Radical Ignition, Inc.

09/08/2026

This month, I’m celebrating more than National Recovery Month and my own “belly button birthday.” I’m also celebrating my daughter, who found recovery when she was only 19. Happy Birthday, Emily!

Her recovery is entirely her own, but I will always be grateful that she grew up knowing what recovery looked like in our home. She had seen that sobriety could mean connection, community, laughter, and a full life. Addiction is a family disease, but recovery can ripple through a family too.

In this blog, I wrote more about what 32 years of recovery has meant to me, my family, and the way I think about recovery in the workplace. I look forward to your thoughts.

https://radicalignition.com/the-birthday-my-family-celebrates-most/

September is National Recovery Month.It is also the month of my birthday, or, as we sometimes say in recovery, my “belly button birthday”, September 18. The phrase is a lighthearted way of distinguishing the day we were born from another date that can carry even greater significance in recovery:...

09/06/2026

For your next leader hire, ask them about their biggest leadership mistake instead of their greatest accomplishment.

Great leaders don’t become great because they avoid mistakes. They become great because they learn from them and build resilient teams. 💡

08/15/2026

Inclusive leadership starts with self-awareness.

We all show up differently in group dynamics. I’m comfortable speaking up. If I’m in a group where people are talking over each other, I’m comfortable interjecting to share an idea or thought.

But I also have to keep myself in check.

Part of emotional intelligence is recognizing how you take up space while also noticing how others are showing up. Inclusive leadership means paying attention to those dynamics and adjusting your own behavior so others have space to be heard.

Questions to consider:
💡 Who hasn’t spoken yet?
💡 Who is being interrupted or talked over?
💡 Who might need a little more space to enter the conversation?
💡 How am I showing up in the group, and do I need to shift?
💡 Do I need to speak up more…or less?

Sometimes inclusion means knowing when not to speak. Inclusive leadership isn’t just about making space for others. It’s having the self-awareness to recognize when you might be taking up too much of it.

08/10/2026

Have you ever been on a team where you felt challenged, had a high bar for talent, you delivered, and you also had an absolute blast doing it? The one you never forget. You were building together never feeling like you were on your own island.

It feels like somewhere along the way, we started associating high performance with intensity. Move faster. Push harder. Do more with less.

High-performing teams expect a lot from one another. But some of the best teams I’ve been part of had something else in common:

🥳 We had fun.
🤣 We laughed. A lot.
🤩 We genuinely liked being together. 
😎 We were deeply serious about the work.
😁 We didn’t take ourselves seriously all the time.

And I don’t think that’s incidental to high performance.

When people can laugh together, there’s often a different kind of connection in the room. Walls come down. Psychological safety and relationships deepen. People are more willing to speak up, challenge one another, recover from mistakes, and navigate the inevitable hard moments.

Fun alone certainly doesn’t create a high-performing team. You still need trust. Accountability. Candor. Clarity. Shared purpose. The willingness to have difficult conversations.

But if your definition of a high-performing culture leaves no room for joy, laughter, play, or being human together, I think something important is missing.

Because the teams we remember aren’t always the ones where we accomplished the most. They’re often the ones where we accomplished something extraordinary and loved who we were doing it with.

Inside Out question: 
𝘞ℎ𝘦𝑛 𝑦𝘰𝑢 𝑡𝘩𝑖𝘯𝑘 𝑎𝘣𝑜𝘶𝑡 𝑡𝘩𝑒 𝑏𝘦𝑠𝘵 𝘵𝑒𝘢𝑚 𝑦𝘰𝑢’𝑣𝘦 𝘦𝑣𝘦𝑟 𝑏𝘦𝑒𝘯 𝘱𝑎𝘳𝑡 𝑜𝘧, 𝑤𝘩𝑎𝘵 𝘮𝑎𝘥𝑒 𝑖𝘵 𝘨𝑟𝘦𝑎𝘵?

And did you have fun?

08/08/2026

📸 Here’s an idea… 

Leadership begins with commitment to exploring your own emotional neighborhood. I’ve come to believe the greatest leadership challenge isn’t leading others, it’s understanding ourselves.

Every one of us has an emotional neighborhood. It’s the place where our fears, assumptions, old stories, protective behaviors, and unhealed experiences quietly influence how we show up.

💡 It’s where we avoid difficult conversations because conflict feels unsafe.
💡It’s where we micromanage, because perfectionism might be in the way.
💡It’s where we become defensive because feedback threatens our identity.

The conversations we avoid with ourselves eventually become the conversations we avoid with our teams. The leader who has never explored their own emotional neighborhood will eventually ask others to carry the weight of it.

03/19/2026

Most startup culture problems aren’t surprises. They’re predictable. 🤯

After three decades inside entrepreneurial companies, I’ve started to recognize familiar patterns. They wait too long to bring in strategic HR, hire for technical capability over behavioral fit, move too quickly on hiring, or avoid difficult people decisions for too long.

I felt inspired to write an article on 7 𝑻𝒐𝒙𝒊𝒄 𝑷𝒆𝒐𝒑𝒍𝒆 𝑴𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒌𝒆𝒔 𝑺𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒖𝒑𝒔 𝑴𝒂𝒌𝒆. In this article, I break down the patterns I’ve seen most often and what leadership teams can do differently.

If you’re building or scaling a company, it may feel familiar. 🔗 in bio.

 OrganizationalDesign Culture ScalingCompanies

02/16/2026

Every time I receive a note like this, I’m reminded why I do this work. It is such an honor to coach leaders who are not only growing themselves, but leading meaningful change in their organizations and communities. I’ve had the privilege of working with leaders doing extraordinary work across developing countries, navigating complex human dynamics while building sustainable impact.

Supporting leaders as they strengthen their voice, boundaries, and presence is work I deeply love.

02/04/2026

⚠️ Vulnerable post ahead...

Why do I call myself a hyper-achiever in recovery?

➜ My drive for high achievement was, and still can be, a form of self-sabotage tied directly to my identity.
I➜ t’s fueled by constant performance and unrealistic standards of perfectionism.
➜ There is never “enough.” I either achieve the goal = success and immediately move on to the next one.
➜ Or I don’t achieve it = failure and still move on to the next one.
➜ With failure, it was either IT that failed, WE that failed (the team, the company, the work), or I was the failure, putting my entire identity at risk.
➜ The stress and pressure I placed on myself for not meeting my goals, or on others for not meeting theirs in service of mine, was enormous.
➜ Ironically, this led to less innovation, less creativity, and very little meaning or fulfillment. When the focus is only on performance and failure, real learning stops.
➜ Almost always, it led to work addiction with a very high personal cost.

01/14/2026

Does anyone remember Adam Grant’s Ted Talk on languishing? I recall hearing this and feeling like there was no better way to describe how I was feeling. I suddenly realized, I’m feeling it again. Here’s my recent blog on why I think this season feels heavier and what actually helps (and what doesn’t).

A few years ago, Adam Grant gave language to something many of us were quietly experiencing: languishing. When I first heard him describe it, I remember thinking, Yes. That is it. I could finally name the feeling. Life was moving, I was functioning, but something essential felt muted. Lately, I have...