School of Thoughts

07/12/2025

🎁 Career RE:Aligned™ – Special “Christmas in July” Enrollment Open Through July 31 🎁

We’re halfway through the year.

If you set career goals back in January, now’s a good time to pause and ask:
Am I moving forward—or drifting off course?

🔄 Maybe you’ve been laid off and aren’t sure what comes next.
🧩 Maybe you’re in a role that looks good on paper but feels misaligned.
📈 Maybe you’re ready to grow—but you’re not sure how to move up, shift direction, or stand out.

I created Career RE:Aligned™ for exactly these moments.

This is a 3-month business-focused coaching experience designed to help you RE:Focus and RE:Align your career direction with your passion, potential, and purpose.

It’s not about blowing everything up—it’s about slowing down long enough to realign what you do with who you are, and where you’re trying to go.

⸻

What you’ll receive over 3 months (all virtual):
✔️ Three 90-minute personalized coaching sessions
✔️ Three bonus touchpoints—your choice of 30-minute sessions or email support
✔️ AgileBrain™ assessment (or upgrade to DISC for deeper insight into your communication and leadership style)
✔️ Career RE:Aligned™ digital toolkit—guided journal, mindset tools, and targeted actions to help you move forward

⸻

🧠 This program is about helping you make intentional progress—before winter hits and another year gets away from you.

💬 I’m offering complimentary discovery calls this month only to see if it’s the right fit.

📩 Message me or comment “RE:Align” below and I’ll send you the details.

09/03/2024

I shared recently that I’m reading The Way of the Shepherd: 7 Secrets to Managing Productive People

The first lesson was to know the condition of your flock.

This next lesson (yesterday) was to discover the shape of your sheep.

You can check out what I wrote about that on a previous post.

This post today is not only for recruiters and managers - but for you.

What “SHAPE” are you in?

Maybe you’re job hunting or perhaps have a job that you just no longer like.

Discover the shape of your sheep.

S: Take the time to consider hiring people that bring the strengths for the future. Don’t be afraid to explore if that “overqualified person” could fit your culture and perhaps wants the role and opportunity to grow with you.

H: it’s not enough to hire a smart person. Hire a “heart person” - those people last longer

A: a rotten apple spoils the bunch. If you’re no longer happy in your career - don’t stay stuck. Stuck stinks. So do bad attitudes.

P: this a a culture question. Not everyone fits. If you don’t know how to quickly read a personality - reach out to me - I’m certified in multiple human behavior programs and can help you. If you don’t have the right fit for your culture - it’s like a square peg in a round hole

E: there’s a difference between experience and experiences. A candidate may not appear to have all of the right qualifications on a resume. It’s really hard to encapsulate decades of “experience” into one or two pages. It’s the experiences that matter. Ask good questions- not just canned ones. Get to know if the candidate has experiences and talents that can help you grow forward.

This is a weird time when companies are still laying off people in the droves. If you’re reading this and don’t have a job - then use these tips also to get in “SHAPE”. Nothing will be worse than you taking the first offer and it not leverage your strengths, be a role that you’re excited about, where your attitude would need to be truly intentional if you’re not excited, where it’s just not a good cultural fit for your personality - or where your past experiences won’t really help you excel in your future results.

If you’re not hiring - you should ALSO invest time to discover the shape of your sheep. What are skill gaps for your future needs? Are you allowing your teams to invest in development and training? Do you just promote SMEs and expect them to be good people leaders without training them on true leadership? Do you provide business or executive coaches for people to grow? DONT LET YOUR SHEEP GET OUT OF SHAPE!

If you’re a team or person still laying people off - is it a spreadsheet slash - or are you being intentional about the shape of the flock when eliminating roles. The best shepherds know their flocks and the best farmers source the best sheep to join the flock.

05/21/2024

This is how my kids started learning about leadership when they were only in elementary school. We would listen to these minutes and talk about them on the walk to school. Fast forward and they both got certified by John when they each turned 16 and now share this content with other young people. If you’re a leader at your job or want to grow your leadership skills - subscribe to this. It’s free. It’s totally worth it and a great way to start your day each day.

Kickstart each morning with inspiration and purpose ☀️
Join John and his friends as they share motivation and wisdom to get your day going!

Subscribe to Minute with Maxwell 👉 https://go.maxwellleadership.com/mwm

05/14/2024

“You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For in just a very little while, ‘He who is coming will come and will not delay.’” Hebrews 10:36-37 (NIV)

04/11/2024

AI does not have to be scary. There are really great tools out there like Fathom.

This tool is like your personal assistant, providing full transcriptions of meetings, summarizing key points, and even providing time stamps at critical points in your meetings.

Fathom integrates with the top meeting platforms.

* If you are a leader who could benefit from summarized notes from team meetings, all hands, 1:1's, and brainstorming sessions - this is for you.

* If you are a coach who wants to spend more intentional time focusing on your clients and getting a summary of not only the call, but action steps to provide to your client - as long as they agree to have the call recorded - this is for you!

There are other tools out there - I have tried some of them and still Fathom rises to the top.

Check it out - there is a robust free version but also some great add-ons in the paid version.

Instantly summarizes your meetings so you can focus on the conversation instead of taking notes.

02/22/2024

This is a quote below from my friend Kevin - a very accomplished and tenured music executive.

It struck me this morning as I have been thinking about my career and life and my upcoming Forbes article (business article about life and leadership lessons from sports and entertainment - specifically this year’s halftime show).

I was thinking about how it’s easy for some people to want to shove you inside a tiny box, for you to appear specialized to fit what they think - at the expense of showcasing diversity in your backgrounds and skills to fit what you know.

I’ve been told by some to not share my full career story because it may seem confusing. I’ve been told by some to not post about some of the interesting and amazing things I have been able to do because despite having a high capacity and energy - people would have a hard time seeing how someone could do some of these things (like being in a tour bus with LL Cool J, a bowling alley with a NBA superstar, or a board room with a CEO of a tech company - all times talking about business and how I was helping them).

Be you. There are already enough other people.

Well - I ALSO had some other incredible people who believed in me - took a risk and gave me a chance. Oh I could tell a bunch of stories about things like:
- working on some of the most successful live action tv shows
- getting my dream job with NARAS (Grammys) after faxing (yes a long time ago) my resume 8 times until the CEO gave me a chance
- producing Super Bowl events doing things I had never done before but with a track record that showed what was possible
- moving from entertainment to air travel to software (becoming a global VP at one of the largest and most successful companies in the world) - ALL because the hiring teams were willing to take a risk
- writing and publishing a book that would become a number one release (after my dragging heels 4 years)
- hosting a sold out retreat off of being laid off from that exec job knowing I could help others who were facing similar things

Be you - Your authentic you.
You won’t please everyone all the time.
Not everyone will like you. You should like you.

Don’t change who you are. Embrace all of the things that make up your history. Don’t let dreams die inside. Live your life with purpose, and joy.

If you want to explore your very best self, navigate your next move with your career (no matter the industry or role), feel stuck or know you want something different - these are all reasons to engage with a coach.

Message me. If I can’t help you I have a large network and it’s likely I know someone who can.

02/22/2024

Consider investing in a career coach asap

Want a quick lesson in business acumen? Review Q4 results at your job and watch if your execs filed with the SEC to sell off shares

If you’re not already being intentional about your career - and if you’re not watching the trends in companies - pay attention.

Major CEOs and executives are selling stock. One billionaire did it just in time to save on capital gains taxes and is headed to 🌴 ☀️ where he can take advantage of no state income tax. Another exec is selling off 1.5m shares while 8k more employees are being let go (after 3k were laid off same time last year)

News:

🗞️ Google Lays Off Thousands More Employees Despite Record Profits ($20.4b net income in Q4) One Year After Laying off 12k
“This situation has significantly affected employee morale, with many feeling disillusioned about their future at the company, according to Inc. The layoffs and the strategic emphasis on AI development have led to a sense of cynicism and burnout among the workforce, exacerbated by the fear of being replaced by the very technologies they are helping to create.”

https://lnkd.in/ecHQGKSk

🗞️ Career advancement at a standstill for many employees who want to continue to work remotely. I have heard directly from a female employee at another company that their boss said if they didnt come back to the office - they were killing their career growth. “Dell's "return to office" mandate has left employees confused about which offices they can use and the future of their jobs – and concerned the initiative is a stealth layoff program that will disproportionately harm women at the IT giant.” 2024 fiscal revenue has been reported at $22.3b. It was reported Feb 6 that 5% of the workforce will be laid off.

https://lnkd.in/e3JYAQig

🗞️ BuzzFeed Shares Nearly Double On Layoff Plans of 16% of workforce on top of 15% from April. It’s stock is up 90%

https://lnkd.in/eTyB6see

🗞️ “Roughly 8,500 video game industry workers were laid off in 2022, according to a layoff tracker created by video game artist Farhan Noor. That number jumped to 10,500 in 2023. Layoffs in 2024 are outpacing those numbers, with more than 6,000 people laid off from their video game industry jobs just 90 days into the year.”

https://lnkd.in/e5PtEXVr

🗞️ “Cisco in second quarter filings announced a companywide layoff that would impact about 5 percent of its workforce, or about 4,250 employees”

https://lnkd.in/euR4ZQxe

🗞️ “Planet Fitness Former CEO Rondeau Resigns From Board After Layoffs (9% of workforce)

https://lnkd.in/ei2bcwgY

01/12/2024

In case you missed it, yesterday was the first episode of our new season of What’s On Your Bookshelf? A life and leadership podcast where we take a deep dive exploration into the books on our shelves. Our theme for 2024 is Happiness. We have a complete book list for the year and kicked off this week with an overview of what is coming…The first book we are going through is below. This book was written by a psychologist and gives practical examples and lots of researching into how to live a healthy life filled with happiness. Come join us over the next several weeks as we live out the pages of the book together. This book is on sale this week on Amazon… here is a link The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want https://a.co/d/bbI0Srx

01/10/2024

It’s January
‼️There is likelihood of more layoffs looming especially in big tech

🧐It was around this time last year that senior execs were planning massive transformation initiatives and let go of thousands of talent in Q1 and early Q2.

➡️ Jump ahead of this.

‼️Now is the time to engage with a certified and qualified career coach. Whether you’re someone who got laid off last year and still looking, or someone who may be at risk (whether you know it or not) - the job market is not that open right now.

🌟Career transition and mobility coaching can help you.

➡️ I have been offering free initial coaching consultations to people to help…but I only have so much time allotted to do this. So if you’ve been on the fence or need to get braced and prepared - don’t keep waiting. Message me so that you are poised and ready if layoffs come your way.

💡I can’t stress enough there are things you can and should do to prepare. Shift your thinking. Nobody is indispensable.

More than 191,000 workers at U.S.-based tech companies were laid off in mass job cuts in 2023, per a Crunchbase News tally. See who the latest companies are to cut roles.

01/08/2024

New year week 2
Have you kept your resolutions?
Made any at all?
Resolved to just keep growing?

Today perhaps thing about your passions, potential, and purpose.

🌟 What do you love?
🌟What are you good at?
🌟Who do you like to be around?
🌟How do you invest, spend and waste your time?
🌟Do you look forward to Monday or only Friday?

Try not to drift through this life but to choose thoughts and moments wisely.

“Your commitments can develop you, or they can destroy you, but either way, they will define you." - Rick Warren