Focal Point Coaching

03/24/2026

New merch! Huge shoutout to Lindsey and the team at Sew Vivid Designs for taking great care of my order (and for having a puppy in the office when I picked it up this morning!!) and giving me my first piece of apparel that has a perfect representation of our logo, in accordance with all brand guidelines and specifications. Their flat fill stitching looks incredible. We are officially ready for baseball season, where my Reds will likely have me reading this letter a lot this season.

03/23/2026

Luís Dias answered the show’s title question unlike anyone else so far this season.

“Making more fun.”

Because if the build is always misery, the build will not last.

The best leaders I know do not avoid hard things. They learn how to stay alive inside them, even thrive.

What’s one way you intentionally keep the work fun without lowering the standard?

Link to our full conversation on Episode 14 in the comments.

03/17/2026

Latest issue of The Point just dropped, are you subscribed??

Are you ready to explore what credibility looks like in modern leadership across four new articles? We examine why teams stop trusting leadership, how clarity accelerates trust, the leadership behaviors that quietly erode credibility, and why alignment has become a defining form of leadership influence.

More to come, trust me.

03/06/2026

Most networking advice is basically: “Go to more events.”

Jonathan Bench disagrees.

When I asked the signature question on this latest episode of Making More, his answer was:

“Making more time for quality interactions.”

He said he likes networking, just not the version that happens in a crowded bar where it’s noisy, rushed, and shallow. He’d rather get one-on-one, go deep, and actually learn someone’s origin story.

Then he brought it home: as a parent of five, he wants more of those same quality interactions with his kids too.

That’s leadership, not just career strategy.

Where are you building your best relationships right now? And where are you settling for “being around people” instead?

Catch our full episode available now where ever you enjoy podcasts (link in the comments).

02/26/2026

The etymology of coaching, be still my heart.

Somewhere along the way, we lost the meaning — and many leaders now use coach to describe behavior that does the opposite of development.

02/23/2026

Two truths to use to your advantage in this article:

1) Decision Energy is Finite
2) Overwhelm is a Design Problem

Let me know if you need help coming to terms with either.

When everything feels urgent, ex*****on slows. This article reframes overwhelm as a design issue rather than a personal weakness. It examines how excessive decision volume stalls progress, where leaders are over-involved, and how simple structural filters restore speed and clarity.

02/20/2026

These past several weeks I’ve shared some of my beliefs on leadership in a series of posts. I’ve been building towards this article introducing my leadership house, so you may have picked up on some of the structural elements by now if you’ve been paying close attention.

I encourage you to survey your own leadership principles and determine how your leadership house is designed. What are foundational elements that you structure is built upon? What are the outward facing support pillars and what are internal beams protecting the core tenets of the structure? What about the ceiling and roof to top it all off?

My house won’t look the same as yours and that’s okay. My hope with this exercise wasn’t to define the perfect leadership house design for every leader, but to share what’s worked for me in my career and what most resonates with me now as a leader of leaders and a coach. From there, my charge is to be hospitable with my house and welcome others in to see how and why it’s constructed the way it is and what is flowing in and out of the building.

So come on in, let’s discuss the architecture, the interior design, even the shingles, then determine what’s going to be common ground for your own leadership house and what will need to change to match your own philosophy and style.

How I’ve Learned to Design Leadership That's Built to Last Why Leadership Needs Structure Years ago, a colleague once told me I was the most architect-like engineer they had ever met. At the time, I wasn’t sure whether that was a compliment or a slight.

02/16/2026

Episode 12 of 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗲: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 drops today and it features one of my favorite conversations to date. Gordon L. Sansaver III shared so much knowledge and brilliance about what he and Virginia Mason Institute are doing to build respect for people and continuous improvement into the cultures of healthcare systems around the globe. It's not shamelessly stealing from TPS if you're putting it to good use for transformation in a different sector than the one it was originally developed for. Not at all uncommon, thanks to its universal principles, but still wonderfully impressive to hear about the impact it's having in a space where change is so desperately needed. We must remember Gordon's wise words: "Better never stops."

Link to go find the full episode where ever you listen (or watch) podcasts in the comments below. Thanks as always for your support!

02/06/2026

I believe innovation keeps leadership alive.

Innovation is not novelty or disruption for its own sake, but rather it is disciplined adaptation. It recognizes that every effective practice has an expiration date.

Without innovation, excellence hardens into rigidity and value is quickly lost. Systems become optimized for a world that no longer exists. People improvise quietly to keep up, and inconsistency creeps in.

With innovation, leadership remains responsive. The system evolves without destabilizing its core. Change becomes intentional instead of reactive.

I’ve learned that innovation protects organizations from becoming brittle. It allows leaders to honor what works while adjusting what no longer does.

Healthy leadership systems are not static. They are designed to learn. Innovation ensures that progress continues as conditions change, without asking people to absorb the cost of outdated assumptions.

02/03/2026

Leadership isn’t revealed by titles.
It’s revealed by what happens when pressure shows up.

In this clip from 𝙈𝙖𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙈𝙤𝙧𝙚: 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙋𝙤𝙙𝙘𝙖𝙨𝙩 Episode 11, Robert Reed shares how his leadership philosophy was forged: not in comfort, but in crisis. From the trading floor to executive roles in financial services, his approach is rooted in clarity, restraint, and responsibility.

What stood out most to me wasn’t what he expects from his team but what he protects them from, like noise, panic, and misaligned incentives.

The best leaders don’t extract performance.
They create the conditions where performance can emerge.

Link to the full episode in the comments below.

01/27/2026

I believe true leadership is defined by service before self.

Not as a posture of humility for its own sake, and not as a demand for self-sacrifice, but as a clear orientation of responsibility that determines where authority is aimed and how decisions are made when tradeoffs are unavoidable.

Service answers a simple but revealing question: does leadership energy flow outward toward value creation, or inward toward comfort, protection, and convenience. When that orientation is unclear, organizations slowly turn in on themselves. Decisions begin to favor insulation over impact, metrics start standing in for meaning, and people quietly absorb the cost of choices made above them.

When service is present, something stabilizes. Authority earns legitimacy because it is exercised with awareness of consequence. Decisions are weighed by their effect on customers, teams, and communities, not just by ease of ex*****on or political safety. The system exists to do work in the world, not to preserve itself.

I have learned that even well-designed leadership systems will drift without service anchoring them. Leadership that endures is grounded in a clear sense of service demonstrated and lived out by those in the organization entrusted to the care of their people and teams.

01/23/2026

I believe leadership begins by seeing clearly before moving decisively.

Discernment is the discipline of interpreting reality accurately. It’s the difference between motion and progress. Without it, leaders solve the wrong problems exceptionally well and wonder why nothing improves.

Discernment requires slowing down long enough to separate signal from noise. It asks better questions before committing resources and resists urgency that hasn’t earned the opportunity to interrupt.

When discernment is missing, organizations churn. Priorities shift, teams react fast but never gain a complete understanding. Over time, effort becomes scattered and confidence erodes.

When discernment is present, direction stabilizes. Decisions make sense in context and people understand not just what but why they’re doing things.

I’ve learned that clarity cannot thrive without discernment, which takes time and intentionality to practice. Leadership must commit to building environments where reality is honored for what it is, not what it’s hoped to be.