Jeremy Whittaker, A local council member in Mesa, introduced me to Carlos Mateos, who is a sophomore at Red Mountain High School and co-founder of High X Incubator. Carlos had met with Jeremy and his council assistant Blaise Caudill to discuss his team's ideas for creating a student-run incubator program. I agreed to meet with him as well, to provide some guidance and mentoring. As I wiped the … [Read more...]

My coach Mark Otto is not one to pussyfoot around. A big reason we started to work together (after me coaching him in his business for years, and loving his approach) is so that I could manifest some bigger goals in my business. I have gotten to a stage of my life where I want to make a bigger impact. To do that, I need to change some well-worn creative habits that are fine when I am working on … [Read more...]

A couple of years ago, I spoke about ecosystem marketing at a Nashville conference for authors, organized by my friend Tim Grahl. I shared the model I had developed after taking a 25 city tour to research a book I am writing on network and community building. In a shout to my friend Scott Stratten, I called it the UnBook Tour, since I was doing the book tour before writing the book. At Tim's … [Read more...]

  My son looked me with some slight desperation in his eyes last night. He had gone straight from school to boxing practice, where he jumped speed rope, then hit the heavy bag for an hour. From boxing, he went straight to soccer practice, where he ran around the field doing drills for 90 minutes. "I have a lot of homework, Mom. I don't know how I am going to do it all," he … [Read more...]

My senior year of high school, I was an exchange student in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. I lived with a host family and attended Swiss high school, where I studied 11 subjects in French, including chemistry and Italian (try learning Italian while learning French -- it is very confusing!). As part of my graduation requirements for Sir Francis Drake High School back home in San Anselmo, California, I … [Read more...]

I have had the unusual opportunity to spend the last 6 days mostly in bed, the final family member to fall from the powerful virus traversing up, down and across our lands at this time of year. On one hand, it has been extremely inconvenient to be unavailable at the time when clients and projects need me most. On the other hand, it has encouraged a surprisingly deep reflection on life in … [Read more...]

Yowza, 2017 has gone by in a flash. Yet this last month of the year is still vitally important to your business. If you are a bit tired at this point, I fully understand. Last week on Wednesday, I reached my own "cup full" moment and had to check out for the long weekend to recover my energy. Between plates of leftovers, ice skating in downtown Mesa and corny holiday movies, I sat outside and … [Read more...]

There are so many things to do when marketing your business -- how in the world do you get the most bang for your buck? I have already discussed how consistent action beats perfect action. But there is another principle that is essential to getting the most out of every single business development opportunity, which I call "stacking." Stacking is the deliberate process of looking for ways that … [Read more...]