I attended Ninja Leadership this week in Fort Collins, Colorado. Our guide for the workshop was none other than Larry Kendall, the founder of Ninja Selling. Ninja Selling is an international coaching platform that’s focused on relationships and the power of referrals. While the platform primarily targets real estate and related industries like mortgage and title, it can be used in any vertical, really. Especially the mindset techniques.
Where technology meets humanity.
Tom just finished writing the biography for the legendary New England rock band Max Creek. Those two things might seem unrelated. They’re not.
Long before “agile,” “decentralization,” or “community-led growth” became gratuitous corporate jargon, creative communities were already living it—figuring out how to adapt, endure, and most importantly, be human.
He set out to write a book about a New England rock band and explore what it means to be a successful artist, and I did. However, writing the book also sharpened how I think about community, culture, and longevity. It reminded me that the hardest problems organizations face aren’t technical…they’re human.
I enjoy exploring ideas from both worlds:
• Digital leadership
• What creative communities can teach modern organizations
• The human side of building systems that last
• And of course, music
I have always been an early adopter. That’s not a humble brag. I graduated from the New England Institute of Technology and have worked in tech for a long time. Being an early adopter is hard coded into my personality. I was an early advocate for cord-cutting. My cable bill was like a monthly car payment and I was sick of being subjected to dozens of channels I would never watch. Back then, services like Netflix were remarkably affordable. Not the case anymore.
I mentioned that I rang in the New Year with friends in Marin County. On the trip, I snuck in some sightseeing and visited old Grateful Dead haunts. I could make a strong argument that the Grateful Dead were actually a San Rafael band. Seriously. Although the band formed in Palo Alto and later became synonymous with the Haight-Ashbury scene in San Francisco, the Dead eventually made their way across the Golden Gate and put down roots in Marin County.