Hey :) There’s a pillar in the work we do at The Question First Group called Vanguarding. The short version: get ahead of problems before they become problems. Shine a light down the dark path. Anticipate where the friction is going to come from before it shows up and bites you. I’ve been thinking about how much it applies to everyday ...

Hey :) I did Sahil Bloom's quarterly review this week. Specifically the first exercise — the traffic light one. I did it in a cafe, on my phone, scrolling back through my calendar. Took maybe 20 minutes. Probably less. The exercise is simple. You go back through your calendar and label things red, yellow, or green. • Red = drained ener...

Hey :) Something's been sitting with me all week and I want to share it before we get into the 3-1-3. I wrote a business plan this week. A big one. Probably 35,000 words. Lots of ideas, lots of directions, lots of ambition. And after I finished it, I realised I'll probably never send it to anyone. Not because it was bad. But because wh...

Hey :) I've been messing around with this for about a year, and I've decided to launch a community/group around my blog content, and the ideas I write about. You can come and engage with the content and communicate directly with me here: https://t.me/+nNdiJWPQ4NswNjlk I have been feeling a pull towards working with and helping more peo...

Happy (Good) Friday :) With a new quarter kicking off, I wanted to take a moment to revisit something we do every week — and remind you why we do it. Because here's the thing: as owners, we have a tendency to beat ourselves up about what we haven't done. At the end of the week, the month, the quarter — the default setting in our heads ...

Hey :) I don't think any of this is going to be a surprise to anyone in a leadership position. Most leaders already know what I'm about to say. The challenge isn't the knowing — it's the doing. What I'm really thinking about is delegation. Specifically, the messy bit where you want to hand something off to someone on your team, and it ...

Hey :) I want to talk about a framework that's genuinely changed the way I think about time and work — both for myself and for the owners I coach. Before I get into it, I want to be upfront: this isn't mine. It comes from Dan Sullivan at Strategic Coach. He publishes a small book every quarter built around a framework he's working on, ...

Hey :) Every Friday I do a simple weekly review I call the 3-1-3. Three things that look and feel like progress this week. One single objective for next week. Three tasks that will move the needle on that one thing. It takes about 15-20 minutes, and it's one of the most important things I do all week. I'll explain why in a moment. --- ...

Hey :) Recently I've found myself in conversations with people who were clearly struggling — caught between where they are and where they want to be — and my response surprised me. I wasn't trying to rescue them. I wasn't apologising for the difficulty of it. I wasn't looking for ways to make it easier. I was just... comfortable with i...

Hey :) Let's talk about confidence — specifically, how to help someone who says "I just don't feel confident doing this." This comes up every single week in my coaching work, so I've had to develop some real clarity on how to tackle it. Here are the frames I use. Start with their own history The first thing I'll do is ask a self-discov...

Hey :) I'm writing this while driving. Well, not writing — dictating. Into an app called VoicePal, which is recording everything I'm saying and will give me a clean transcript when I'm done. I'll take that transcript, drop it into Claude with the right prompt, and it'll help me shape it into something worth posting. That's the process....

Hey :) Every week, I sit down in front of a blank document and build a workbook from scratch. I've done it dozens of times now — workbooks for every framework, every tool, every method we use at QFG. The whole point is to give our coaches something they can facilitate with and give our clients something they can actually work through. ...

Hey :) There’s a good chance your to-do list is making you less productive, not more. I know that sounds backwards. You’ve got everything written down. You’re organised. You’re on top of it. But if you’re running your day from a task list — opening it up in the morning, scanning what’s on it, picking something off, and getting going — ...

Hey :) I've been thinking about why goal setting so often feels empty. Most people do everything they're supposed to do. They write the goals down. They create a vision. Maybe they do OKRs. And then... not much changes. The business doesn't feel meaningfully different. There's busyness, but it has a hollow quality to it — lots of motio...

Hey :) A week or so ago, I wrote a letter to my growing team and partners at The Question First Group. It was about the kind of company I want to build — one where the business genuinely supports the lives of the people in it. Several people reached out asking for help with their goals, and the weekly reports started coming in that sam...

Hey :) Gavin Bell asked me this question recently, and the honest answer is: it depends on when you ask me. If I answer this question well today, I should have a different answer in a year — because doing your best work isn't a destination you arrive at. It's a direction you keep moving in. The best work you're doing right now should b...

Hey :) Cara has said to me before that it’s incredible how much I can get done in a short space of time. And she’s right. When I focus and get into deep work mode, I can produce a lot very quickly. If I sit down with a clear project and no distractions, things tend to move fast. But there’s a bit of a tension here for me. Because at th...

Hey :) There's a question I've started asking people when I want to understand how clearly they're thinking about their business. It's not "what are you working on?" or "what are your goals for the year?" It's this: Give me an example of something you've said NO to recently. A project you turned down. An opportunity you walked away fro...

Hey :) Most teams don't struggle to come up with ideas. They struggle to say no to them. There's always another project worth doing. Another initiative that sounds smart, feels urgent, and has at least one passionate advocate in the room. The problem isn't identifying good work — it's figuring out which good work is actually the right ...

Hey :) Something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is writing. More specifically, writing as the primary way we communicate ideas inside a team. I picked this up years ago from the guys at 37signals, especially Jason Fried. If you’ve ever used Basecamp, you’ll notice something straight away: you can’t send voice notes. There’s no a...

Hey :) Here’s a sentence you can use at any time: “I changed my mind.” That’s it. It’s a complete sentence. You don’t need a long explanation. You don’t need to justify it. People don’t have to like it. But it can simply be the truth. “I changed my mind.” 🗣👀 Chris. /letter

Hey :) You don’t have a nine-to-five. Which means you don’t actually have to live like someone who does. Sometimes I think people like me — owners — accidentally drift into behaving like employees. We structure our day the same way everyone else does. We start around nine. We finish around five. We sit at the desk all day. We rush arou...

Hey :) As a coach, I think one of the most important qualities I need is the ability to meet someone where they’re at. Every client is different. Different strengths. Different blind spots. Different pace. Some move quickly for six months and then stall. Some move slowly and steadily. Some surprise you. Some frustrate you. My job is to...

Hey :) I used a simple challenge with a client the other day. He said something I’ve heard a lot: “I just can’t say no.” And to be fair to him, the reason was completely human. He genuinely wants to help people. When someone’s struggling, he feels that pull. I get it. Most decent people do. But the problem isn’t whether helping people ...

Hey :) Here's what we shipped in February: Book: The 4 Pillars of Breakthrough Marine Sales Communication Book: The 4 Pillars of Breakthrough Home Improvement Sales Communication Blog: Best Sales Training Companies for Home Services Workbook: Own The Open - The questions to ask in the first 20-minutes of a sales appointment Workbook: B...

Hey :) Last year we started working in six-week sprints. I mapped them across the year so they line up with school terms. Most terms are about 12–13 weeks with a break in the middle, so it made sense to split them in half. A sprint for us is fairly intense. The first week is a bit scrappy as we get into the work. Then we find our rhyth...

Hey :) Up to now, I’ve been thinking out loud about leverage, the quality of work, and the discipline it takes to protect time for the things that really matter. There’s one more layer to this that feels unavoidable. You are one person. You have one brain. And your work life and personal life aren’t actually separate. They bleed into e...

Hey :) When you develop your own strategy — and your goals come from that strategy — you can ignore what everyone else is doing. It genuinely stops mattering. Other people’s output, their announcements, their pace, their noise — it has no bearing on your work. You know what you’re doing. You know why you’re doing it. And because of tha...

Hey :) In the last post, I was thinking out loud about the quality and value of the work you choose to do — how moving closer to strategy and decisions tends to increase leverage over time. There’s a third piece to this that feels very practical, and very unglamorous. Even when you know what your highest-value work is, it takes a surpr...

Hey :) In the last post in this series, I was thinking out loud about leverage over time — how, as your career progresses, doing good work becomes less about hours and more about what you choose to spend those hours on. There’s another part of this that feels just as important. It’s not only about control over your time. It’s also abou...