The tasting fee was nearly double any other winery we'd visited.

Fair warning sign number one, which we noted and ignored.

By the end of the afternoon we had been wowed by the setting, the sommelier, the panoramic patio, the spotless crystal glasses, and approximately six generous pours of exceptional wine.

We signed up for the wine club.

It was not six bottles as advertised. The club required a twelve-bottle annual commitment.

My brief moment of hesitation was quickly buried under the combined weight of the experience, the wine still warming my chest, and a complete unwillingness to look cheap in front of a very elegant Italian sommelier.

This week I'm writing about what Checkmate Winery did brilliantly — and what every brand can learn from the way they turned a tasting into a $1,400 commitment I never saw coming.

Several years ago I was told, mid-year, not to worry too much about a target we were clearly going to miss.

Then the performance reviews came in. Just the number, and the gap.

That experience reinforces something called Goodhart's Law: when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. And the more I've thought about it, the more I've seen it play out everywhere: from nail factories to Pfizer boardrooms to quarterly earnings calls where executives admit they'd kill a profitable project rather than miss a number.

Hitting your targets feels like winning. But sometimes it's the most expensive thing you can do.

This week I'm writing about the hidden cost of how we measure success — and what to do about it.

I locked eyes with a stranger on the highway for barely a second.

Two minutes later he was behind me, flashing his lights and closing in. Then came the first hit. Then the second. Then a third — at full highway speed — that sent me toward the guardrail with a steep drop to a valley below.

I walked away from it. He didn't, not really.

This post isn't just about what happened that day. It's about what I've never been able to stop thinking about since: the fact that somewhere along the way, his support system had completely broken down. And nobody caught it in time.

As leaders, we're surrounded by people carrying things we can't see. This week I'm writing about how to notice the signals, and what to do when you do.

"Have you heard anything about..." "A few of my customers were saying..." These phrases aren't small talk. They're trust signals, and if you're hearing them more than you used to, something's changed.

For the first 30 years of my life, perfection was the standard.

As a goaltender, giving up more than two goals felt like failure. As a student, A's or nothing. At university, the Dean's List became the expectation.

On the surface, that sounds like ambition.

In reality, it was perfectionism disguised as discipline.

The problem with perfection is that it teaches you to judge yourself almost entirely by outcomes. And when life eventually becomes bigger than what you can control — as it always does — you're not prepared.

I spent more time looking for explanations than lessons.

This week Curtis Scaplen writes about what shifted, why failure is the price of admission for a meaningful life, and what it actually means to adopt a next-play mentality.

When I lost my job after 20 years, I didn't know who I was without the title. That experience taught me something I now use with every client: most organizations have the same problem. They describe who they were, or who they wish they were — not who they actually are. Real identity is specific enough to say no with. If yours isn't, it isn't doing any work.

A little over two years ago, I stopped running.

Recently, I decided to train for a half marathon and quickly realized something uncomfortable: ambition doesn't eliminate reality. Before I could move forward, I had to honestly assess where I was starting from.

Organizations face the same challenge.

Alan Mulally discovered it when he arrived at Ford and found a leadership team reporting green dashboards while the company was losing billions. The turnaround didn't begin with strategy. It began when someone finally felt safe enough to tell the truth.

The gap between what your organization knows and what it will say out loud is where every stall begins.

You know something is wrong. You're working harder than you ever have. And the needle is barely moving. Here are the seven principles behind every major business turnaround of the last thirty years, and the one question each one asks of you.

A few years ago, I stepped into a role with a clear mandate, relocated my family, and accepted the challenge with confidence. After years of frustration, I was the one being replaced. This is what I learned from that, and what I built because of it.

I've been keeping a record since 2011 that I never planned to share.

Every flight. Every destination. Every mile.

750,000 of them across five phases of a career that took me from Switzerland to Indonesia to the western provinces of Canada.

Looking back at that logbook now, I didn't just see destinations. I saw lessons.

New post is live.

My first car was a green Dodge Colt. Stick shift. No A/C. Rush hour traffic in the summer heat.

It was miserable. And it taught me more about leadership than most courses I've ever taken.

New post is live on the blog. Link in bio.

"Stay in your lane" sounds like focus. Sometimes it's just control wearing a polo shirt.

The latest Leadership In Focus blog breaks down how rigid lane management quietly becomes the bottleneck — and what to watch for before your silos start eating each other.

New post is live.

A Note From the Future: These Are the Good Old Days

This week, Curtis Scaplen shares the story of how one question flipped his perspective:

👉 “If you could go 10 years into the future and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?”

The answer?

“These are the good old days, make them so.”

If you've been feeling heavy, stuck, or just going through the motions, this is your reminder to pause, reflect, and reclaim the moment you're in.

📝 Read now and start writing the version of your life you’ll be proud to remember.

The election may be over, but the work of real leadership has just begun. It's time to rise above partisanship and lead for all Canadians — with courage, collaboration, and commitment to unity.