Thought Of The Week

“Serve the Result – transformation accelerates.

Serve the boss – transformation decelerates.”

Some people would ‘carrot and stick’ them.  Others advocate role modelling and connecting good nutrition to being able to do all the things the child loves to do.

If we want great Decisions and Actions when we are not in the room (a great ‘culture’), we want the child to know, and want to serve, a positive Result, not a child trained to guess what the ‘boss’ wants.

It is no different for the leader wishing to turn a strategy into Decisions, Actions and Results around the world. They can either carrot and stick people, or role model the change and connect everybody to the positive Results and the strategy to deliver it.

But here’s the Broccoli Paradox: the more urgent the transformation we seek, the more we command and control it (carrot and stick).

This DOES accelerate the transformation. But only for the short term, and at the risk of burnout (burnout because everybody is now micromanaging down and second-guessing up – a massive layer of non-profitable activity).

Serving the purpose takes design, solid foundations and consistency. But it changes ‘culture’ faster than anything else I have witnessed and delivers long term, sustainable transformation

Which do your people serve:

The Boss?

Or the Result?

Book of the Fortnight

This week I recommend a podcast. General Sir Gwyn Jenkins, leader of the UK’s Navy, seems to be genuinely committed to accelerating transformation and performance in an environment where it is traditionally slowed by rank and silos.

Here he explains how he is shifting the focus from serving the boss and protecting the silo, to serving the Result.

My Fortnight

In 2017 I was doorstepped by my next-door neighbour’s son, George Rawlings. He wanted me to invest in a startup he and his friend, Matt McNeill Love, were working on: ‘Honeypot’. Some weeks later I transferred the cash.

That company is now called Thursday. It is the largest IRL singles event organiser in the world.  This week I got time with Matt to hear their story – and what a story it is. If you’re single, or want to host world class events in your city:

Is it possible to use an event to clarify strategy, build energy around it AND create brave Decisions from country managers on what it will take to deliver it in their nations?

That was the question my clients asked before last week’s event in Istanbul and after careful planning, we successfully applied the DARE Loop to the strategy, took the room outside of their comfort zone, and translated the plan into bold, local actions across the world.

And finally, to the London Speaker Bureau Christmas Cocktails. A rare treat to meet many of my closest business partners. We WhatsApp daily – but we only get to meet annually. Thank you all for your support!

Write YOUR story 🖋️

Jim

Thought Of The Week

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves”

Viktor Frankl

Can Victim Narratives Predict Problems with AI Adoption At Work?

Unless you own a dumbphone, you are bathing in stories encouraging you to give away your power to Act (‘be a victim’) and to blame others for your Results in life. In this edition of DARE I will give you the top ten victim narratives as I see them.

Why?

As AI enters our working lives, your ability to accept your POWER (avoid victimhood) and to take ACCOUNTABILITY (not blame others for your Results) will define your success.

Why?

Because you will have to adapt and lead adaptation – fast and continuously.

To adapt is courageously to use your power to leave the old way and move to the new – things you’ve never done before. (The DARE Loop)

To lead adaptation is to use your power to inspire and empower: to make others aware of, and have the courage to use their power to adapt. (The C.O.A.C.H. Framework)

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Trigger Warning

There may be ‘triggers’ in the list below.

When you are ‘triggered’ you place your power outside of yourself. By definition.

You are permitting another person to control your emotions simply by stating certain concepts. You are the ‘victim’ of his/her Actions and the Result is not yours to own (no accountability), he/she owns your Result.

Of course, there are extreme situations where triggers should be carefully avoided. For example, I have recently learned that in a high-PTSD war zone, the flame/explosion emojis signifying ‘Go you!’ to most of us, are highly ‘triggering’ and are not used.

If the list ‘triggers’ you, that could be an interesting clue about your ability to regulate your emotions and reclaim your power from some words on a screen, or even from me.

Alternatively – you can cancel me. There’s a link at the bottom of the email 😉.

Big Trigger Warning!

So here’s my list of common disempowering victim narratives. What’s on your list? Which one makes you angry with me – and is therefore likely to cause you to give your power away?

I am NOT saying that the world is fair and the list is untrue. That is a different conversation. I am asking whether adopting these narratives can assist you or prevent you in using your power to DARE and write your story in your coming AI world.

1. “I can’t — my mental health won’t allow it.”

Caring for yourself is vital. But protection easily becomes avoidance. When we have poor health, our primary task is to get well and carry our own weight again, not integrate it into our personality.

DARE: Ask, “What small, supported ACTION could I still take towards the Result I want?”

2. “The patriarchy means that… [insert block].”

Yes, there are walls for everybody (most men hold zero power in ‘the patriarchy’). But declaring defeat before the game begins cements the structure you want to change: the only way forward is to adopt and celebrate victimhood as an identity.

DARE: Master the system, then bend it. Be the architect, not the tenant.

3. “As a man, I’m not allowed emotions or vulnerability.”

Silence isn’t strength. It’s suppression. There is no man as magnetic as a man with the courage to face his fear of rejection and failure and pursue a purpose. A man with purpose is demonstrating extreme vulnerability.

DARE: Lead with both backbone and heart.

4. “It’s my diagnosis — I can’t.”

Labels can clarify the situation and the Action required or can cage. Understanding your mind could expand your toolkit, not shrink it.

DARE: Use self-knowledge to design systems that work for you.

5. “Capitalism is the problem.”

Maybe. But waiting for utopia is another way of saying, “Not my move – I have no power.”

DARE: Build the ethical enterprise you wish existed / Operate in the environment you have been given/accept what you cannot change.

6. “My culture or family wouldn’t approve.”

Belonging matters. But inherited rules are not destiny.

DARE: Honour your roots — author your future. And sometimes, (a strong theme in all spiritual practices) we must reject in order to return whole as adults.

7. “I’m protecting my boundaries.”

Important — until boundaries become walls. Growth happens where edges meet. And beware, this has come to mean ‘what I say goes’ and that is not what boundaries are

DARE: Ask, “Is this boundary safety or avoidance, or me controlling others?”

8. “Societal Expectations mean that I must…”

Except many don’t. And who, exactly, is doing this expecting? A magazine editor or an influencer? You don’t have to be ‘agreeable’ to an imagined mass. Seek different role models and inspirations.

DARE: Curate your media inputs, be clear on your values, Decide and Act.

9. “I’m manifesting — the universe will decide.”

Hope is not a strategy. The universe responds to movement.

DARE: Pair vision with Action.

10. “If I win, someone else loses.”

We’ve confused humility with hesitation and a fear of standing out and contributing. When good people play small, power flows to those who won’t.

DARE: Win with integrity — expand the circle, don’t equate shrinking yourself with  ‘being good’.

The DARE Loop

Every one of these narratives begins with truth — trauma, fatigue, inequity, pressure. But then comes the quiet surrender: “Because of that truth, I can’t.”

DARE flips it: “Because of that truth, I must.” Care deeply. Act bravely. Redesign reality — one DARE loop at a time.

My Fortnight

A week of half term bliss (I’ve obviously chosen to block out the early mornings and late nights to get my work done). I love these moments together. Amongst various adventures and conversations was a trip to see the astonishing production of Cabaret in London.

It is sobering to watch what happens when a toxic and racist narrative (European anti-semitism in the case of the play) creeps across a society, wrecking all in its path and destroying lives. #NeverAgain – for everybody.

The cast and backstage were utterly brilliant. Heartbreaking, Thought provoking. Courageous in the extreme.

Then to Egypt to train in the ocean. Always very intimidating for me to invest in the future rather than ‘do my work’. Practicing what I preach is important – but never becomes less challenging. My whole being rebels against it.

For the first time in 15 years I went to learn from Marco Nones (Rasta from Taming Tigers fame). With Andrea Zuccari, Marco changed freediving. Together, they coached and supported me to 101m. Since the sea claimed Andrea, Marco’s expertise, professionalism and philosophy is unmatched in my view. You can learn a little about Marco, and train with him and his team, here.

A question for you – would you like me to reveal what I am training for and take you on my DARE journey with me each fortnight?

Book Of The Week

Homo Delphinus – The Dolphin Within Man by Jaques Mayol

When Mayol boarded his sled to go to 100m in 1976, it was like going to the moon. He was a true pioneer.

Why? Nobody had ever experienced such pressure before. The science said his rib cage would be crushed.

The water was filled with scuba divers at different depths to help him return if injured. Doctors were present to deliver life-saving treatment to the damaged bones. Researchers were there to study what happens to humans under extreme pressure.

He learned that we became dolphins. Our bodies acted just as theirs do. We are cousins.

In Homo Delphinus, Mayol sets out his philosophy. It transcends diving:

· We are built for adaptation beyond fear.

· Mastery is achieved through surrender to and acceptance of our environment, not the struggle against it.

· Reconnecting with our natural intelligence is the path to both performance and harmony.

Write YOUR story 🖋️

Jim

DARE is the mental model for high performance and change.

You write your story through your DECISIONS, ACTIONS and RESULTS and a thorough EVALUATION of how you did.

A new Result requires new Decisions and Actions.

Thought Of The Week

“The drive to do something because it is interesting, challenging, and absorbing – is essential for high levels of creativity”

Daniel Pink

When I sit behind a closed door with a CEO, my job is to bring a clear set of sound architectural principles we can rely upon.

The CEO is deploying expensive intellectual capital to deliver a strategy in outrageous volatility at astonishing speed against outstanding competitors with fast evolving tech.

They are rarely ‘telling people what to do’ and ‘cascading the deck’ is unlikely to cut it.

They need people they’ve never met to WANT, deeply, to take brave new Decisions and Actions that will deliver their strategy – whilst the CEO is asleep on another time zone.

Given this, the first architectural principle I can bring to the conversation is that we are designing for intrinsic motivation and a profound connection to the strategy. We are not designing a better command system or a set of values.

If you want intrinsic motivation, and a profound connection to the strategy, there are structural things that we must do.

Certain conditions are necessary to develop intrinsic motivation in others and specific elements must be in place for people to understand and believe in the strategy. Where these are missing, we can make ground very fast.

Intrinsic motivation – the drive to do the thing because I want it done – requires three elements to be present:

• Purpose

• Autonomy

• Mastery (growth, challenge and progress)

We can use a variety of data to measure for this and we can use very precise tools and trainings to improve the situation quickly.

Like building design, the architecture of transformation and performance is complex. But it is neither mysterious nor a dark art.

As a starter for you: If you want to build autonomy in others, don’t own or fix their problems. You can start by asking questions about ‘what will you do to solve it then?’  instead of giving answers.

Anybody can start playing with this change, this afternoon, with colleagues, friends and family.  

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Book Of The Week

Daniel Pink’s ‘Drive’ is still the best primer I have discovered on intrinsic motivation for practitioners (rather than academics).

Even better, you don’t need to read the last portion of the book. Here he goes into practical applications of the academic findings and, with respect to Mr Pink, of whom I am a big fan, I am not convinced he’s on the money. The first part alone, entirely worth your money.

It is a compelling thesis on what creates intrinsic motivation, why it does, and why you need to be aware of this if you run a business where you need your people to be creative and adaptable to solve problems – even when nobody is waving a carrot or a stick.

My Week

My CXO clients are giving me fabulous puzzles to solve. Details always remain confidential, but a powerful theme over these weeks has been using story to communicate and connect to strategy and accelerate change. Intricate, long term and creative work with a huge impact.

This week I was invited to address a global insurance team who gathered in London and a global pharmaceutical team gathering in Amsterdam. Thank you to both of my hosts for looking after me so very well and creating wonderful events.

In both presentations, I invited the room to relax, go inside themselves (together) and increase their freedive breath hold with me. This is a new experiment and it worked beautifully.

The improvements in breath holding are not the thing. The win is a team from four corners of the globe taking a moment to close their eyes, reflect on the strategy and their ‘bold actions’ and breath together as one.

In London and Amsterdam, the groups became a single organism as they synchronised and slowed their breathing before committing, together, to bold change.

Having taken soundings from a number of DARE readers, the feedback has been to write a shallower, shorter newsletter or to make it fortnightly.

So, from this week onwards, your DARE newsletter will become fortnightly rather than weekly.

We are doing important work you and I. So we continue to dive to the depths!

Write YOUR story 🖋️

Jim

DARE is the mental model for high performance and change.

You write your story through your DECISIONS, ACTIONS and RESULTS and a thorough EVALUATION of how you did.

A new Result requires new Decisions and Actions

Thought Of The Week

“Indifference is what kills. The illusion of distance and the hope that the crocodile will eat you last.”

Volodymyr Zelensky 

(So many people helped to make this trip possible and showed me great kindess. Apologies to those I have not mentioned, please do not think that any detail of your kindness was not noticed)

My grandmother would mimic the noise of the doodlebugs, Hitler’s deadly drones that fell on her town, her eyes wide, re-living her terror before me, trying to make me understand. I was six years old and it worked. I’ve never forgotten.

Years pass but the tactic of the coward remains the same. Scare, disrupt, wear down the children, the mothers and the fathers as you seek to bolster your ego through violence.

I visited Ukraine, the cities of Lviv and Kyiv from 3 – 8 October. It was so profound that I cannot write about anything else this week and my newsletter will only share stories from this visit.

Taming Tigers is popular in Ukraine. Currently it is outselling the Hunger Games. My daughter almost thinks I am cool.

My Ukrainian royalties are shared between Unbroken and Gen.Ukrainian.

I went to Lviv and Kyiv to show friendship and to bring Ukrainians’ daily reality to a wider audience – to share their stories outside of Ukraine and with you. That was all.

On the night of 4^th October, Russia sent more than 50 Ballistic missiles and over 500 drones into Ukraine. In Lviv, we spent the night in a shelter, the floor vibrating. Four civilians in the city did not survive the night, the youngest murdered was 15.

Unbroken

Unbroken kindly invited me to visit them and spend time with the patients who are undergoing rehabilitation.

It is a hard visit. The tears cannot come whilst you are there. The patients deserve better. But come they will, later, behind your hotel door.

I was shown world class facilities for helping people to begin walking with prosthetics, make a bed and cook with one arm, manage their terror and trauma. The attention to every detail was inspiring. I was not taken to the building where those who have been tortured by Russians are cared for.

Roman was blunt: “I was never afraid of being killed. I was afraid of being a ‘missing person’. I saw friends die and we could not rescue their bodies. This means they are ‘missing’ and their families receive no money. I did not want my wife and my children to have no money’.

The terrors of fatherhood are universal; but few of us must consider them whilst being bombed in a forest trench.

Roman is not some fictional figure. He had a career and the ability to walk. The scars that map across his shaven skull evidence further brutalities that I did not ask about for fear of hurting him further.

The Lviv BookForum And The Night Of 4th October 2025

That Ukraine can host a magnificent Book Festival – Lviv BookForum – in the midst of a full-scale invasion and nightly air raids, tells you everything about the character of the nation. And the crowds were huge!

On the night of the 4^th, after a wonderful day celebrating literature, philosophy, language and humanity at the Lviv BookForum, the thugs sent their cultural contribution.

I wrote the following words in the shelter as a post for Instagram and I will share them with you here:

The Lviv Air Raids: 4-5 October 2025

There are children sleeping beside me on our row of hard chairs. Their heads on their mother’s laps.

The mothers are not asleep. The ground is vibrating hard and even in the basement the explosions are intimidatingly loud. They stare into the distance. In our narrow basement corridor, ‘the distance’ is less than a meter away.

The Russians are very brave, hurling explosives at mothers and children. They work at night, as thieves do.

Women who had no time to dress cover their night clothes with blankets distributed by the bright eyed, smiling night porter who is serving his guests a full cup of reassurance and cheer.

They started their brave bombing at 3.50. It is now 7.00.

They are targeting Lviv hard on a Saturday night whilst it hosts many extra visitors at its annual BookForum.

Books scare bullies.

It is very easy to be a guest here. Ukrainians are very hospitable and extremely kind.

Yuliya, my volunteer Lviv BookForum host, left Lviv at 5pm on Friday night, crossing into Poland at 9pm to meet me at Przemysl, on the station platform. She queued for 2 hours to exit Ukraine. She queued another 2 hours with me at the Polish border to re-enter. We got to our beds in Lviv at 3am on Saturday morning.

The last text I received from her was 5 mins ago. She has spent the night on her bathroom floor (safest room in her house) with her tiny daughter.

She’s been in constant touch with me since the sirens began to ensure that I am safe and to share updates from the insiders’ Telegram channels. ChatGPT translates the screenshots for me down here. I am deep in a basement and she is in a bathroom with her child, but she’s concerned for my safety?

The woman to my left in the shelter looks to be in her early thirties. We’ve all been sitting in silence for hours. Suddenly she gets up, calls the lift and leaves. She just leaves!

Perhaps she’s had enough of the airless basement. Perhaps she’s going to go outside and breath the air and scream at the missiles in the sky. Perhaps she is just going back to her bed for warmth and sleep and to hell with the risk?

She returns after five minutes with a coffee, and one for me too. Her kindness embarrasses me. I am cross with myself for not even thinking that I could have gone to get her a coffee. And so I receive yet more Ukrainian kindness and I make another Ukrainian friend. Tetyana.

But it’s easy to be a guest. It is less easy to be a citizen.

It is not my city being bombed above our heads by another rogue nation of expansionist, colonialist thugs. Although at least these thugs are not permitted to play football with civilised people.

It is not my husband at the front line or in the rehab centre learning how to walk on two prosthetic legs or prepare dinner with one arm.

It is not my child asleep in a corridor with their head on my lap. My child is sleeping safely in the UK.

She is safe, for as long as Ukrainians defend Europe’s borders.

Kyiv

Ukrainian Railways have earned their global reputation for resilience the hard way. As the 12.48 to Kyiv leaves Lviv station, at 12.48 precisely, you understand why. Aged Soviet rolling stock runs on lines that are being bombed: on time and with smiling service from the guards.

We disembark into a station that could serve as a ballroom. Kyiv-Pasazhyrskyi is an art deco wonder with painted ceiling panels and a huge 2025 artwork by Lesia Khomenko dominating the wall above the exit. 

I have a day of media appointments arranged through my Ukrainian publisher Bookchef and their quite wonderful press officer, the journalist Irina Milichenko.

The book signing that evening is at Knyharnya Ye. I have a 40-minute session with the audience being interviewed by Channel 24 News Anchor, Nataly Lutsenko.

Nataly is a wonderful interviewer. Then came the questions from the audience, which are just beautiful. From people running businesses to people wanting to get fit, learn a new skill and write a book. The questions are as they always are all around the world.

People want to grow and develop, test themselves and have adventures, care for their businesses, teams and families.

And Ukrainians are no different!

So I will always remember, when my Tiger is roaring at me to pull back on my dreams, it is not roaring on 3 hours’ sleep and the risk of an air raid in my place of work. It is not roaring with no electricity – again – or with the water turned off.

Thank you to all the people of Ukraine for your kindness and your courage and for holding the borders of Europe safe. Thank you.

As Olha Mukha, Lviv Book Forum organiser, my interviewer onstage and now my friend said:

“In Ukraine, the comfort zone has left the chat.’

 Write YOUR story 🖋️

 Jim.

DARE is the mental model for high performance and change.

You write your story through your DECISIONS, ACTIONS and RESULTS and a thorough EVALUATION of how you did.

A new Result requires new Decisions and Actions.

Thought Of The Week

“The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times…. The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to it’s limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile”

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

This week I worked with a highly successful leadership team in Oman. Flow, and how to create it, was a theme of our week. Muscat sits on the Gulf of Oman with its deep, still, warm water and I managed to keep one afternoon free to freedive into the Gulf.

As we sailed back from our dive site, we spotted spinner dolphins playing half a mile off our port side, so naturally we went to greet them.

They were leaping and twisting in the air, perfectly formed Aquadarts of muscle and joy but as soon as they noticed us coming, they all changed course in unison and rushed over to play.

You can watch them on my Instagram feed here.

They moved fast and in flow, the whole pod adapting the plan together without words or ‘sign offs’. Eventually they were bored with us and went off together, leaping over each other and spinning through 360 degrees in the air as they breached.

Last week I introduced the idea of creating an organisation that is a courageous, fast-moving, adaptable, organism rather than a slow, commanded and controlled machine: an organisation inspired, perhaps, more by dolphins than by clocks.

The spinners showed many of the things we humans need in order to operate in flow:

1. Complete concentration on the task – truly absorbed and lost in it.

2. Clarity of ‘goals’ and immediate feedback form their work – they leap, they land, they swim, they interact with the dolphin racing beside them.

3. No concept of time – I’m not a spinner dolphin but these relatives of ours seemed LOST in their play!

4. An experience that was intrinsically rewarding, had an end itself. They seemed to need nothing more but would not have permitted anything less.

5. An effortlessness and an ease about them.

6. A balance between challenge and skills – they were clearly loving pushing themselves to max speed with mighty gymnastic leaps to play with the boat – and keep our speed – but without pushing into stress.

7. Actions and awareness that were merged, had they been humans – there would have been no self-conscious internal judgement.

8. A feeling of utter control over the task.

These are, of course, Csikszentmihalyi’s characteristics of flow.

Dear Ukrainian Readers – I will be heading from Lviv to Kyiv tomorrow and we can meet in Kyiv at Knyharnya Ye on Levka Lukianenka Street at 18:30 on Tuesday 7^th October.

Please come along. All royalties from the Ukrainian edition of ‘Go where it is scary’ are divided equally between Unbroken and Gen.Ukrainian 

How, then, can we create an organism in FLOW and not a machine second guessing the cog above, but feeling unsafe to ask for permission to act – all the while downing tools every twenty minutes to answer emails ‘fast’.

The answer is, of course, a live, bespoke and iterative year long piece of work following on from careful data analysis, not a Sunday morning coffee thought provoker.

But I didn’t want that to stop me from getting our juices flowing! So here are just a few questions to help you reflect:

1  Do I even allow deep concentration on the task and the outcomes or are we a performative ‘answer fast’ and ‘notifications on’ interruption culture?

2  Is it exciting to visit me as a manager, or that beating, energising heart of the organism – the exec team – can I be in flow and on my ‘A Game’ with them or do I have to be scared and self-conscious?

3  Do I connect my people to the difference they make in the world, the value of the results they produce?

4  And is it fun?

My client, now friends, this week in Muscat were masterful and mischievous at creating fun and laughter whilst delivering world class quality and service in incredibly complex and technical projects.

That’s not my natural strength. I can take it all too seriously. So thank you to my new friends, and to the spinner dolphins of Oman, for making me reflect on how we can generate flow: and fun.

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My Week

When a legendary founder born into extreme poverty dies, the next generation of owners come from a very different start. They are under unimaginable pressures and powered by a different fuel.

How can we see the legacy of the generation before not as the defining achievement that it was in its day – but as the foundations of greater achievements to come? And how does an executive team bring in process to recruit and grow – whilst embedding the pioneering spirit and speed?

That was the challenge we took on together at the start of the week with great progress made and decisions taken.

My week ends as you read this at the Lviv BookForum today (and yesterday) and a life changing visit to Unbroken before taking the train to Kyiv tomorrow: precisely as I promised I would when the event was cancelled earlier this year.

Book Of The Week

One of the most strategic thinkers I know, and a thought leader in the implementation of technology, especially AI, is Benedetto Conversano – my great friend, and also the (recently) former CIO of Diageo.

For some years now I have been influenced by the ideas in Playing to Win by Roger Martin and A.G.Lafley which was recommended to me by Benedetto.

There is a lot of confusing nonsense around strategy. Playing to Win gives you a solid structure which I find consistently useful ‘in real life’.

The most compelling reason for exploring the book is that Lafley (when CEO of P&G) and Martin (his strategy thinking partner) used the approach repeatedly and successfully with billions of dollars at stake.

(As you know, I don’t much like reading an advisory book unless the author went to the trouble of proving their approach in the real world – preferably under significant ‘pressure’  😉.)

DARE is the mental model for high performance and change.

You write your story through your DECISIONS, ACTIONS and RESULTS and a thorough EVALUATION of how you did.

A new Result requires new Decisions and Actions.

Thought Of The Week

“Greater uncertainty ahead brings the absolute certainty that you will need courage, speed, adaptability and tolerance* in your organisational design.”

*How far you can stretch things/make errors before you break something.

How do you prepare your organisation for a future that is more uncertain than ever?

This question has dominated my shared airport rides, dinners, meetings and design engagements with senior leaders in the past decade.

While the nuance will change the core principle is constant:

“We need to move from a slow command-and-control machine to a courageous, fast moving, adaptable organism.”

From that foundation, I watch leaders then move forward in one of two directions:

Direction 1 Command that everybody is fully empowered to do as they are told – faster. The leader then broadly resumes their previous calendar of activities.

Direction 2  Design a shift in decision making authority and begin building the courage in others to own and take those Decisions and Actions. The leader and entire exec team then change their calendar actions.

So what are those of us engaged in designing and building the shift to ‘organisms’ actually doing?

We are creating a situation where each individual human, each cell in the organism, has the drive, skill, strategic clarity, permission and courage to Decide and Act to deliver the best Result and the psychological safety and humility to Evaluate their progress.

Architecting this shift requires two things: 

1               Helping (requiring) each individual cell to discover the courage and mindset to DARE (unlearning decades of ‘command and control’ emotional responses and narratives).

And

2               Changing each leader’s mindset to one of ensuring clarity and consistency of: Results required; permissions to act; safety in the case of errors as we learn; and constant inspiration towards building a future that matters.

It is a symmetrical change.

It’s detailed work, but as a high level measure of where you are at, let’s end with a question for reflection.

An outcome of our design work is an exec/senior team that DESIRES feedback at the end of each visit to their meeting room by a more ‘junior’ colleague.

They are hungry to know whether their colleague felt clear, empowered and inspired to act when they left the exec team meeting.

How would you / your senior leaders rank on this metric?

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My Week

I have spent 25 years watching businesses move from start-up to maturity. The moment when you must hire people, often subject matter experts, from bigger, slower organisations to join the carefully nurtured community of disruptors is a critical juncture.

This week I was in Barcelona with a team from Travelperk, Spain’s most exciting tech start up on many measures. They delivered a masterclass in navigating that ‘critical juncture’ and the commitment onstage from senior leaders and from Atomico, their PE Partners, was inspiring.

I particularly enjoyed COO, JC Taunay-Bucalo’s straight-shooting and wonderfully personal presentation. He gave a powerful set of permissions to everybody in the room to challenge in the pursuit of high performance and to expect and accept a degree of chaos as they did.

You can follow JC and his adventures through his LinkedIn account here.

Every success to you all and thank you for your hospitality.

I am in Oman at the start of next week with an ambitious leadership team embarking on a rapid growth journey through a major transformation. Then to Ukraine for the Lviv Bookforum and on to Kyiv. Much of this week has been filled with preparation.

And I am finally regaining my own consistency in training after a disrupted summer. No excuses. Dropped (50% of) the ball. Now I’m back on it. You can follow me on Strava and please give me some stick if I fail to show up!

Book Of The Week

In Barcelona this week “Working Backwards” by Colin Bryar and Bill Carr was mentioned. It is a book I devoured a year or so ago.

You may or may not like Amazon or it’s founder Jeff Bezos. You cannot dispute their courage, speed, adaptability or tolerance.

So how was that built in by design? Especially as they began recruiting experts from other established, slower cultures to accelerate their speed and growth. Working Backwards helps to explain how they did it.

NB: This is a technical, careful book. It’s more “Good to Great’ and less a Walter Isaacson style page-turner biography of a founder.

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DARE is the mental model for high performance and change.

You write your story through your DECISIONS, ACTIONS and RESULTS and a thorough EVALUATION of how you did.

A new Result requires new Decisions and Actions.

Thought Of The Week

“Soon we will stream knowledge like we stream Netflix or Spotify.” 

Dr Kjell Nordstrom, Helsinki 17 Sept 2025

Welcome to everybody joining the DARE Newsletter from wonderful events in Helsinki, Athens, Berlin and London this week.

I was fortunate to follow Kjell onstage in Helsinki this week.  This line made me think.

You see, I have long been impatient for the day when I could, for example, stream the knowledge of whether a skin mark on my body is malignant or not.

Why should accessing this knowledge require a three week wait, a morning off work and the opinion of an overworked human with no time to read the relevant research?

If it is malignant, then the doctor’s role becomes vital.

So what will you offer when your knowledge is streamed to everybody? I think the answer may be simple and exciting, but also challenging.

Your market is crowded with people who ‘know it’. Every market is.

Your market has a scarcity of those with the courage, drive and care to ‘do it’. Every market does.

Mind The Gap Between Knowing And Acting

Courage, drive and care are FREE, if challenging, resources. Knowledge has always been valued as the scarce, exclusive resource.

When knowledge is no longer exclusive: courage, drive and action become the scarce resources.

This is not to cheapen knowledge in any way. Knowledge is vital. Study is essential. Rather by democratising the availability of knowledge, we will increase the value of actually USING it.

British midwifery is in crisis. I read about each month and I know it to my family’s cost. But every midwife has passed the exam.

Most execs have gone on a course to gain the knowledge to present. But I watch many (not all!) anaesthetise the people at events every week. It takes great courage and drive to act on the knowledge imparted in the course and change how you behave onstage.

But you could stream all of my professional ‘presenting knowledge’ to a person with the drive and care to influence change, and they’ll courageously change how they present without needing the live course.

Therefore, having reflected on this, I have decided to make available all my presenting knowledge to you for free. Will you DARE to use that knowledge onstage?

All My Presenting Knowledge – Streamed to YOU for free

I have found selling in my newsletter an unpleasant barrier to the message. So I have stopped that.

But now I have a world class presentation skills course being wasted because I won’t advertise it.

So, I am making everything I know about presenting available for YOU on my Jim Lawless Youtube Channel, for free, week by week over the coming months.

Sign up to my YouTube channel to be the first to hear as new films go up.

COURAGE and DRIVE are FREE

There is a cost in choosing to be exposed and authentic, rather than a ‘smart arse’ (the guy demonstrating all the knowledge at the coffee machine, but none of the drive or courage to act).

But apart from that: it is free of charge to cross the Gap and turn Knowledge into Action.

Lviv Book Festival

I am being interviewed, and am on panels, at the Lviv BookForum in Ukraine on 3rd and 4th October before heading on to speak in Kyiv. All royalties I receive from the Ukrainian edition of my book go to Gen.ukrainian and Unbroken.

It would be fantastic to see you there.

My Week

I had an incredibly rewarding and stimulating week working with international lawyers in Berlin, cutting edge tech people in Athens and high energy TV pros at MTV in Helsinki.

The common themes were growth, change, creating their own futures rather than having them dictated and generating the shared ambition to deliver excellence: together. The hunger to keep moving and building, learning and trying, were moving and inspiring.

However much I miss humanity, humility and self-awareness on the global stage, I find it more and more present in the sports and business professionals I work with.  Thank you.

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Book of The Week

Kjell Nordstrom also gave a stark warning about the human being’s ability to absorb, and act in response to, narratives: whether or not the narrative is true.

I have been improving my understanding of the Middle East (West Asia as many non-Europeans know the region) these past weeks.

My book recommendations are James Barr’s “A Line in the Sand” and T E Lawrence’s “Seven Pillars of Wisdom”. They are good companion works and the styles so different that when you need a break from one you can turn to the other.

I can warmly recommend both books to you.

Lawrence, especially, reminds the reader that prose is an art worthy of our attention and care. The man could write!

If you know other factual books on the region I should read, please do send your recommendations.

Keep This Stock Ticker on Your Watchlist

They’re a private company, but Pacaso just reserved the Nasdaq ticker “$PCSO.”

No surprise the same firms that backed Uber, eBay, and Venmo already invested in Pacaso. What is unique is Pacaso is giving the same opportunity to everyday investors. And 10,000+ people have already joined them.

Created a former Zillow exec who sold his first venture for $120M, Pacaso brings co-ownership to the $1.3T vacation home industry.

They’ve generated $1B+ worth of luxury home transactions across 2,000+ owners. That’s good for more than $110M in gross profit since inception, including 41% YoY growth last year alone.

And you can join them today for just $2.90/share. But don’t wait too long. Invest in Pacaso before the opportunity ends September 18.

Invest While You Still Can

_{Paid advertisement for Pacaso’s Regulation A offering. Read the offering circular at invest.pacaso.com. Reserving a ticker symbol is not a guarantee that the company will go public. Listing on the NASDAQ is subject to approvals.}

DARE is the mental model for high performance and change.

You write your story through your DECISIONS, ACTIONS and RESULTS and a thorough EVALUATION of how you did.

A new Result requires new Decisions and Actions.

Thought Of The Week

“Delay is dangerous”

Julius Caesar

Have you been forwarded the DARE High Performance newsletter? You can sign up here to receive your own copy in the future.

My Week

I made a big commitment to a new project over the summer. I can’t tell you much about it yet, but as soon as I am happy to make it public, you’ll be the very first to know. It is already taking a lot of planning and creating a lot of change in my Decisions, Actions and Calendar entries.

Precious time with a special friend I had, somehow, not seen in 5 years this week. It was immediately intimate again although we’ve both learned and moved a lot in that half decade. And a happy daughter is beginning to feel at home in her new school community and is growing in confidence each day.

I spoke at two outstanding events. One in Belgrade and one in London. Both dynamic, ambitious and a huge pleasure. Thank you to both teams for your invitations and to the audiences for your fabulous hospitality and your huge energy!

Book of The Week

If you are intrigued to know how Caesar overthrew the seemingly safe and timeless Roman Republic, you may enjoy Robert Harris’  Cicero Trilogy as much as I did. I’ve just finished reading it for the second time to help me reflect (in a gripping, ‘pageturner’ way) on the changes to domestic and international law, and law enforcement, that we are witnessing.

A work of historical fiction, it gives you a grounding in the events of Cicero’s life. Born into the stable Roman Republic (loosely a democracy but dominated by aristocratic families), Cicero lived to see Rome ruled by a dictator who believed he was a god and used his army to override principles of governance and the rule of law.