I host a podcast for dads with my friend Eric Blumenthal. You should check it out.

Because of that podcast, my social media algorithm is filled with fatherhood content. Some of it is funny. Some of it is challenging. A lot of it is cheesy.

But every once in a while, something cuts through.

Recently, I came across a clip of Steve Harvey being interviewed about his dad. He talked about flying his father out to see his comedy shows. About how his dad would proudly tell anyone who would listen, “That’s my son.”

Then Steve broke down.

He said that since his dad passed away, there is no man left on this earth who genuinely wants him to do better than he does.

Sit with that for a second.

No one left who wants him to win bigger than they win.

That is a beautiful picture of a father. And it is also a confronting reality for the rest of us.

Why is that so rare?

We say we want people to succeed. We cheer in public. We like the post. We send the quick “proud of you” text.

But underneath it, there is often a quiet qualifier.

I want you to do well… just not better than me.

It is subtle. Sometimes we do not even realize it is there. But it shapes how we show up. It limits how fully we celebrate others. It keeps our encouragement measured instead of wholehearted.

What if we flipped that?

What if we became the kind of people who genuinely want others to surpass us?

Not in theory, but in reality.

What if we cheered louder when a peer got the promotion we wanted?
What if we went out of our way to open a door we could have walked through ourselves?
What if we spoke about others’ wins with the same energy we use to talk about our own?

This is not just about being nice. It is about believing something deeper.

Abundance.

Their success does not reduce your opportunity. Their growth does not diminish your value. There is more than enough room for all of us to win.

And when you really believe that, it changes you.

You become the friend people trust.
The leader people follow.
The kind of person others want in the room when something good happens.

Because you are not calculating. You are not comparing. You are not competing in every conversation.

You are FOR them.

And that does something powerful.

It builds people.
It strengthens relationships.
It creates momentum that has a way of coming back around.

You start to notice it. Doors open. Conversations deepen. Opportunities expand. Not because you chased them, but because you became someone worth bringing along.

Steve Harvey’s story is a reminder of what that looks like at its best. A father who wanted more for his son than he wanted for himself.

We all need people like that.

The question is, are we willing to be one?

Cheer people on. Loudly. Consistently. Without condition.

Not because it benefits you, but because it changes you.

And in the process, you become the person everyone hopes is in their corner.

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Compliance Is Easy. Commitment Is Rare.

Most leaders say they want commitment, but if you look closely, what they actually measure is compliance.

Did the team hit the deadline?
Did they follow the process?
Did they show up to the meeting?

If the answer is yes, we call it a win.

And in many ways, it is. You can win people’s time and even their focus for a season. You can build a functioning organization on compliance alone.

Compliance can drive short-term execution and create the appearance of alignment, but over time the gap between compliance and commitment becomes apparent. It is entirely possible to be convinced of something and not be committed to it.

You can believe a strategy is right and still not give your best effort.
You can agree with the direction and still not sacrifice for it.
You can nod your head in the meeting and disengage the moment it ends.

That is compliance without commitment. And most leaders miss it because compliance is easier to see.

It is measurable. It fits into dashboards and performance reviews. It shows up in attendance, task completion, and short-term results.

Commitment is different.

It shows up in what people do when it is inconvenient.
It shows up in how they respond when things get hard.
It shows up in whether they take ownership or wait for instruction.

Commitment is not about doing what is required. It is about doing what is necessary.

The danger for leaders is settling for compliance because it feels like progress.

If your team meets expectations but rarely exceeds them, you may have compliance.
If people execute well when watched but lack initiative when left alone, you may have compliance.
If decisions stall without you, you may have compliance.

Compliance is not bad, but it is incomplete.

So how do you move from compliance to commitment?

The bad news is that you cannot command commitment, you have to cultivate it.

People do not commit because they were told to. They commit because something matters to them.

If you want commitment, connect the work to something deeper than tasks and metrics. Consistently and clearly communicate why it matters, who it impacts, and what is at stake.

As I’ve said before, you have to communicate the goals of the leader in the language of the learner.

That means translating vision into something personal and helping people see themselves in the outcome. It means moving from information to meaning. And it means inviting, not just instructing.

Compliance responds to instruction.
Commitment responds to invitation.

One says, “Do this because I said so.”
The other says, “This matters, and you have a role to play in it.”

The best leaders don’t just assign work. They create ownership and pay attention to engagement, initiative, and energy.

Not just, “Did it get done?” But, “Did it matter to them?”

Because in the end, compliance will get you effort but commitment will get you everything.

Most organizations are full of capable people doing what is asked. Few are full of people who care enough to go beyond it. Let’s build those kinds of teams.

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I was recently in Saskatoon, Canada for a conference.

The content was strong. The business behind it was impressive. Everything you’d hope for on paper was there.

And yet, that’s not what I carried home.

What stuck with me were the conversations. The one-on-one moments between sessions, the depth over coffee, the candor, the curiosity, the generosity. I left encouraged, sharpened, and changed. Not because of the place. Because of the people.

It reminded me of something my friend and ADDO co-founder Garrett Gravesen has said for years. Garrett has been to every country in the world. When I ask him about his favorite places, he rarely talks about landscapes or landmarks. It’s almost always about people.

“Places don’t make places,” he says. “People make places.”

That’s certainly true in travel. But it’s just as true in business.

Think about it.

Was the chicken sandwich really that much better, or did the person behind the counter treat you like you mattered?

Was the flight actually superior, or did the flight attendant create ease the moment you stepped on board?

Was the hotel exceptional because of the thread count, or because someone remembered your name?

We like to believe we’re making rational decisions based on product, price, and performance. But more often than we admit, we’re responding to something less tangible and far more powerful: how people made us feel.

Long before modern customer experience theory, Benjamin Franklin captured this idea with a line that still hits:

“The handshake of the host affects the taste of the roast.”

It’s simple. And it’s true.

The experience is the product.

Which means your people are not just part of your business. They are your business.

Not your strategy deck.
Not your brand guidelines.
Not your office space.

Your people.

They are the difference between a transaction and a relationship.
Between a satisfied customer and a loyal one.
Between a forgettable moment and a lasting impression.

So the question is not whether people matter. It is whether we invest in them like they do.

Are we equipping them to succeed?
Are we giving them the margin to care?
Are we modeling the kind of presence we hope they extend to others?

Because when you get that right, everything else improves.

The product feels better.
The service feels faster.
The brand feels stronger.

Not because anything changed about the place, but because the people did.

Places don’t make places. People do.

And if that’s true, your greatest competitive advantage is already inside your organization.

Invest accordingly.

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Last week I wrote about communication, specifically the responsibility of leaders to communicate the goals of the leader in the language of the learner.

That same afternoon, I found myself on a flight home from Virginia. Delta had Live TV running, and I stumbled into something unexpected: King Charles of England addressing a joint session of the United States Congress.

What a strange, rare gift in the middle of a workday to sit still for 30 uninterrupted minutes and just listen.

And I was struck.

How did this man, addressing a room filled with opposing parties, tension, and deeply divided perspectives, get people to smile and laugh and even stand at the same time?

Let’s be honest. This isn’t a knock, just reality. He’s not widely known as a captivating speaker. He’s not particularly magnetic in presence. He’s not overwhelmingly popular even in his own country, where many still hold deep affection for his mother and are already looking ahead to the next generation.

And yet the speech worked.

It connected and it unified, if only for a moment.

So continuing on the theme of communication, here are three things he did that any of us can apply in business, leadership, and everyday life.

1. He used humor, especially the kind that names the obvious

King Charles didn’t avoid the elephant in the room, he walked straight toward it.

Here he was, standing in front of American lawmakers during a celebration tied to the 250th anniversary of a moment when America declared independence from his country.

And he acknowledged it lightly, honestly, and with a bit of self-awareness.

That’s where the laughter came from.

Sometimes the most effective humor isn’t clever, it’s honest, simply naming what everyone in the room is already thinking but no one has said out loud.

Too many leaders take themselves too seriously, and that seriousness creates distance instead of connection.

Our team once pitched a high-profile CEO named John. We proposed a content series called From the John, yes, a little potty humor to humanize an otherwise very serious person. The idea got shut down.

Maybe it wasn’t a great idea, but the instinct behind it was right. People connect with leaders who feel approachable, not untouchable.

Humor, when used well, signals that you see what they see and that you are human too.

2. He highlighted shared values again and again

Throughout the speech, King Charles kept returning to common ground.

Shared history. Shared principles. Shared commitments.

He didn’t ignore differences, but he didn’t center them either.

When you remind people of what they have in common, you lower defenses and create a foundation to build on, shifting the conversation from me versus you to us.

And here’s the key, you can’t say it once and move on. You have to reinforce it because repetition is not redundancy, it is leadership.

People forget. People drift. People default to division.

Great communicators bring them back over and over again to what unites them.

In a team setting, that might be mission. In a company, it might be purpose. In a family, it might be values.

But if you don’t name it consistently, don’t expect people to remember it consistently.

3. He challenged people to a higher way

The speech wasn’t just warm and unifying, it had weight.

There were moments of challenge, moments that pointed forward, and moments that called people to something better.

From global responsibility to leadership in uncertain times, he didn’t just celebrate, he invited.

That’s what the best communicators do.

They don’t just make us feel good, they call us up.

They challenge us in a way that speaks to our highest and best, not our lowest and least, reminding us of who we can be rather than just reflecting who we are.

And importantly, that challenge didn’t feel heavy-handed. It felt aligned with the shared values he had already established.

Connection first, then challenge.

That order matters.

Most of us will never stand in front of Congress.

We won’t have the platform, the spotlight, or the history of a monarchy behind us, but we do have something just as important: moments.

A team meeting.
A client presentation.
A conversation with a colleague.
A Sunday school class.

These are our stages and our opportunities to communicate in a way that actually moves people, shifting thinking, building unity, and calling others forward.

So let’s take the lesson.

Use humor to connect.
Reinforce what’s shared.
Challenge people toward their best.

That’s how hearts change, how minds move, and how effective leadership actually works.

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Communicating the Goals of the Leader in the Language of the Learner

Because part of my job involves writing and speaking, I get asked about communication all the time. Not just how to present, but how to actually get people aligned and moving in the same direction.

Here is what I have learned: Communication is not a nice-to-have soft skill for leaders. It is a core leadership responsibility. If people do not understand you, they cannot follow you. And if they cannot follow you, even the best strategy will stall.

The most effective leaders I have seen do not just share ideas, they translate them. They take vision and turn it into clarity that others can understand and act on together.

And that is where communication often breaks down.

The Leader’s Language vs. the Learner’s Language

Leaders communicate from a position of context. They understand the history behind a decision. They remember the previous strategy, the market conditions, the failed attempts, and the lessons learned along the way.

However, the people hearing the message do not always share that same context. What feels obvious to the leader can feel confusing to the listener.

Great communicators understand that their job is not simply to explain what they know. Their job is to translate the goals of the leader into the language of the learner.

One way to think about it is this: Communicators must move from:

Then, There, and Was → to → Now, Here, and Is

Leaders often think in terms of what happened then.
Listeners are trying to understand what matters now.

Leaders often reference what happened there.
Listeners want to know what applies here.

Leaders remember what once was.
Listeners want clarity about what is.

The gap between those two perspectives is where communication often breaks down.

Here are a few practical ways to bridge that gap:

Bridging the Gap

Great communicators close that gap intentionally. Here are a few practical ways to do it.

1. Start With the Present Reality

Instead of beginning with history, start with where people are today.

What challenge are they facing right now? What opportunity is in front of them? What problem are they trying to solve?

Once people see the relevance, they are far more willing to listen to the backstory.

2. Translate History Into Insight

History only matters if it produces wisdom.

Instead of simply explaining what happened before, explain what was learned.

Do not just say, “Here is what we tried before.”Say, “Here is what we learned from that experience, and here is how it shapes what we are doing today.”

3. Connect the Dots Explicitly

Never assume the audience will automatically see the connection.

Spell it out.

Help them understand how the past decision influences the current direction.

The clearer the bridge, the stronger the alignment.

4. Make the Message About Them

One of the most powerful shifts in communication is moving from “what I want to explain” to “what they need to understand.”

The goal is not simply transferring information. The goal is creating understanding.

When leaders communicate in the language of the learner, something important happens. Clarity increases, alignment grows, and people begin to move together.

Before your next meeting or message, take a moment and ask yourself one question: Am I speaking from my context, or from their understanding? Then do the work to translate.

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There’s a story I’ve always loved about a performance of music by Johannes Brahms.

During one section of the symphony, the score instructs the orchestra: “As loud as possible.”

The conductor that evening was the legendary Eugene Ormandy, who led the Philadelphia Orchestra for decades and was known for conducting with enormous physical energy.

When the orchestra reached that passage, Ormandy leaned into it, urging the musicians to give the music everything they had.

Then a few measures later came another instruction in the score.

“Louder still.”

So Ormandy pushed harder.

He drove the orchestra forward with such intensity that in the middle of the performance he literally threw his shoulder out of joint while conducting.

The press had a field day with the story afterward. Reporters asked him what it felt like to dislocate his shoulder during a performance.

Ormandy’s response was unforgettable:

“I know some people who have reached middle age who have never been enthused enough to dislodge a necktie, not to mention a shoulder… so I feel pretty good about it.”

I’ve heard it said that the most important thing a leader brings to an organization is their energy.

Not their title.
Not their strategy.
Not even their experience.

Their energy.

You can feel it the moment a leader walks into the room.

Energy communicates belief.
Energy communicates urgency.
Energy communicates whether something actually matters.

When a leader shows up with enthusiasm, it does three powerful things:

1. It elevates performance.
2. Energy is contagious. When leaders bring genuine enthusiasm, people tend to rise to it.
3. It creates momentum.
4. Organizations rarely stall because of a lack of ideas. They stall because of a lack of energy.
5. It makes work meaningful.
6. People want to be part of something that feels alive.

At ADDO, one of our core values is passion—the willingness to bring energy and enthusiasm to the work that matters.

Not artificial hype.
Not forced motivation.

Real enthusiasm that comes from believing deeply in what you’re doing and the people you’re doing it with.

Because the truth is, a lot of people go through life at half volume.

They show up to work, but cautiously.
They lead teams, but without visible belief.
They pursue goals, but without much fire.

They’re technically present, but emotionally disengaged.

And over time that quiet disengagement spreads through organizations like gravity.

Leaders set the tone.

When a leader is energized, curious, and passionate, it lifts everyone around them.

When a leader is flat, distracted, or indifferent, that spreads too.

Which leads to a simple but powerful question:

How enthusiastic are you about the things that matter most in your life?

Here are a few areas worth evaluating.

Your Work: Do people see that you genuinely believe in what you’re building?

Your Team: Does your energy communicate confidence in them?

Your Clients or Customers: Do they feel that you care deeply about the experience you’re creating?

Your Life Outside Work: Are you showing up fully for the people and moments that matter most?

Because leadership, like great music, is rarely about playing it safe.

Sometimes the moment calls for you to lean in, raise the energy, and push for something just a little bigger.

Sometimes it calls for “louder still.”

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About six months ago, after much resistance, I started wearing a Whoop. It is a fitness wearable…other people might use something like an Apple Watch or an Oura Ring.

I’ve genuinely enjoyed the insights. Sometimes it reminds me I didn't move enough during my day. Other times it surfaces a trend that I end up feeling a few days later.

The other night, however, it was flat-out wrong.

I woke up to a "green" recovery score, meaning the data said I'd had a great night of sleep. High HRV, low respiratory rate, blah blah blah. Basically, all the right numbers were right.

The problem? I knew I didn't sleep well. I tossed and turned all night. The Whoop was wrong.

That moment reminded me of Jeff Bezos line that has stuck with me:

“When the anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right. There is something wrong with the way that you are measuring it.”

That’s a provocative idea in a world obsessed with measurement. But it’s also deeply practical.

Because behind every data point is a human experience. And when we ignore that experience, we don’t become more objective, we become more disconnected.

Data is only as good as the questions we ask.

If you measure customer satisfaction with a single score, you might miss an underlying frustration.
If you only track employee engagement through surveys, you might overlook what’s really happening in the hallway conversations.
If you singularly optimize for efficiency, you might accidentally destroy loyalty.

The issue isn’t that data is misleading, it’s that it’s incomplete.

Metrics can tell you what is happening.
Anecdotes often tell you why.

And if you don’t understand the why, you’re just guessing with better spreadsheets.

There’s an old truth worth revisiting:

A person with experience is never at the mercy of someone with an opinion.

I’d add a modern layer to that.

A person with experience shouldn’t be overruled by someone with a perfectly formatted dashboard either.

Because firsthand experience carries context. Emotion. Nuance. It captures what can’t always be quantified.

A frontline employee who says, “Customers are getting frustrated,” is offering something no metric fully captures.
A leader who says, “This doesn’t feel right,” may be picking up on signals the system hasn’t learned to detect yet.

That’s not anti data. That’s pro reality.

The best organizations don’t choose between data and anecdotes. They interrogate the gap between them.

When the numbers say one thing but people are experiencing another, that’s not a nuisance. It’s a signal.

It’s an invitation to ask better questions. Are we measuring the right outcome? Are we missing a variable? Are we simplifying something that is inherently complex?

Too often, organizations double down on the data because it feels safer. Cleaner. More defensible.

But the real work, the meaningful work, is in sitting with the tension long enough to uncover what’s actually true.

Even in the most data rich environments in the world, context still matters.

Human behavior is messy. It’s dynamic. It doesn’t always fit neatly into categories or models.

And that’s exactly why anecdotes matter.

They restore the story behind the statistic.
They remind us that we’re not just managing systems, we’re serving people.

This isn’t a call to abandon data. It’s a call to elevate experience alongside it.

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In leadership, there are two very different kinds of power.

One comes from a title. The other comes from influence.

The first is positional power. It is granted by an organization chart, a promotion, or a new line on a business card.

The second is personal power. It comes from trust, credibility, and the way people experience your leadership.

The truth is simple.

Positional power can make people comply. Personal power makes people want to follow.

And the difference between the two becomes more obvious the higher someone rises in an organization.

Few leaders in modern history carried more positional power than Margaret Thatcher. As Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990, she led during one of the most consequential periods in modern British history and earned the nickname “The Iron Lady” for her strength and resolve.

Yet one of her most famous observations about power reveals something deeper about leadership:

“Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.”

It is a sharp insight into human nature. The moment a leader has to constantly remind people of their authority, their rank, or their title, something is already off.

Real leadership rarely has to announce itself. People feel it.

In his research on great companies, Jim Collins described different levels of leadership. Level 3 leaders are competent managers who organize people and resources effectively to accomplish goals. Level 4 leaders are strong executives who rally teams toward ambitious objectives.

Both are important. But the most transformative leaders operate at what Collins calls Level 5.

Level 5 leaders combine fierce professional will with deep personal humility. They focus less on their own power and more on building something that lasts. People follow them not because they must, but because they want to.

Many leaders fall into a quiet trap. Early in their career they develop influence because they have to. They persuade, collaborate, and earn trust.

But once they gain a title, they begin leaning on it.

“Because I said so” slowly replaces “Here’s why this matters.” Authority replaces influence. And the very leadership muscle that built their success begins to weaken.

Titles can open doors. But titles alone cannot inspire people to walk through them.

That requires personal power.

If you think about the leaders who shaped your life, most of them did not do it because of their title. A teacher, coach, mentor, manager, or pastor likely influenced you because of how they treated people, the standard they lived by, and the belief they had in others.

Their influence made their leadership credible.

And credibility is what turns leadership from position into impact.

So the question is worth asking for anyone leading in a business, school, church, or nonprofit.

Are you working harder to grow your positional power or your personal power?

Positional power is granted. Personal power is earned. It grows through character, consistency, and the way people experience you over time.

Ironically, when leaders focus on increasing personal power, positional power often follows. Organizations tend to elevate people whose influence lifts others.

But when leaders chase the title without building the influence, the title becomes the only thing holding their leadership together.

And that is a fragile place to lead from.

So spend less time trying to prove you are the leader.

Spend more time becoming the kind of person people want to follow.

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In business, we are wired to solve problems.

If a metric drops, we investigate.
If a complaint appears, we respond.
If something breaks, we fix it.

That instinct is necessary. Organizations have to address problems and close gaps.

But there’s a subtle trap: many organizations spend most of their energy decreasing negative variance by fixing what’s wrong and very little time increasing positive variance by understanding what’s working.

We get really good at studying failure.
And we spend very little time studying excellence.

In Switch, Chip Heath and Dan Heath introduce the idea of Bright Spots.

A bright spot is simply a moment where something is already working better than expected.

Instead of asking “What’s the problem?” bright spot thinking asks:

Where is this already working?

What can we learn from it?

Problems feel overwhelming. Success feels replicable. When you focus only on what’s broken, the organization feels stuck. When you identify what’s working, you suddenly have a model you can replicate and amplify.

Most businesses unintentionally build systems around problem detection. We track complaints, failures, missed goals, service breakdowns, and negative feedback.

Those things matter.

But imagine if a doctor only studied illness and never studied health.

That’s what many organizations do.

When a guest has a terrible experience, the story spreads across dashboards and meetings. But when a team member creates an unforgettable experience for a guest, the kind that builds lifelong loyalty, it often passes quietly.

No investigation.
No replication.
No scaling.

The bright spot disappears.

At ADDO we believe something simple but powerful: excellence leaves clues.

Somewhere in your organization right now, a frontline employee consistently creates memorable experiences. There’s one location that outperforms others in guest satisfaction. It might be a team member turns frustrated guests into loyal advocates. In larger organizations, one leader has created a culture people love being part of.

The question is not if bright spots exist. The question is whether we are looking for them. Once you find them, better questions emerge.

What exactly did they do differently?
What behaviors made the difference?
What systems supported the success?

Bright spots give you a blueprint.

The goal is not to ignore problems. The goal is balance.

One approach stabilizes the system. The other elevates it.

When we talk about the Guest Experience at ADDO, bright spots become incredibly powerful. Every organization has stories where a routine transaction became a moment of care. A frustrated guest left feeling valued. A frontline employee chose empathy instead of efficiency.

Those moments matter. Not just because they are encouraging stories, but because they show us what is possible.

If it happened once, it can happen again. And if we learn from it, it can happen everywhere.

One of the most important habits leaders can develop is this: become a bright spot hunter.

Instead of asking only “What went wrong?” also ask:

Who created a remarkable moment this week?
Where did we exceed expectations?
What story deserves to be told across the organization?

When leaders spotlight excellence, people do not just hear about the standard. They see it. And when people see it, they start repeating it.

The organizations that create extraordinary cultures and experiences are not the ones that eliminate every problem.

They are the ones that find what works and amplify it.

They study excellence.
They replicate success.
They turn bright spots into cultural norms.

Because sometimes the fastest way to improve an organization is not fixing what is broken.

It is doing more of what already works.

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