” or wanting to wait for the “right time.”

You won’t ever have an excess abundance of time. We all get the same 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Are you using your time to:

• Become a better leader
• Perform at a higher level
• Find more fulfillment and happiness
• Leave a legacy, not just an estate

Or are you still waiting for the time to be right?

If you want to reclaim 5 hours each and every week – to spend the way YOU want to spend it – watch for my special 4 session coaching package to help you do just that. It starts in January.

If You Keep Waiting, You Might Miss the Boat

When I find myself waiting, I remember this poem.

Missing the Boat

It is not so much that the boat passed and you failed to notice it.

It is more like the boat stopping directly outside your bedroom window, The captain blowing the signal horn, the band playing a rousing march.

The boat shouted, waving bright flags, its silver hull blinding in the sunlight.

But you had this idea you were going by train. You kept checking the time table, Digging for tracks.

And the boat got tired of you, so tired it pulled up the anchor and raised the ramp.

The boat bobbing into the distance, shrinking like a toy –
At which point you probably realized you had always loved the sea.

– Naomi Shihab-Nye

PS – I don’t know many people from Kentucky. I think I’d like to meet more. This guy seems to be able to laugh at himself.