Yesterday I sat with Lance, Heather, Jen, and Dominique -- the four newest people to join the ADDO team. The session was what we call the Heart & History of ADDO. As part of this time, I share about my belief in business as a force for good. I’d love to share some of that with you below:

Fifteen years ago, I co-founded ADDO with Garrett Gravesen.

Not because the market needed another company. Not because we had a perfect plan. But because we had a growing conviction that business could be used to change the world.

At the time, that sounded a little idealistic. Maybe even naive.

It isn’t.

Over the last decade and a half, I have seen what happens when you take that idea seriously. I have seen companies create opportunities where there was none. I have seen leaders build cultures that dignify people. I have seen organizations choose the long view when the short-term path would have been easier.

That is the bet we made at ADDO.

That business, done right, can be one of the most powerful forces for good in the world.

Not soft. Not naive. Not detached from reality.
Practical. Durable. Scalable.

I have had the privilege of partnering with companies that believe this deeply. They think in decades, not quarters. They care about profit, but they are not defined by it. They understand something many miss.

Money is not the goal.
Money is the fuel.

Fuel for the mission.
Fuel for impact.
Fuel to keep going when things get hard.

Blake Mycoskie built TOMS Shoes on a simple but powerful idea. Business could meet a need and multiply its impact at the same time. He put it plainly: “I believe we can use business to improve lives.”

John Mackey, who helped build Whole Foods Market, has said, “The purpose of business is not just to make money. It’s to create value for others.”

And Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, took it even further: “Earth is now our only shareholder.”

Different industries. Different models. Same belief.

Business can be a tool for something bigger.

That is the shift.

From extraction to contribution.
From short-term wins to long-term value.
From “what can we get?” to “what can we give?”

When you build a business around creating real value, something powerful happens.

You attract better people.
You build deeper trust.
You create customers who do more than buy. They believe.

And belief compounds.

Value creates opportunity.
Opportunity creates growth.
Growth creates more capacity to create value.

A virtuous cycle.

As long as you can add value, you are never out of options.

I have seen this play out over and over again. The organizations that endure are not the ones chasing quick wins. They are the ones relentlessly focused on serving others well. They measure performance. They expect excellence. But underneath it all is a conviction that business is about more than the bottom line.

It is about impact.

It is about legacy.

Howard Schultz, who built Starbucks into a global brand, once said, “We are not in the coffee business serving people. We are in the people business serving coffee.”

That is not just a clever line. It is a philosophy.

Build something that matters.
Partner with people who think beyond themselves.
Use the tools of business to solve real problems.

At ADDO, that is still the mission. Fifteen years in, the conviction has only deepened.

Doing good and doing well are not in conflict.

They reinforce each other.

Because when you create value for others, the market responds.
When you serve people well, growth follows.
When your mission is clear, money has a place, but the impact matters more.

Business is not neutral. It shapes culture. It influences priorities. It touches lives every day.

So the question is not whether business has power. It is how we choose to use it.

Build something that lasts.
Create more value than you capture.
Play the long game.
Let money be the fuel, not the finish line.

And watch what happens.

Not just to your business.

But to the world around it.

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Two days ago, I returned home from Bali.

I’ve been several times before. The first was in 2012 when I met Paulus Wiratno. I went back in 2014 to work on a book with him and took my mom along for the journey. In 2015, I returned for a book launch, and that trip became even more meaningful when Laura and I got engaged there.

But this trip was different.

This time, I got to take my 7-year-old son, George.

I spoke at a leadership conference, spent time with remarkable leaders, and experienced some incredible things. But my favorite moment was taking George to one of the orphanages Paulus serves.

As I watched George interact with those children, I found myself hoping something deeper was being planted in him. Not just gratitude. Not just perspective. But compassion.

The kind of compassion that changes the way you live.

For nearly 15 years, Paulus has been teaching me what real compassion looks like. He’s a pastor who labors tirelessly to care for orphans, rescue victims of human trafficking, and share the Gospel with millions of people across Indonesia, the fourth most populous country in the world. I had the privilege of helping write The Lepers’ Lessons with him, but more importantly, I’ve had the opportunity to watch his life up close.

And one sentence from Paulus continues to challenge me:

“Compassion means you’re willing to be disturbed.”

That sentence sounds inspiring until your life is the one being disturbed.

Because here’s the truth: you can serve people without actually being compassionate.

You can volunteer.
You can donate.
You can post about causes online.
You can even build an entire reputation around helping people.

And still never allow your own comfort to be disrupted.

If our generosity is only convenient, scheduled, and controlled, it may not be compassion at all. Sometimes it’s simply obligation. Sometimes it’s guilt. Sometimes it’s image management.

True compassion costs something.

True compassion allows another person’s pain to interrupt your preferences.

Over the years, I’ve realized compassion tends to disturb us in three specific areas:

Compassion disturbs your schedule

Real compassion is rarely convenient.

It’s stopping for the person stranded on the side of the road when you’re already running late.
It’s sitting down with someone who needs to talk when your inbox is overflowing.
It’s noticing the hurting person everyone else walks past because they don’t fit neatly into your agenda.

Compassion rarely asks, “Is this efficient?”
It asks, “Will you be available?”

Most of us want to do good things for people. We just don’t want those good things to interrupt our plans.

But love that never inconveniences us probably isn’t love yet.

Compassion disturbs your wallet

Sometimes compassion requires real financial sacrifice.

It may mean giving away money you had earmarked for yourself.
It may mean changing your lifestyle so someone else can have a chance at theirs.
It may mean choosing generosity over accumulation.

But compassion also costs us in less obvious ways.

In business, we talk about opportunity cost. Compassion often means choosing people over productivity. It means spending time where there is no measurable return. It means doing work that will never increase your platform, your profit, or your visibility.

The world teaches us to ask: “What do I get back from this?”

Compassion asks: “What does this person need from me?”

And those are two very different ways to live.

Compassion disturbs your emotions

There’s an old phrase people sometimes use: “You’ve been cursed with a good heart.”

What they usually mean is this:
You care too much.
You feel too deeply.
You carry other people’s burdens longer than most people would.

But maybe that’s not a curse.

Maybe that’s what it means to actually be awake.

Because compassion will absolutely break your heart sometimes.

It will make you notice pain you previously ignored.
It will ruin your ability to stay emotionally detached.
It will force you to confront suffering instead of scrolling past it.

And honestly, that kind of vulnerability can feel exhausting.

So here’s the question I’ve been wrestling with since returning home from Bali: Are we truly willing to be disturbed?Most of us would say we want to be compassionate. But far fewer of us want our comfort interrupted, our schedules rearranged, our finances stretched, or our hearts broken.

I know I naturally prefer convenience.
I like control.
I like efficiency.
I like comfort.

But compassion calls us beyond all of those things.

Watching George walk through that orphanage reminded me that compassion is often caught before it’s taught. People are shaped not just by what we say, but by what we stop for. By who we notice. By what we’re willing to sacrifice for.

My prayer is that my son remembers what he saw there.
But even more than that, I hope he remembers the kind of people we’re called to become.

People who are willing to be disturbed.

Because at the end of the day, comfort has never changed the world. Compassion has.

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Today I’m waking up in Tokyo with my 7-year-old son, George. Next week, I’ll be speaking at a conference in Bali, and when my wife decided not to make the trip, I took our oldest with me instead.

Before we left, I got plenty of lectures about making sure he stayed safe. And honestly, I understood why.

Laura knows how I travel. I like to move fast. I like to see a lot, cover ground, explore, experience things, and maximize every minute. She was worried I’d accidentally leave him behind somewhere in Tokyo while chasing the next adventure.

(For the record: I have not left him. I’ve been patient. I’m taking very good care of him.)

But being here with George has made me think about something bigger.

A few weeks ago, I reread The Barbarian Way by Erwin McManus. The book is a challenge against the modern obsession with comfort, control, and predictability. McManus argues that too many people spend so much energy protecting themselves from risk that they also protect themselves from growth, meaning, and adventure too.

His central message is powerful: Life was never meant to be completely safe.

Faith, leadership, business, parenting, creativity, and growth all require a willingness to step into the unknown.

And while the book is written through a spiritual lens, the principle applies directly to leadership and culture:

When you over-optimize for safety, you cap what’s possible.

As leaders, we are naturally wired to reduce risk.

We build systems.
We create standards.
We implement processes.
We establish guardrails to protect the business, the brand, the culture, and the customer experience.

That’s not wrong. In fact, it’s necessary.

You cannot scale anything meaningful without structure. Healthy organizations require clarity, accountability, and consistency. This is not an anti-process message.

But every leader eventually faces a tension: If you become too focused on eliminating downside, you will eventually eliminate upside too.

Because the same systems designed to protect an organization can begin to restrain it.

Take customer experience as an example.

Most companies create processes to ensure a baseline experience. They want consistency. Reliability. Predictability. They want to minimize poor execution from frontline employees.

That’s wise leadership.

But when process becomes overly rigid, something important gets lost.

Because the goal is not simply to avoid bad experiences.
The goal is to create remarkable ones.

And remarkable rarely comes from a script.

It comes from empowered people making thoughtful, human decisions in real time.

That’s one reason The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company has become legendary in hospitality. Their employees are empowered with up to $2,000 per guest to solve problems or create memorable moments without needing management approval.

Think about the level of trust that communicates.

A global luxury brand essentially telling employees: “We trust your judgment. Take care of people.”

Yes, that opens the door for occasional misuse. But it also opens the door for unforgettable moments.

And unforgettable moments are what build loyalty.

You see the same principle with Chewy, an online pet food retailer.

A customer once contacted Chewy hoping to return unopened pet food after her dog passed away. Instead of simply processing the return, the company refunded the order and encouraged her to donate the food to a local shelter.

A few days later, flowers arrived at her home.
No efficiency consultant would have recommended it.

But a human response to a human moment causes those stories to spread everywhere.

Not because it was optimized.
Because it was meaningful.

This principle reaches far beyond customer service.

It shapes how organizations innovate. How teams collaborate and how leaders delegate.

When every decision requires approval, initiative dies.
When every task is tightly prescribed, creativity shrinks.
When every possible risk is eliminated, exceptional outcomes disappear with it.

Over-engineered organizations often become efficient, but emotionally flat.

People stop thinking critically.
They stop taking ownership.
They stop creating.
Eventually, they simply comply.

And compliance may maintain a system, but it will never elevate one.

Great leadership lives in the tension.

You reduce unnecessary risk without suffocating possibility.
You create strong systems without removing humanity.
You establish guardrails without building cages.

Most importantly, you hire and develop people you trust… and then you actually trust them.

Because the moments that define a company, a culture, or a leader are rarely the moments where someone followed the script perfectly.

They are the moments when someone chose to do more than what was required.

To care more. To think deeper. To take ownership. To create something memorable.

Those are the stories customers tell.
Those are the moments employees remember.
Those are the experiences that separate good organizations from unforgettable ones.

So yes, build the systems.
Create the standards.
Protect the mission.

Just make sure your guardrails never become a cage.

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Yesterday I had the privilege of speaking to the Georgia Association of Convenience Stores about leadership development, building healthy cultures, and creating remarkable guest experiences.
The content mattered. But honestly, so did the way the content was communicated.

Because whether you lead a company, a classroom, a church, or a small team, your ability to communicate matters more than you think.

Maybe you are trying to align your team around a new initiative.
Maybe you are leading through change.
Maybe you are preparing for a major presentation, a company-wide message, or a difficult conversation.

Whatever the setting, the question remains the same: How do you communicate in a way that actually moves people?

The best communicators do not simply transfer information. They create clarity, connection, and action. And the strongest communication almost always balances three elements:

Focus. Feeling. Function.

When those three are aligned, communication becomes powerful.
When one is missing, the message begins to break down.

Focus: What Do I Want Them to Know?

Focus is clarity.

It is knowing the central idea you want people to walk away with.

If someone listened to your presentation, read your email, or attended your meeting, could they summarize the main point in one sentence?

Most communicators struggle here because they try to say too much. We confuse more information with more effectiveness. But clarity often requires subtraction.

A focused message is memorable because it is simple enough to carry.

Before communicating anything important, ask yourself:

What is the one thing I want people to understand?

If you cannot answer that clearly, your audience probably cannot either.

Feeling: What Do I Want Them to Feel?

This is where communication moves beyond information.

People may understand something intellectually and still never act on it. Emotion is what moves ideas from the mind to the heart.

Facts inform. Feelings move.

Stories, illustrations, tension, humor, vulnerability, and real-life examples help people emotionally connect to the message. They help people care.

Without feeling, communication becomes mechanical.

People may agree with what you said, but they will not remember it. And they certainly will not be inspired by it.

The best communicators understand this truth:

People rarely act on ideas that leave them emotionally untouched.

Function: What Do I Want Them to Do?

Great communication should lead somewhere.

What happens next?
What action should be taken?
What behavior should change?
What decision needs to be made?

Without function, even inspiring communication can drift into abstraction.

People leave encouraged but unclear. Motivated but directionless.

Strong communicators remove ambiguity. They give people practical next steps and clear application.

Because leadership communication is not just about making a point.
It is about helping people move forward.

Where Communication Breaks Down

Most communicators naturally lean toward one of these three areas.

Some focus heavily on information.
They explain concepts thoroughly but never connect emotionally or practically.

Others are highly action-oriented.
They tell people what to do but never help them understand why it matters.

And some communicators create emotion without clarity.
People leave inspired for a moment, but without anything concrete to hold onto.

But remarkable communication requires all three.

Focus helps people understand the message.
Feeling helps people care about the message.
Function helps people act on the message.

And when those three elements work together, communication becomes more than words.

It becomes leadership.

Because great leaders do not just share ideas.
They move people forward together.

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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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