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How to Connect with a TEDx Audience

The Military Leader — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 15:00:32 +0000

How can I connect the audience with my message? — that was my challenge at TEDx. And a challenge that every presenter faces. Your talk needs to hook the audience in the opening seconds. It must give them just enough context to follow the journey you’re about to take them on and prime them to […]

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A Glimpse Into My TEDx Story Rehearsal

The Military Leader — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 05:48:21 +0000

“Practice makes permanent.” “We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.” (Archilochus, c. 650 BCE) “There is no tough. There is only trained…and untrained.” Left over from decades of training for combat operations, big leadership moments, and Ironman races, these mantras echoed in my mind every […]

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How I Mentally Prepared for TEDx

The Military Leader — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 22:32:49 +0000

I am excited to share that I recently delivered my first TEDx talk, “From Chaos to Control: Leading Through the First Moments of Crisis.” The video won’t be out for several weeks, but the journey to TEDx KULeuven was both challenging and rewarding—unlike any other presentation I’ve ever given. And a lot of people have […]

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Negativity (Habit Series #8)

The Military Leader — Mon, 25 Nov 2024 05:42:29 +0000

Some years ago, as a new company commander, I encountered a junior leader in my command who personified Marshall Goldsmith’s Habit #8 of the “Twenty Habits that Hold You Back From the Top.” Like many of the destructive habits, this one is a learned, not inherited. It can stifle momentum on any team and, paradoxically, […]

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Malcolm Gladwell’s New Book

The Military Leader — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 22:01:52 +0000

Years ago, Blink changed my entire perspective on leadership. I remember filling the book’s margins with insight sparked from #1 bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell’s fresh look at intuition, judgment, and decision making. That book also sparked a personal interest in neuroscience, leading to a Military Review article on the brain in combat and eventually a Master’s thesis focused […]

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Seasons of Development

The Military Leader — Wed, 27 Sep 2023 04:03:43 +0000

In Seasons in Leadership, I wrote about the leader’s role in sensing the environment and guiding teams through change: Regardless of the situation, the best leaders know that by their role and responsibility positions them to intuit transition and see opportunity. These leaders intentionally develop vision to sense impending seasons. Then they fulfill their responsibility […]

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The 16 Laws of Communication

The Military Leader — Sun, 19 Mar 2023 03:51:52 +0000

As a young leader, I was fortunate to discover two authors who set a lifelong foundation of influence for me as a leader: General Colin Powell and John C. Maxwell. I read My American Journey in high school, five years after General Powell led a 35-country coalition to victory in the Gulf War and mere […]

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