This duality of “gullible” versus “trusting” is an illusion. When we live in this binary, it causes immense pain and guilt. We find ourselves “yoyo-ing” between these two poles. We choose one path, only to immediately begin evaluating the alternative: what if I had chosen the other extreme? This loop of self-evaluation never ends. It creates a constant friction that consumes a massive amount of psychic energy, leaving us drained and stuck in a cycle of second-guessing.

Breaking the Binary

What happens if we stop this binary thinking? Instead of seeing two opposing points, we can look at our options as a range of choices. Imagine a spectrum where “gullible” is not the opposite of “trusting,” but simply one far edge of a wide menu. In this model, you aren’t stuck being a certain “type” of person. Instead, you have a menu of behaviors. You can choose any value within that range based on the specific situation you are in.

If a choice didn’t work out—perhaps you trusted someone who wasn’t reliable—you can reflect and learn from it. But because you are working within a range rather than a binary identity, there is no need for self-loathing. You didn’t “fail” at being a trusting person; you are simply calibrating. You picked a point on the range that wasn’t the best fit for that specific context, and now you have the data to adjust for next time.

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” — Viktor E. Frankl

The Energy of Fresh Starts

In the next situation, you start fresh. You aren’t carrying the heavy weight or the “whiplash” of the previous extreme. You simply browse your menu and choose a new behavior from the available options.

If we adopt this mindset, how would it change our lives? By removing the constant internal trial where we judge our past selves, we save an incredible amount of mental and emotional energy. That energy can then be redirected into areas of our lives that actually matter—our creativity, our work, and our presence with the people we love.

“The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice.” — R.D. Laing

When we move from the binary to the range, we start noticing the space in between. We move from being a “type” of person to being a person with agency.

Self-Reflection Exercise: The Spectrum Shift

To begin moving away from binary thinking and the “yoyo” effect, try this exercise:

1. Take a situation that didn’t go well. Look at it objectively, without the “right or wrong” label.

2. Reflect on the choices you made. Where on the range did you land?

3. Explore other choices on the menu. What other points on the spectrum were available in that situation?

4. Try those other choices in a future situation. Use your energy to calibrate, not to judge.

In my years as a leader, I watched talented people stall their careers because they treated their role as a list of tasks rather than a partnership. They waited for permission, avoided the “boring” work, and made their growth someone else’s responsibility. Now that I am back in the IC seat, I use those observations to lead from where I sit.

Here is the roadmap I follow to be a high-agency partner, built directly on the mistakes I saw others make for nearly two decades.

1. Kill the Administrative Friction

I have seen managers spend hours every quarter chasing people for mandatory privacy and compliance training. Don’t be that person. These requirements are the “taxes” of corporate life—they are non-negotiable and unavoidable. Pay them early and without complaining. When you complete these the moment they drop into your inbox, you build a foundation of trust. You signal to your manager that you are reliable and that they never need to “manage” your basic responsibilities.

2. Radical Proactivity in Communication

The biggest mistake I saw as a manager was people “showing up” to meetings but not “driving” the results. High-agency ICs don’t wait for the weekly sync to give an update. If you have a breakthrough or a status change, send a quick async update immediately. Follow up on action items before your manager has to prompt you. When you provide information before it’s requested, you eliminate the “guessing game” for your leader and give everyone back the gift of time.

3. Be the Team’s Safety Net

In my sixteen years, the most valuable teammates weren’t just the smartest; they were the ones who stepped up when someone else was down. When a colleague is out on vacation or for a personal emergency, don’t just “watch their inbox.” Fully represent them. Keep their projects moving so they don’t return to a mountain of stress. A team that heals its own gaps without a manager’s intervention is a high-performing machine.

4. Build for Your Own Absence

I’ve seen critical projects grind to a halt because one person went on vacation and didn’t document their process. Don’t let your knowledge become a silo. Document your logic, your “how-to,” and your project statuses so clearly that a stranger could step in tomorrow and keep the lights on. Documentation is an act of empathy for your teammates and your manager.

5. Own Your Expectations and Growth

The most common mistake is waiting for “Performance Season” to talk about your career. Your growth is your responsibility, not your manager’s. I write my annual expectations in advance and proactively review them with my manager every quarter. I don’t wait for a prompt; I provide the agenda. Your manager is your Board of Directors; you are the CEO of your career.

6. Signal the Storm Early

As a leader, I never minded bad news, but I hated surprises. If you see a blocker, a technical hurdle, or a cross-functional misalignment that might slow a project down, say something immediately. Seeking support early isn’t a sign of weakness—it’s a strategic move. It gives your manager the lead time they need to help you pivot or clear the path before a delay becomes a disaster.

7. Maintain a Living Accomplishments Ledger

Don’t rely on your manager’s memory—or your own—at the end of the year. Maintain a running document of your wins, impact, and feedback. Keep it shared and accessible to your manager at all times. This removes “recency bias” and turns the annual performance review from a stressful weekend chore into a simple ten-minute verification.

8. Seek Multi-Directional Feedback

I watched too many people wait until their formal 360-review to find out they were off track. That is too late. Ask your cross-functional partners for honest feedback frequently, specifically on your leadership behaviors and collaboration style. Fix small drifts in real time so they never end up in a formal performance file.

9. Define Your North Star

Where do you want to be in two or three years? If you don’t have a destination, your manager can’t help you navigate. Define the specific skills and behaviors required for the next level. This clarity allows your manager to look for—or create—the exact opportunities you need to demonstrate that growth.

10. Stay Grounded and Direct

Finally, avoid the fluff and the corporate jargon. After sixteen years, I’ve learned that the most respected people are those who speak plainly, focus on the work, and act as a partner. High-agency partners don’t pontificate; they produce.

When you treat your role as a partnership rather than a job, you stop being someone who needs to be managed and start being someone who leads from whatever seat you happen to be in.

When you look up after a storm and see a rainbow arching across the sky, your senses tell you it is a “thing.” It appears to have a specific location and a defined shape. It looks so substantial that you might imagine walking toward it to find where it touches the earth. Yet, as you move closer, the rainbow remains elusive. No matter how far you walk, you can never reach it, touch it, or lean against it.

This is because a rainbow has no independent reality. It is not an object; it is a process.

The physicist Dr. David Bohm used this analogy to describe the nature of our internal world. A rainbow is the result of a specific relationship between sunlight, moisture, and the position of the observer. If you remove the rain or change the angle of the light, the rainbow vanishes. It does not “go” anywhere because it was never “there” as a standalone entity. It was a temporary phenomenon born from a set of conditions.

The Components of a Feeling

This insight provides a profound lens through which to view our emotional lives. We often treat our feelings—anxiety, joy, or sadness—as if they are solid, physical objects we “carry.” However, much like the rainbow, our feelings are a “Feeling Rainbow”—a vivid phenomenon that appears real but is actually a byproduct of two distinct ingredients:

1. The Raindrops (Physical Sensations): These are the raw, somatic experiences—a racing heart, a tightness in the chest, or a flush in the cheeks. On their own, these are just physical data points.

2. The Light (Thought): This is the mental narrative we project onto those sensations. When the “light” of our thoughts hits the “moisture” of our physical sensations, the Feeling Rainbow appears.

Without the active process of thinking—the labels we apply and the stories we tell—the feeling has no medium through which to exist. The feeling only maintains its shape as long as the “weather” of our thoughts remains the same.

The Angle of the Observer

A rainbow also depends entirely on where you are standing. Two people standing a mile apart see two different rainbows because their relationships to the light and water differ.

In your internal world, you are the observer. Your perspective—your past experiences, your ego, and your current mood—is the “angle” that creates the specific color and intensity of your feeling. When you realize that the feeling is a projection based on your current mental position, you stop seeing it as an objective truth. If you shift your perspective, the “rainbow” of that feeling must, by the laws of mental physics, change or disappear.

Developing Proprioception of Thought

Bohm argued that we can develop “proprioception of thought.” Just as your body has a sense of where your arms and legs are without you looking at them, you can develop a sense of your thoughts as they happen.

Instead of being swept up in the beauty or the terror of the Feeling Rainbow, you can begin to “feel” the thinking process as it creates the emotion. You recognize the “light” hitting the “rain” in real-time. When you see the process happening, you are no longer a victim of the result. You realize that while the sensation in your body is real, the meaning you’ve assigned to it—the rainbow—is an optical illusion of the mind.

Conclusion

The next time you are overwhelmed by a powerful emotion, remember that it is a temporary intersection of thought and sensation. It may look real, and it may color your entire horizon, but it does not stand on its own.

When you stop trying to “catch” the rainbow or fight it, and instead observe the process of your own thinking, the feeling loses its grip. Without the constant churn of thought to sustain it, the Feeling Rainbow eventually dissolves, leaving behind the clear sky of a quiet, grounded mind.

In the “old world,” analyzing this would have been a multi-day saga involving SQL queries, pivot table crashes, and several back-and-forth emails with the engineering team just to define what we were actually looking at. However, as an individual contributor in an AI-first era, I knew there was a more elegant way to find the signal in the noise.

The Anatomy of the Analysis

Last week, I decided to take a different path. I sat down with Gemini and, in less than 60 minutes, transformed that mountain of raw data into a clear, actionable execution plan. The secret wasn’t just the AI’s processing power; it was the deliberate process of human-AI collaboration.

Here is exactly how I broke it down:

• The Handshake: I uploaded the 60 MB CSV directly. Because I’m working within a modern context window, the size wasn’t an issue.

• Context is Queen: I didn’t just say “analyze this.” I walked the AI through the columns, explaining what each attribute meant. AI performs best when it understands the intent behind the data.

• Defining the North Star: I clarified that my goal was simple: identify patterns and hunt down duplicates.

• The “Aha” Moments: Within seconds, Gemini surfaced the trends. I saw the top 5 countries and US states, but more importantly, it caught the “invisible” patterns—the various ways business names were formatted and five distinct recurring errors in street addresses that were masking duplicates.

Once the raw patterns were identified, the next challenge was making those insights digestible for the rest of the team.

From Rows to Roles (The Dashboard)

Data is only as good as your ability to communicate it. To make this “real” for my stakeholders, I switched to Canvas mode. I didn’t just want a static list; I wanted a functional tool. I built an interactive dashboard with three specific layers:

• Layer 1: Dynamic filters to slice the data.

• Layer 2: High-level tiles showing the “big numbers.”

• Layer 3: A preview pane showing 10 example records based on the chosen filters.

The 13% Reality Check

With the dashboard live, the true scale of our task came into focus. The result was staggering. That “massive” 950,000-row file actually only contained 132,000 unique records.

The other 818,000 rows were duplicates, bloat, and noise. By identifying this, we didn’t just clean a file; we reclaimed hundreds of engineering hours that would have been wasted processing redundant data. This clarity transformed our upcoming technical sync from a discovery session into a strategy meeting.

The Human Element: Show, Don’t Just Tell

When I walked into the meeting with our engineering team, I wasn’t just bringing a status update; I was bringing clarity. Because I could show trends and visualize duplicates in real-time on the dashboard, the conversation shifted instantly from “What are we looking at?” to “When can we start?”

We agreed on a timeline and a focused scope of 132,000 rows right then and there. This 60-minute analysis didn’t just save time; it aligned the team around a shared truth.

The New Artist’s Palette

There are two quotes I’ve been thinking about a lot during this transition back to being an individual contributor:

“AI won’t replace humans, but humans who use AI will replace those who don’t.”

And perhaps more poignantly:

“AI is the brush. Humanity is the artist.”

While the origins of these phrases are often debated, their truth is undeniable in the field. AI didn’t do the thinking for me; it acted as a high-speed brush, allowing me to paint a clear picture of our strategy in a fraction of the time. If you aren’t using these tools to interrogate your data yet, you aren’t just missing a shortcut—you’re missing the chance to be the artist in the room.

We all know the feeling of walking in a pitch-black room and still knowing exactly where our hands and feet are. We don’t have to look at our arm to know it’s raised; our body has a “sixth sense” called proprioception. It is a continuous feedback loop between our muscles and our brain that allows the physical system to self-correct and maintain balance without conscious effort.

But what if we could apply that same “body-awareness” to our minds?

Dr. David Bohm, the visionary theoretical physicist, argued that the greatest crisis facing humanity is a lack of Proprioception of Thought.

The Systemic Fault

Bohm’s core insight was that thought is not a “spiritual” or abstract thing. It is a material, neurophysiological process. When you have a stressful thought—perhaps a worry about a product launch or a defensive reaction to feedback—it isn’t just an idea. It is a chemical reflex that triggers a physical response: a tightened chest, a surge of adrenaline, or a quickening heart rate.

The “systemic fault” in human thinking is that we treat these thoughts as objective truths about the world “out there,” rather than an internal reflex we just triggered. As Bohm famously said:

“Thought creates the world and then says, ‘I didn’t do it.’”

Connecting Thought, Feeling, and Physiology

When we lack proprioception of thought, we become victims of our own reflexes.

Imagine you are in a meeting and a colleague challenges your strategy. A thought arises: “They are trying to undermine me.” Immediately, your physiology reacts. Your blood pressure rises. You feel “anger.” Because you aren’t “proprioceptive” to this process, you assume the anger is a truth caused by your colleague. In reality, the anger is a physiological response to a thought-reflex.

Without this awareness, the system cannot self-correct. We stay stuck in “sustained incoherence,” where our thoughts and feelings spiral out of control because we think we are reacting to reality, when we are actually just reacting to our own internal chemistry.

Why It Matters for the Modern Leader

As we delegate more of our “doing” to AI, our value lies in our “being”—our ability to remain calm, empathetic, and clear-headed. If you can perceive a thought as it moves through your system, you gain a “microsecond” of choice. You move from reacting to observing.

Bohm noted:

“The ability to perceive the movement of thought is the beginning of the end of the conflict.”

When you see a thought as a process, the “heat” leaves the emotion. The system begins to self-correct because it realizes that the “threat” is internal, not external.

An Exercise in Proprioception: The “Physical Anchor”

To begin perceiving thought as a process rather than a “truth,” try this the next time you feel a surge of stress or defensiveness:

1. Locate the Reflex: The moment a “charged” thought enters your mind, ignore the content of the thought (the story about why someone is wrong). Instead, immediately scan your body. Where is the tension? Is it in your jaw? Your stomach? Your shoulders?

2. Label the Movement: Silently say to yourself, “The system is producing a defensive reflex.” This subtle shift in language moves you from “I am angry” (identity) to “The system is moving” (observation).

3. Watch the Dissipation: Keep your attention on the physical sensation. By staying with the physiology rather than the story, you are practicing proprioception. You will notice that once the thought is seen as a “movement,” the physical tension begins to dissolve on its own.

By practicing this, you aren’t “repressing” thoughts; you are becoming aware of them as a biological system. This awareness is the ultimate self-correction mechanism, allowing you to lead with a clear mind in an increasingly complex world.

Inspired by Thought as a System by Dr. David Bohm.

For 16 years of my career, my identity was defined by managing teams. I focused on people, organizational structures, and the art of delivery through others. It was rewarding, but it often meant being several layers removed from the actual “building.” Now, I am back as an individual contributor (IC) at Google, and I have to tell you: it is fascinating to see how productive I can be today.

The secret isn’t just my years of experience; it’s the profound shift in how I work. In this new era, I never have to start with a blank page. I partner with AI to create, iterate, and build. What used to be hours of mundane, soul-crushing tasks now takes a few minutes. This leverage allows one person to do the work that used to require a small squad.

Here is exactly how I am using AI in my daily life as a Product Manager to automate the “work about work” and focus on building great products:

• Never Missing a Beat in Meetings: I record every single meeting and take comprehensive notes. But the real magic happens afterward. I convert those transcripts into a question-and-answer format. This creates a searchable, future-proof reference that captures the why behind a decision, not just the what. If a stakeholder asks months later why we chose a specific path, I have the exact answer at my fingertips in seconds.

• Conversational PRDs: Writing a Product Requirements Document (PRD) used to be a lonely, grueling process. Now, I discuss the requirements out loud in a natural conversation. I take that transcript and let AI convert it into a structured draft. It’s much easier to edit a strong, 80% finished draft than to conjure one from thin air.

• Visualizing Complexity: I use AI to generate custom images for my slides and complex flow diagrams. It allows me to visually communicate architectural shifts or user journeys. This resonates with leadership much more than a wall of text ever could.

• My Personal Think-Tank with NotebookLM: This has been a total game-changer for my workflow. I upload all my context files—research, docs, and feedback—into NotebookLM. I then listen to the generated “Deep Dive” podcast, in which two hosts discuss my specific documents. It helps me hear my own project from a third-party perspective, often revealing gaps I missed. I also use the features to create infographics and quizzes to test my own understanding of deep technical stacks.

• Analyzing 100,000 Rows in Minutes: Recently, I had to find patterns in a spreadsheet with 100,000 rows. Through exploratory data analysis with AI, I identified the signal in the noise and summarized those insights into a single, one-page brief for my leadership team.

• The Power of the “Show, Don’t Tell” Demo: I used AI Studio to create a mock demo web app. Instead of just talking about how we could simplify collecting user company and address information, I built a functional demo of an autocomplete feature. Showing this to other PMs and UX designers was infinitely more powerful than a slide deck; they could see exactly how we improved the user experience in real time.

As AI continues to improve in its computing and creating power, I’ve realized something important. The more the “machine” part of the job is automated, the more the “human” part matters.

The only thing we can truly do to stay ahead is to improve our EI—our Emotional Intelligence. Our ability to collaborate, connect deeply, empathize, and show compassion to the people around us is the only thing that cannot be automated. I am using AI to handle the mundane so I can focus on being human. That is the path of the high-impact IC.

Micro-Sharing Challenge

Identify one recurring meeting this week where you usually struggle to capture all the details. Use an AI tool to record and summarize it into a Q&A format. Share that summary with the attendees and see if it changes the way your team tracks follow-ups.

We’ve all been there. You put your heart and soul into something – a project, a piece of writing, or even just showing up as yourself – and then one person delivers a stinging criticism. Suddenly, that one negative voice seems to drown out everything else. It can feel like the entire world is against you.

But what if that is an illusion?

There is a powerful life philosophy, popularized by the book The Courage to Be Disliked, that offers a refreshing perspective on this common human struggle. It suggests a simple, yet profound, breakdown of how people view you.

Imagine a group of 10 people:

• 1 person will dislike you, no matter what. Their criticism isn’t about you; it’s about them. You won’t like them either, and that’s okay.

• 2 people will accept and love you for exactly who you are. They are your unwavering supporters, your true tribe.

• 7 people are neutral. They don’t have a strong opinion about you. They’re primarily focused on their own lives.

The Trap of the “One”

The biggest mistake many of us make is focusing almost all our energy on that one critic. We try to understand them, to please them, or to change their mind. We replay their words in our heads, letting their single negative opinion overshadow the genuine support of the two and the indifference of the seven others.

The book points out that “a person lacking in harmony of life will see only the one person he dislikes, and will make a judgment of the world from that.”

This is a crucial insight. When we let that one critic become our entire focus, we distort our reality. We allow their negativity to paint our whole world in shades of gray, ignoring the vibrant colors of support and the vast expanse of neutrality.

Shifting Your Focus

Think about the implications of this. If you spend 90% of your emotional energy trying to convert the one who will never like you, you’re essentially pouring water into a leaky bucket.

Instead, imagine what would happen if you focused on:

• Nurturing your relationships with the 2 supporters: These are the people who lift you up. Invest in them. Let their positive energy fuel you.

• Confidently pursuing your path: Knowing the 7 neutrals aren’t truly judging you is liberating. It means you have more freedom to experiment, fail, and succeed without constant scrutiny.

Free yourself from the tyranny of that one person. Their dislike is not a reflection of your worth. Your job is to live authentically and connect with those who truly see and appreciate you.

Micro-Sharing Challenge:

Think about a recent situation where you felt criticized.

1. Identify the “1”: Who was the critic?

2. Identify the “2”: Name two people who have your back.

3. The Shift: Send a quick “thank you” text or note to one of your “2s” right now.

Notice how quickly your “Life Harmony” returns when you look at the right people.

Credit: Based on the “10 People” story in The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga.

I can already hear the two most common objections forming in your mind: “I’m not good at teaching” and “I’m not an expert.” If you keep watering those thoughts, the weeds of doubt will eventually make you invisible. But here is the secret: You don’t have to be an expert to start sharing.

If the word “teaching” feels too heavy, replace it with “sharing.” Sharing is lighter. It’s honest. You are simply offering what you know to those who want to learn it.

The Myth of the Expert

We often fall into the trap of thinking that if something is easy for us, it must be easy for everyone else. This is rarely true. If you are even one step ahead of someone else, you can help them.

Throughout my career, I’ve taught everything from Advanced SQL and database design to public speaking, storytelling, and social intelligence. None of these started as polished programs. Most began as small experiments. My work in SQL performance tuning started with a single slow query and a teammate who asked, “Why?”

Over time, those small conversations evolved into:

• Advanced SQL and database design workshops.

• Public speaking and storytelling coaching.

• Productivity mastering sessions for entire teams.

This is how organic growth happens—it starts with a single seed of helpfulness.

Scaling Your Knowledge

Once you find a topic that resonates, the goal is to move from a “one-to-one” model to a “one-to-many” model. This is where your influence truly compounds. Scaling means letting your work travel further than you can.

• Writing: Long-form instructional documents force clarity and create a permanent, searchable artifact.

• Group Classes: Teaching in person or via video builds community and answers many at once.

• Recordings: Allows for asynchronous playback; you teach while you sleep.

• Office Hours: Dedicated Q&A sessions efficiently handle repetitive questions.

• Train the Trainer: Teaching others to use your materials is the ultimate form of compounding.

Not Sure Where to Start? Look Here:

If you’re staring at a blank page, look into these three categories to find your first “share”:

1. People

Help new hires onboard. Do you remember what was confusing during your first week? You know which documents were missing and which conversations mattered most. Reducing a teammate’s ramp-up time from months to weeks is a massive, measurable win.

2. Process

If you’ve survived a complex legal, finance, or security approval, you have gold. These processes are often poorly documented and inconsistently applied. A simple “how-to” checklist or walkthrough can save others weeks of frustration.

3. Technology

Technology changes constantly. Did you just learn a new platform or evaluate multiple tools before choosing one? Your honest comparison and observations are more valuable to your peers than a marketing brochure.

The 5-Minute “Micro-Share” Challenge

If scaling feels like too big a leap, start small this week. You don’t need a presentation deck to be impactful today. Try one of these:

• The Wiki Update: Find one confusing paragraph in your team’s documentation and rewrite it for clarity.

• The Public Answer: When someone DMs you a question you can answer, ask to move the conversation to a public Slack or Teams channel so others can learn too.

• The “Found This” Note: Share one shortcut or tool you used today that saved you ten minutes.

Protecting Your Mental Space

Some people struggle to identify topics because they discount their own experience and assume everyone else already knows what they know.

In these situations, working with a coach can help. A coach acts like a bouncer at a party in your mind—they challenge unhelpful thoughts and keep them from taking over the room. Don’t let the “weeds of doubt” stifle your growth. Start sharing today, and watch your impact multiply.

This Week’s Micro-Challenge: The “I Wish I Knew” Audit

Spend exactly five minutes today looking through your sent emails or Slack messages from the last month. Find one instance where you explained a concept, a tool, or a process to a colleague.

Your task: Copy that explanation, polish it slightly, and post it in a public team channel or internal knowledge base. Don’t wait for it to be perfect—just put it where more than one person can find it.

Most people think impact grows with seniority. We’ve been conditioned to believe that the bigger the title, the larger the influence. Over time, this belief becomes accepted as truth. Promotions feel like proof. Titles feel like validation.

Project Aristotle quietly disproved that idea.

This landmark study analyzed hundreds of teams across Google. These teams varied widely in scope, size, and responsibility. The researchers compared team composition, education, tenure, personality types, and technical skill. They looked for the “magic formula” that could explain why some teams consistently performed better than others.

None of those factors reliably predicted success.

The strongest teams did not have the smartest people. They did not have the most experience. They were not stacked with top performers or built around a single star. They had something else: consistent behaviors.

This is where the research becomes useful at an individual level. Impact is less about who you are and more about how you show up. Behaviors show up every day—in meetings, in documents, in decisions, and in follow-through. Let’s look at these five behaviors to see where you are on track and where you need to improve.

1. The Foundation: Psychological Safety

This is the non-negotiable engine of impact. Project Aristotle found that without safety, the other behaviors on this list cannot survive. It is not a policy or a value written on a slide; it is experienced in moments. It shows up in how ideas are received and how mistakes are handled.

You build psychological safety when you:

• Share early thinking instead of waiting for perfection.

• Ask questions that surface confusion.

• Admit mistakes quickly and explain what you learned.

• Respond to ideas with curiosity, even when you disagree.

• Invite quieter voices and acknowledge their input.

2. Dependability

Dependability is about whether others can rely on your work without adding “management overhead.” This behavior compounds over time. Each delivery adds to your track record; each missed commitment subtracts from it. You demonstrate it when you:

• Deliver work on time and at the expected quality.

• Communicate progress before someone has to ask.

• Flag risks early rather than at the deadline.

• Follow through on small commitments and action items.

3. Structure and Clarity

Structure and clarity reduce confusion and rework. They help teams move faster with fewer misunderstandings. This behavior often goes unnoticed when it is done well, but when it is missing, everyone feels it. You create clarity when you:

• Restate goals and success criteria in writing.

• Break work into clear steps with ownership.

• Confirm expectations before starting deep work.

• Use shared documents to make plans visible.

• Align daily tasks to team goals.

4. Meaning

Meaning is personal and can come from different places. When meaning is present, work feels connected. When it is absent, work feels mechanical. What matters is that you understand it and bring it into how you work. You bring meaning when you:

• Understand what motivates you personally.

• Explain why a task matters, not just what to do.

• Choose approaches that reflect your values.

• Help teammates see the bigger picture.

5. Making Impact Visible

Visibility isn’t about bragging; it’s about alignment. If the organization doesn’t see the result, the impact hasn’t fully landed. You make impact visible when you:

• Share outcomes, not just activity.

• Explain what changed because of your work.

• Identify who benefited and why.

• Tie results to team or organizational goals.

• Document achievements for future reference.

The “Monday Morning” Audit

These behaviors are visible. Others experience them directly when they work with you. To get a real pulse check, consider adding questions from these five behaviors to your next 360-degree feedback. Don’t just ask if you are “doing a good job.” Ask: Do I demonstrate psychological safety in meetings? Do I bring clarity and structure to discussions?

But don’t wait for a formal review. Tomorrow morning, pick one “early thinking” idea—something unpolished and raw—and share it with your team. Ask for their input before you’ve made it perfect. This single act builds safety, creates clarity, and invites others into the meaning of the work.

Your influence doesn’t start with a promotion. It starts with how you show up tomorrow.

Asking is one of the most powerful professional skills. It is also one of the least practiced.

Highly capable people hesitate when making requests. They rewrite messages multiple times. They delay conversations that could create clarity. They sit with questions longer than necessary.

The hesitation is understandable. Asking can surface worries about judgment, rejection, or obligation. Silence often feels safer. Many people hope their work will speak loudly enough on its own.

Progress rarely works that way.

Careers move forward through conversations. Asking makes intent visible. It replaces assumptions with shared understanding and gives others the chance to respond with awareness.

Asking is not about extracting favors. It is about creating alignment. Clear requests allow people to support you intentionally rather than guessing what you want or need.

Where does asking show up

Requests appear constantly in professional life. Some feel small. Others feel consequential.

• Asking for help with a specific problem
• Asking for feedback
• Asking for referrals or introductions on LinkedIn
• Asking for more responsibility or better projects
• Asking for better compensation

Each moment shapes how your goals, capabilities, and ambition are understood.

How to ask with clarity and confidence

Asking improves with intention and repetition. The difference lies in how the request is framed, timed, and directed.

Here are eight principles that make asking effective and credible.

1. Start with internal clarity
If the ask feels vague to you, it will feel heavier to the other person.

2. Treat asking as a professional action
Separate the request from your self-worth. You are initiating a conversation.

3. Keep the request focused
One clear ask per conversation reduces friction and improves outcomes.

4. Pay attention to timing
Context matters. Choose moments when attention and capacity are available.

5. Connect the ask to the contribution
Frame requests around outcomes and impact. Shared purpose builds momentum.

6. Receive responses with openness
Every answer carries information. Listen without defensiveness.

7. Follow through with action
Apply what you receive. Deliver on what is offered. Acknowledge support.

8. Ask the right person
Direction matters as much as delivery. Context and influence change results.

Asking in practice

A tech lead at Salesforce once met a hiring manager from Apple at a conference. Their conversation was brief but thoughtful. They discussed engineering leadership, building teams at scale, and the realities of growth.

After the event, the tech lead considered reaching out. Days passed. Then weeks. He hesitated, unsure whether the conversation would be remembered or welcome.

Eventually, he sent a LinkedIn connection request. He referenced the conference and the topic they had discussed. He suggested continuing the conversation.

The hiring manager accepted.

They spoke soon after and discovered shared leadership values. There was no immediate opportunity. No transactional outcome. A relationship began.

That connection existed because one person chose to ask.

People who create momentum make their intent visible. They use conversation to create direction.

When you master the art of asking, progress becomes deliberate. Conversations guide movement. Alignment supports momentum.

Open Area

What is known to you and visible to others. This includes behaviors, skills, and attitudes that are openly expressed and understood in relationships.

Blind Area

What others notice about you that you do not. These are patterns, habits, or impacts that surface through honest feedback.

Hidden Area

What you know about yourself but choose not to share. This includes private thoughts, fears, and personal experiences.

Unknown Area

What is not yet known to you or others. This includes untapped potential, unconscious responses, and abilities revealed through new situations.

How I First Encountered the Blind Area

I first learned about the Johari Window during a coaching program in my first year as a manager in 2008. The blind area immediately stood out to me.

Around the same time, I was reading Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, which reinforced the importance of understanding how others experience our behavior. Inspired by this, I ran an anonymous 360-degree feedback survey for the first time in my career to learn how my colleagues and team members perceived my leadership behaviors.

The exercise proved extremely valuable. I gained insight into blind spots I had not been aware of and realized that certain behaviors, despite good intentions, were perceived as unhelpful. This experience made it clear that leadership effectiveness is shaped by perception as much as intent.

Why This Matters Earlier Than We Think

Knowing how people perceive you and adjusting your behavior are essential steps in a leadership journey. This kind of deliberate effort is often associated with senior leaders.

In my view, individual contributors benefit even more when they understand this intention–perception gap early in their careers. Growth slows when blind spots remain unaddressed. Technical expertise alone does not help in handling disagreements with stakeholders or working across cross-functional teams.

Hiring an executive coach is not realistic for everyone. To address this challenge, I adapted Dr. Goldsmith’s leadership development approach into a simple, practical process. I strongly encourage you to read What Got You Here Won’t Get You There for a deeper understanding of behavioral coaching and sustained change.

A Simple Process to Reduce Your Blind Spots

1. Identify your key stakeholders at work

Include team members, your manager, peers from other teams, stakeholders, and customers with whom you interact frequently. Limit the group to six to ten people to ensure meaningful feedback. Avoid selecting only people who are close to you.

2. Create a simple feedback survey

Use a Google Form with two questions:

• What am I doing well in my role?

• What could I improve?

3. Set clear expectations for participation

Communicate that the survey is anonymous and that honest feedback is encouraged. Allow three to five days for responses. Do not follow up if someone chooses not to participate.

4. Involve your manager when appropriate

This helps stakeholders understand the purpose of the exercise. Make it clear that the feedback is visible only to you.

5. Review feedback for patterns

Look for recurring themes in how people perceive you. Avoid focusing too much on isolated comments, as they can distract from the core insights.

6. Consider a coach if needed

If the process feels overwhelming, working with a leadership coach can help you make better sense of the feedback and translate it into action.

7. Choose one or two behaviors to change

Focus on a small number of behaviors in each cycle and take deliberate steps to demonstrate change in your day-to-day interactions.

8. Practice regular feedforward conversations

Meet with stakeholders monthly for five to ten minutes to thank them, share what you are working on, and ask how they can support you. Dr. Goldsmith refers to this practice as feedforward.

9. Run a progress check every six months

Ask stakeholders to rate your effort to change and the effectiveness of those changes in their interactions with you.

10. Repeat the cycle every twelve to eighteen months

Use each cycle to refine different aspects of your leadership and continue smoothing rough edges in interpersonal interactions.

McKinsey introduced the Three Horizons framework to help companies think about growth over time, without neglecting the present or betting everything on an uncertain future.

The idea is simple.

Horizon 1

Horizon 1 represents the core business today.

This is where most revenue, customers, and execution live. The focus is on optimization, efficiency, and reliability. Companies depend on Horizon 1 to survive.

Horizon 2

Horizon 2 represents emerging opportunities.

These are adjacencies to the core business. New products, new markets, or new capabilities that are starting to show traction but are not yet fully proven. This horizon requires learning, experimentation, and patience.

Horizon 3

Horizon 3 represents future bets.

These are experiments and ideas that may not generate revenue today, but could become meaningful businesses in the future. High uncertainty and long timelines are the norm here.

The discipline of the model is not choosing one horizon over the others. It is investing in all three at the same time, with different expectations and metrics.

How Companies Use It in Practice

Consider a company like Amazon.

Horizon 1 is the retail and marketplace business. It is mature, operationally intensive, and measured against execution metrics such as cost, speed, and reliability. This business pays the bills.

Horizon 2 was Amazon Web Services in its early years. It started as an internal capability and later became a customer-facing product. It required different talent, different incentives, and a high tolerance for uncertainty. At the time, it did not look like the company's obvious future.

Horizon 3 includes bets like autonomous delivery, healthcare, and new AI-driven services. These teams often operate with small budgets, high learning velocity, and very little immediate financial pressure to perform.

What makes Amazon effective is not that it always picks the right bets. It intentionally funds all three horizons at the same time.

Using the Three Horizons to Think About Your Career

Once you start seeing your career through this lens, a few things become clearer.

Your current job is Horizon 1.

Your stretch projects and adjacent skills are Horizon 2.

Your experiments, learning, and optional bets are Horizon 3.

The problem is not that people spend time in Horizon 1. The problem is when they spend all their time there without realizing it.

Here are five practical ways to use this framework in your own career planning.

1. Map your current work to the three horizons

Take an honest look at how you spend your time. Which parts of your job are pure execution? Which parts involve learning something new or working in ambiguity? Which parts, if any, are long-term bets? Most people have never done this exercise.

2. If 100 percent of your work is Horizon 1, it is time to explore

That does not mean changing jobs immediately. It means starting a conversation. This is an excellent topic for your next meeting with your manager. Often, there are opportunities within the same team that expose you to Horizon 2 or even small Horizon 3 efforts.

3. Look beyond your team for Horizon 2 and 3 exposure

Some of the best learning happens through collaboration. Keep an eye out for cross-team projects, pilot initiatives, or problems that need help. These are often under-resourced and welcome contributors who are curious and reliable.

4. Assess whether your skills match uncertainty

Horizon 2 and 3 work requires different skills from Horizon 1. Comfort with ambiguity, learning speed, communication, and influence matter more than deep specialization alone. If these skills feel weak, that is your signal, not your stop sign.

5. Remember that staying in Horizon 1 is a valid choice

There is nothing wrong with thriving in Horizon 1 roles and companies. Many people love that work and do it exceptionally well. Some of my coaching clients have spent 20 years in Horizon 1 roles and built strong, fulfilling careers. A few of them are now choosing to move into Horizon 2 or 3 later in life. Age is just a number. With a growth mindset and the ability to learn, movement across horizons is always possible.

After twenty years at Oracle, thirteen in India and seven in the US, I decided to explore roles outside.

For two decades, I had not interviewed even once. My only interview in my entire career was with Oracle during a university campus drive. I joined, grew, changed roles internally, and stayed. Interviewing simply was not a muscle I had exercised.

When I finally stepped out, reality hit fast.

I struggled. I did not know how to prepare. I was unsure how to answer basic questions. I did not understand what interviewers were really looking for. I felt like a fish out of water. It was uncomfortable and humbling in ways I did not expect.

Instead of avoiding that discomfort, I decided to approach interviewing the same way I would approach learning any hard skill. I created a six-month preparation plan.

I started with three low-stakes interviews at small companies. These were roles I knew I could decline. There was no pressure to perform perfectly. The goal was simple: get back into the rhythm. Learn how to talk about my work. Learn how to listen better. Learn how to think on my feet again.

Something interesting happened along the way. Interviews stopped feeling awkward. I stopped dreading them. I started enjoying the process. They felt less like interrogations and more like conversations between professionals.

Later, within a span of ninety days, I interviewed at Netflix, LinkedIn, Google, Amazon, and Meta. I cleared interviews at Google and Meta in 2021 and joined Meta in December 2021 as a Senior Data Engineering Manager.

Looking back, here are eleven things I want you to remember about interviews.

1. Interviewing is a skill.
   The more you do it, the better you get. Do not wait for the perfect role to practice. Interview for low-stakes roles you can comfortably reject. Think of it as strength training for your career.
   

2. Interviews are intelligent conversations.
   This mental model matters a lot. When you treat interviews like a test of intelligence, pressure builds and performance drops. When you treat them as thoughtful conversations, you relax and show up more authentically. Your feelings are a compass. If you dread an interview, you likely need more preparation. If you are looking forward to the conversation, you are on the right track.
   

3. Keep your resume updated every year.
   Even when you are not actively looking, this habit builds confidence and clarity. When someone asks about your career, you already know the story you want to tell.
   

4. Keep your LinkedIn profile current.
   Recruiters and hiring managers search constantly. Make it easy for the right opportunities to find you.
   

5. Do not ignore recruiters from small companies.
   Avoid defaulting to “I’m not interested right now.” Conversations with recruiters teach you about the company, the hiring process, and market trends. Even if nothing comes of it, the learning is valuable.
   

6. Understand the interview loop before you start.
   Each interview has focus areas and expectations. Once you understand the rules of the game, you can play it well. Most candidates show up underprepared. Using an 80/20 approach helps you stand out quickly.
   

7. Build a solid list of references.
   Some companies and hiring managers care deeply about references. They use them to understand how you actually work, not just how you interview. Choose people who know your strengths and can speak honestly about your areas for growth. I will write more about this in a future article.
   

8. AI will change recruiting, but fundamentals remain.
   Tools will evolve, formats will shift, but the core question stays the same: can this candidate do this job at this company? Interviews are simply an attempt to answer that question with high confidence.
   

9. Get help when you need it.
   A career coach can significantly improve your preparation. For big tech interviews, especially salary negotiation, a coach can pay for themselves many times over. I once helped a senior engineer negotiate a fifty-thousand-dollar sign-on bonus at Meta. She spent one thousand dollars for two sessions. That is a strong return on investment.
   

10. Interview at multiple companies when possible.
    Parallel interviews improve performance and give you leverage during negotiations. Be thoughtful when declining offers. Preserve relationships with recruiters. You never know when you might need their help again.
    

11. Improve your storytelling skills.
    The most critical question I faced in 2021 was simple and hard: why leave Oracle after twenty years? There had to be an authentic story behind that move. Why now. Why this role? What I could bring that was unique because of my background. Your story needs ABC: Authenticity, Brevity, and Clarity.
    

If you have not interviewed in years, feeling uncomfortable is normal. It does not mean you are behind. It simply means you are out of practice. Treat interviewing like a skill, build a plan, and give yourself permission to be bad before you get good. The confidence comes faster than you think.

I met Paolo Juvara during my first 90-day onboarding plan at Pure Storage. Paolo is the Chief Digital Transformation Officer at Pure and a former CIO of Google Cloud. He has spent years operating at the intersection of technology, business, and scale.

During one of our early conversations, I asked him a question I had been thinking about for a while.

What qualities are needed for technical leaders to succeed and actually make an impact?

He answered immediately. No hesitation.

Sufficient technical breadth. Business knowledge. Clear communication.

What struck me was not just the list, but how quickly it came to him. These were not abstract leadership ideas. They were patterns he had seen repeatedly across organizations and roles.

Let’s break them down.

1. Sufficient technical breadth

Paolo did not talk about being the deepest expert in the room. He spoke about breadth.

The ability to go beyond one system or subsystem. The ability to understand how systems interact, where integration points live, and how technology fits across an entire enterprise.

Most hard problems do not exist inside a single system. They exist between systems. They show up in handoffs, data movement, security boundaries, and operational friction.

Average technical leaders optimize locally. They go deep in their domain and stop there.

Impactful technical leaders think end-to-end. They understand how a storage decision impacts applications, how application changes affect workflows, and how all of it rolls up to cost, risk, and speed.

This does not mean knowing everything. It means knowing enough across domains to ask better questions and connect dots others miss.

“The most valuable technical leaders are not experts in one box. They understand how the boxes connect.”

Or as Fred Brooks famously put it:

“The hardest single part of building a software system is deciding precisely what to build.”

That decision requires breadth.

2. Business knowledge

This is where many technical leaders stall.

Without business knowledge, leaders become order takers. They execute requests rather than shape outcomes. They react instead of influencing.

Paolo was direct about this. Business knowledge enables technical leaders to align with functional leaders and forge agreements to solve high-impact problems.

It is the difference between hearing “we need this built” and responding with “here are three options and the trade-offs.”

Leaders who lack business context often avoid these discussions because they do not feel fluent enough to participate. So they stay quiet. Decisions get made without them.

The strongest technical leaders understand how the business makes money, where costs matter, what risks are acceptable, and what success actually looks like.

That understanding earns trust and a seat at the table.

“If you are not part of the trade-off discussion, you are just implementing someone else’s decision.”

Peter Drucker captured this idea well:

“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”

Business knowledge keeps technical leaders focused on the right problems.

3. Clear communication

This is the most underrated skill, and my personal favorite.

The ability to explain complex technical problems and trade-offs in simple, accessible language is one of the highest-leverage skills a technical leader can develop.

Executives do not need implementation details. They need to understand impact, options, risks, and consequences.

Teams do not need jargon. They need clarity on direction, intent, and priorities.

Average leaders hide behind complexity. Impactful leaders reduce it.

Clear communication is not about dumbing things down. It is a signal of clear thinking. If you cannot explain something, you probably do not understand it well enough.

Despite its value, many leaders treat communication as a soft skill instead of a core leadership skill. That is a mistake.

“Clarity is not a presentation skill. It is a leadership skill.”

Albert Einstein said it even more bluntly:

“If you cannot explain it simply, you do not understand it well enough.”

The three qualities, summarized

To make a real impact as a technical leader, you need all three.

• Sufficient technical breadth to see across systems and reason end-to-end
• Business knowledge to move from execution to influence and trade-offs
• Clear communication to turn complexity into alignment and action

This conversation changed how I think about my own role. I spend less time optimizing systems in isolation and more time optimizing decisions.

A helpful question to end on:

Where in your role are you still being asked to execute when you could be helping shape the decision instead?

That is why meetings run long, decisions get deferred, and follow-ups multiply.

Lynn Lucas is a CMO at Pure Storage, and I present my slides to her every month. That repetition has been one of the most valuable learning loops of my career. Presenting to executives quickly teaches you that success is not about visual polish. It is about helping them decide.

When you ask executives what they like to see, you stop designing slides for them and start designing slides with them.

Through many discussions with Lynn, one pattern kept showing up. Executives do not want more slides. They want clarity. They want judgment. They want a point of view formed before the meeting starts.

Executives do not reward effort. They reward clarity.

These ideas are core to how I teach presentations in my digital course, Becoming a Slidesmith. They are not about design tricks. They are about thinking clearly and communicating like a leader.

Big Idea 1: Write a descriptive slide title in 7 to 9 words

Your slide title is not a label.
It is the slide.

A great slide title summarizes the big idea in one declarative sentence. Seven to nine words force discipline. It makes you choose what matters. When possible, use alliteration or a triad to make the title memorable.

Bad title:
Q3 Pipeline Overview

Better title:
Pipeline Growth Is Slowing in Enterprise Accounts

The difference is intent. The first title forces the executive to do the thinking you should have done. The second makes the point instantly.

Here is a simple test.
If an executive only read your slide titles, would they understand the full story?

Memorable titles act like headlines. They guide attention, set context, and earn trust.

If you cannot summarize the slide in one sentence, you are not ready to present it.

Big Idea 2: Everything on the slide must align with the title

Once the title is clear, everything else becomes easier.

Every graph, visual, number, and line of text should support the idea stated in the title. Nothing is neutral. Every element either strengthens or weakens the message.

Think of slide elements as bricks.
The title is the wall.

If a brick does not help build the wall, remove it.

If your title says Enterprise Deals Are Stalling at Procurement, your chart should highlight deal age by stage. Your annotations should point to procurement delays. Visual emphasis should guide the eye to the problem.

Misaligned slides force executives to ask clarifying questions rather than make decisions.

Alignment is respect for your audience’s time and attention.

Big Idea 3: Tell stories, especially if you are analytical

Storytelling is the hardest skill for analytical minds to master. It is also the one that elevates careers.

Many smart leaders hide behind data because it feels safer than telling a story. But data explains. Stories connect. Without a story, even correct data rarely leads to action.

Once storytelling becomes natural, every presentation becomes an opportunity to lead. Executives remember stories because stories simulate experience. They help people think, decide, and act.

I teach a simple consulting framework called SCR: Situation, Complication, Resolution.

Situation
Our enterprise pipeline grew 18 percent year over year.

Complication
However, deals are taking 30 percent longer to close due to new procurement reviews.

Resolution
We are adjusting the deal strategy by engaging procurement earlier and equipping sales with legal support.

This structure mirrors how executives think: what is happening, what changed, and what you recommend.

Data tells, and stories sell. Stories are flight simulators for our brains.

Stories turn information into judgment.

The common thread across all three ideas is intent.

Clear intent in the title.
Clear alignment in the slide.
Clear narrative in the story.

Executives are not looking for perfect slides. They are looking for clear thinking. When your slides reflect that, you stop presenting and start influencing.

That is the difference between reporting information and earning trust.

Before your next executive meeting, rewrite your titles, cut one slide, and ask for feedback.

If you really want to understand a leader, don’t just listen to what they say—listen to how they say it.

That was my experience recently when I watched a fireside chat with Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, in conversation with Bloomberg’s Emily Chang at the 2025 Bloomberg Tech Summit in San Francisco.
The conversation hit all the expected topics—AI, competitiveness, the future of search, and regulation. But what struck me most wasn’t the content. It was the cadence.

As a long-time Toastmaster, I pay attention to moments most people overlook: hesitations, transitions, and fillers.
And Sundar has three reliable companions:

• “Look…”

• “I think…”

• “I mean…”

Once I noticed them, they became a rhythm—almost like parentheses around his thinking. They weren’t random. They were part of his cognitive process, tiny verbal exhale valves as he carefully assembled ideas before speaking.

That’s when it hit me:
Fillers are not a flaw of communication—they’re a window into it.

The philosopher Epictetus once said,

“First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak.”

Sundar’s fillers show the learning happening in real time.

And that made me reflect on something more profound:
Why do we use fillers at all?

Why We Use Fillers (The Real Psychology Behind Them)

Even the most polished leaders use fillers. Presidents. Authors. Founders. Toastmasters.
And yes—CEOs of trillion-dollar companies.

Here’s the psychology behind why:

1. We need micro time to think.

Speech moves fast. Thought moves more slowly.
A filler is just a bookmark while the brain searches for the next idea.

Cognitive scientists call this the planning buffer—your brain stalling for a split second to organize thoughts without losing the thread of the conversation.

2. Silence feels socially “expensive.”

Most of us were not raised to sit comfortably in silence.
In conversation, silence can feel like a mistake, a loss of control, or an opening for someone else to jump in.

But as Lao Tzu famously put it:

“Silence is a source of great strength.”

Ironically, when used intentionally, it makes you sound more confident—not less.

3. Fillers soften certainty.

Fillers can make us sound more collaborative, less forceful.

• “I think” reduces harshness.

• “I mean” signals clarification.

• “Look” prepares people for a shift.

Fillers are social lubricants. They make communication feel more human.

4. It’s pure habit.

Our fillers evolve with age—almost like linguistic fashion.

Your twenties: “like.”
Your thirties: “You know.”
Your forties onward: “right?”

These habits tell the story of how you think.

A Small Story About Fillers (And What They Reveal)

A few weeks ago, I was delivering a presentation. I remember starting a key point with my usual filler of the season: “Essentially…”
I didn’t even realize it until a colleague approached me afterward and said:

“Every time you said ‘essentially,’ your body leaned forward—like you were warming up your brain.”

It was a simple observation. But it was a powerful mirror.
My filler wasn’t just a word. It was a signal—telling me where I was still assembling thoughts instead of delivering them cleanly.

And that’s when I realized something important:

👉 Fillers don’t reveal poor speaking. They reveal active thinking.
👉 When used intentionally, they can even enhance authenticity.

But what if you want to reduce them? What if they’re distracting or excessive?

That leads to the simplest (and hardest) technique of all.

How to Avoid Fillers Without Sounding Like a Robot

There’s only one reliable strategy:

Replace fillers with a breath.

Not a dramatic one.
Just a small inhale. A micro-pause. A beat.

Pause → Think → Speak.

This simple moment gives you:

• Clarity: Your following sentence lands clean.

• Authority: Pauses make you sound composed.

• Control: You’re choosing your words, not chasing them.

Most people fear silence.
The best communicators use it.

As Eric Schmidt once said,

“Speak with intention. Silence is not the enemy of intention.”

The pause is not space.
It’s thinking space.

And it is the most underrated communication tool we have.

Fillers Change With the Seasons (And That’s a Good Thing)

We all use fillers knowingly.
And our fillers change as our thinking evolves.

Right now, mine is “Essentially.”
A year ago, it was “So…”
Before that, “Here’s the thing…”

These shifts show how our minds reorganize themselves as we grow.
Your filler is a mirror.

Instead of eliminating it, start by noticing it. Awareness is always the first step to mastery.

Two Reflection Questions

1. What filler word or phrase do you tend to lean on today—and what might it reveal about your thinking style?

2. Where in your communication could a deliberate pause replace a filler and create more clarity, confidence, or presence?

Fillers are human.
Pauses are powerful.
And excellent communication lives in the dance between the two.

You know that feeling when someone says something, and you think, “Wait… that’s exactly how I think”? That tiny jolt of recognition that makes you sit up a little straighter?

That happened to me while listening to an old fireside chat with Thomas Kurian, the CEO of Google Cloud. Amy Brady was moderating, and halfway through the interview, I actually paused the audio and thought, Wow—this guy communicates with such ridiculous clarity.

And here’s the funny part:
The interview was recorded in 2019. Yet somehow, it feels even more relevant today. Tech has only gotten noisier since then—AI everywhere, cloud-on-cloud, new abstractions every week. In a world full of complexity, the people who communicate clearly stand out even more.

Before Google, Thomas spent 20 years at Oracle as CTO, reporting directly to Larry Ellison. You can feel that experience in every answer he gives. As someone obsessed with communication, I couldn’t help but study how he spoke, not just what he said.

Three patterns jumped out—simple, powerful, and incredibly practical.

1. He Uses Numbered Lists—Constantly

One of the first things you’ll notice about Thomas is how neatly his mind works.

When he describes Google Cloud’s offerings, he breaks them down into three buckets:
Infrastructure, Tools, Solutions.

When he talks about the principles behind Google’s infrastructure work, he gives you two: Simplification and Integration.

Two. Three. Never seven. Never fifteen. Always clean, always memorable.

There’s a reason the “rule of three” has survived for thousands of years. Our brains cling to it.

As Anne Lamott put it, “Good writing is telling the truth in the cleanest way possible.”
Numbered lists are one of the cleanest tools we have.

2. He Tells Simple Stories

Once you notice the numbered lists, the next thing becomes obvious:
Thomas teaches through stories.

Two of them stuck with me instantly.

Story 1: The Pasta Factory
A major pasta manufacturer was slowing down because humans were manually inspecting pasta for defects. Google came in, added camera and image-recognition capabilities, and suddenly the line could run faster without sacrificing quality.

It’s such a simple story, but you can see it. The conveyor belt. The pasta is moving. The broken pieces. The fix.

Story 2: UPS Routing
UPS used to spend seven hours calculating optimal delivery routes every morning. With Google Analytics, they can now do it in four minutes. Real-time routes. Real-time traffic. Real-time savings.

These aren’t complicated case studies. They’re vivid little snapshots.
And they work.

Stories are like mental Velcro—they make ideas stick.

Since listening to this interview, I’ve tried weaving more short stories into my own explanations. And I’m not exaggerating when I say: people instantly lean in more.

Data tells. Stories sell.

3. He Uses Analogies to Make Hard Ideas Easy

The third pattern Thomas uses—and it might be his superpower—is analogies.

When explaining why Google supports multi-cloud, he doesn’t jump into Kubernetes or container orchestration. He goes back in time.

Before Java, developers had to write software tied to a specific operating system. Java changed the game by letting you “write once, run anywhere.”

Thomas compares Google’s multi-cloud work to that shift.
Google is building the layer that lets companies “deploy once, run anywhere”—whether that’s Google, AWS, or Azure.

Analogies take something familiar and connect it to something new. And when you get the analogy right, people instantly understand your point.

Since hearing this, I’ve been more intentional about using analogies—not to “simplify,” but to translate. Tough ideas become accessible. People nod instead of staring. And the conversation moves forward faster.

Einstein had that great line: “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
Thomas gets this.

The Three Takeaways (the way Thomas would do it)

1/ Use numbered lists
Break complexity into clear, digestible chunks.

2/ Tell stories
They’re the easiest way to make abstract ideas feel real.

3/ Use analogies
They bridge what people know with what you want them to understand.

These aren’t “communication tricks.”
They’re habits.
And once you start practicing them, you can’t go back.

Two Quick Reflection Questions

1. Which of these three skills—lists, stories, or analogies—would strengthen your communication the most?

2. What’s one idea you’re working on right now that you could explain using a short list, a simple story, or a helpful analogy?
   

If you want to hear Thomas in his own words, here’s the interview.

Most people feel grateful. Very few practice gratitude deliberately.

Years ago, during a two-day workshop with Dr. Marshall Goldsmith, I learned a ritual that turns gratitude from a feeling into a system—one you can execute, repeat, and improve every year. He calls it “Getting an A+ in Gratitude.” Every November, during Thanksgiving, I sit down and do this exercise. It remains one of the most meaningful practices of my year.

Here’s how it works.

Step 1 — Recall

Write down the people who helped you in the last 12 months.
Colleagues. Friends. Mentors. Family.
Anyone who lifted you, supported you, or nudged you forward.

You can go beyond a year. Timelines don’t bind gratitude.

Step 2 — Specify

For each person, identify one or two specific reasons you’re grateful to them.
Specific appreciation lands. Generic appreciation dissolves.

Instead of:
“Thank you for everything,”
try:
“Thank you for checking in weekly during my training. Those messages kept me accountable on days I didn’t want to run.”

Step 3 — Express

Write an email or text to each person using that specific moment or behavior.
AI can help structure or polish, but the feeling must come from you.

This year, I wrote 21 notes on Thanksgiving Day. AI saved me time. The emotion was mine.

Step 4 — Simplify

The most powerful gratitude messages are short, warm, and natural.
A few sincere lines can brighten someone’s day more than a long, formal letter.

Step 5 — Send

Send all the messages in one day.
Batching creates momentum; momentum makes this a ritual.

I start my notes with:
“As part of my end-of-year gratitude ritual, I want to thank you for…”

Why this ritual matters

1. It nurtures relationships

People remember how you make them feel. Gratitude deepens connection—especially with former colleagues who may no longer be part of your daily life.

2. It improves your emotional state

Writing these notes grounds you. It shifts your internal weather.
Neuroscience shows that expressing gratitude activates brain networks tied to well-being and connection. When you hit “send,” you’re not just helping someone else feel seen—you’re regulating your own emotional system.

3. It keeps your network alive

Not for opportunity. Not for leverage.
Just for humanity.
A kind message once a year can revive a relationship in a way no networking strategy can.

A word to remember

Not everyone will reply—and that’s okay.

You’re not doing this for a response.
You’re doing it for the feeling you experience while writing.
Think of it like the gym: the benefit comes from the reps. This ritual builds your gratitude muscles, one message at a time.

Here’s a story from this year:
One of my notes went to someone I hadn’t spoken to in nearly two years. He replied, “This made my week. Thank you.” That one sentence reminded me why this ritual matters—gratitude reopens doors we didn’t realize were closed.

A simple action tip

If listing twenty people feels overwhelming, start with one.
If even that feels hard, try this: since you’re reading and enjoying this newsletter, send me a note of gratitude.

Not because I need it—but because you need to feel the genuine warmth of expressing it.
Once you feel that spark, you’ll naturally find yourself writing 20+ messages every year.

Start today.

Write one message.
One becomes five.
Five becomes a yearly ritual.
That ritual becomes part of who you are.

Gratitude grows when you practice it.

“What’s a time you had to influence someone without authority?”
That’s the question that separates managers from leaders.

It looks simple, but it opens a window into how you think, act, and lead. Behavioral interviews focus on what you did in the past rather than what you would do in theory. They’re not about hypotheticals or textbook leadership ideals—they’re about your real experiences, instincts, and growth moments under pressure.

Behavioral interviews are built on a straightforward idea: past behavior predicts future performance. Big tech companies like Meta, Google, Amazon, and Netflix use them to go beyond technical brilliance. They already know you can code, design systems, or lead teams. What they want to know is how you handle conflict, communicate under pressure, and make decisions when there’s no perfect answer.

That same question—“Tell me about a time you had to influence someone without authority”—can reveal more than any resume line ever will. A candidate who lists steps sounds competent. But one who reflects on what worked, what didn’t, and what they learned shows maturity and self-awareness. That’s what companies are truly hiring for.

After a few mock interviews, I realized something important: behavioral interviews aren’t soft conversations—they’re the deciding factor. Those practice rounds exposed how much depth and structure matter when telling your story. So in 2021, as I began interviewing at Meta, Google, LinkedIn, and Netflix for engineering leadership roles, I completely reworked my approach from the ground up.

Here’s how I prepared:

❶ I started with Amazon’s 16 Leadership Principles.
They serve as a solid foundation for leadership expectations across most tech companies. Principles like Dive Deep, Hire and Develop the Best, and Deliver Results closely align with the behaviors that top firms value.

❷ I picked one recent story from my career for each principle.
The story had to fit both the principle and the role level I was targeting. For “Bias for Action,” I recalled a moment when my team had to ship a data pipeline under intense deadlines, and I made a tradeoff between speed and quality.

❸ I used the STAR framework to structure each story.

• Situation: What was happening?

• Task: What was my responsibility?

• Action: What did I do?

• Result: What happened, and what did I learn?

I added a reflection at the end of each story to show personal growth. That’s often the missing piece—the learning shows your capacity to evolve.

To make recall easier, I created a simple table like this:

I didn’t memorize every word. I remembered moments—key phrases, numbers, and emotions. That helped me sound natural instead of rehearsed.

On interview day, I was calm. Each question became a cue to tell a story I already knew well. Because I’d done the inner work, I wasn’t scrambling for examples. I was connecting my experiences to their values.

That confidence showed. I cleared interviews at Google and Meta, and eventually joined Meta as a Senior Data Engineering Manager.

Looking back, it wasn’t the structure or the table that helped most—it was the act of reflection itself. Preparing for these interviews forced me to see patterns in my career and how I’d grown as a leader.

Behavioral interviews aren’t about performance. They’re about presence. When you know your own stories deeply, you stop trying to impress and start communicating with clarity and authenticity.

Each behavioral story is like a chapter in your career book. When you know those chapters by heart, you don’t need a script—you tell your story.

What if I told you the best communicators in tech don’t talk about technology at all?

They talk about outcomes. About how someone’s life, job, or experience got better because of what they built.

Think about Nike. Just Do It.
Three simple words. No specs, no materials, no mention of technology. Yet it made millions believe they could achieve more.

Apple did the same thing when Steve Jobs introduced the first iPod. He didn’t say “5GB storage capacity.” He said, “10,000 songs in your pocket.”

That single line turned a technical specification into a life experience. It wasn’t about the hardware—it was about freedom, joy, and simplicity.

That’s the genius of great communication. It doesn’t sell what a thing is. It sells what it means.

David Ogilvy, the father of modern advertising, once said, “The consumer isn’t a moron, she’s your wife.” His point was simple: people don’t buy features; they buy better versions of themselves.

Now think about how most technical experts describe their work.
We often lead with what we built:

“I developed a distributed system that scales to 10 million requests per second.”

That sounds impressive—especially to peers—but most listeners tune out after the first clause. It’s too abstract, too removed from what they value.

What if instead you said:

“I built the system that lets millions of people stream videos without buffering, even during peak hours.”

Same work. Different framing.
The second statement tells a story. It makes your audience feel something.

This is what marketers call WIIFY — What’s In It For You.

Every audience you face—executives, recruiters, customers, or peers—is quietly asking that question. They don’t just want to know what you did. They want to know what it did for them.

Claude Hopkins, an early legend in advertising, said it bluntly: “People don’t buy from clowns. They buy results.” The best communicators translate their technical brilliance into human value.

And there’s a deeper layer to this idea—what old-school ad writers called “the benefit of the benefit.”

For example:

• Feature: “We reduced latency by 40%.”

• Benefit: “That helped teams analyze data faster.”

• Benefit of the benefit: “Those faster insights led to better recommendations and higher customer retention.”

Each step moves from the technical to the emotional, from what you did to why it mattered.

I once heard a story from a tech company’s internal demo day. Two engineers presented their projects.
The first spent 15 minutes explaining architecture, APIs, and design choices.
The second started with:

“Last quarter, two million users dropped off mid-purchase. Here’s how we fixed it.”

Both worked on the same problem. Only one kept the audience leaning forward. Guess who got the promotion?

That’s not manipulation—it’s clarity.
And clarity is leadership.

Leo Burnett, another advertising legend, said, “Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it fun to read.”
His advice, written for ad copy, applies perfectly to technical communication in today’s world of short attention spans and endless Slack threads.

When you communicate with simplicity and purpose, you don’t just get heard—you get remembered.

Here are five practical ways to bring this mindset into your everyday work:

❶ Lead with the user.
Start with who you helped and what changed for them. That immediately grounds your story in relevance.

❷ Translate complexity.
Strip away jargon. Instead of “parallelized data ingestion,” say “it processes data from multiple sources at once, so results appear faster.”

❸ Quantify the impact.
Attach numbers, percentages, or time saved. “Reduced downtime by 20%” paints a picture that “improved reliability” never could.

❹ Anchor with stories.
Facts tell. Stories sell. Even a small narrative—like a customer who saved hours of manual work—makes your work human.

❺ Always answer ‘So what?’
Never end on what you built. End with why it matters. For the user. For the business. For the world.

Because here’s the truth: no one remembers your stack. They remember your story.

Bill Bernbach once said, “The most powerful element in advertising is the truth.”
That applies to your career, too. Speak the truth about the impact of your work.
Not what it does, but what it does for others.

So the next time you describe your project, resist the temptation to start with the specs. Start with the story.

Because the world doesn’t need another technical explanation.
It needs someone who can make people care.