Mark MacLeod

Politics enter a company the moment leaders start optimizing for their own power instead of what's right. The antidote is trust. Build a culture where people trust that you will always do right by them. Political ambition has nowhere to grow.

As you grow, you have to give away your Lego. The leaders who refuse to let go of what they've built become the ceiling. The ones who give it away become the reason the company scales.

Nothing external brings lasting satisfaction. Not the exit. Not the announcement. Not the wire hitting your account. The founders who are most alive are the ones in love with the problem. Not chasing the outcome.

@nrmehta It's exhausting to be anything other than our true authentic self. Glad you leaned into that

Trying to be a "real CEO" was one of my worst misakes: We launched Gainsight in May of 2013 and hosted our first ever Pulse conference for the customer success industry. The event would later become the standard, with thousands of annual attendees. I did my typical "cringe-but-lovable" thing and somehow ended up on the keynote stage in stunner shades. Later I had a football helmet on and did a really bad Heisman pose. You had to be there. Anyway, the event was a huge hit. I think people were endeared to our quirky culture. We raised more money that year and were on the path to being a real company. In January of 2014, we were four months from Pulse 2014. We were growing up and I wanted to too. So I hired a speaking coach to take my game to the next level. She was well regarded and very good at her craft. And she said: "Nick - you need to be more professional. No weird outfits. Speak slowly. And stop being so excited - it's strange. Also, read the script off of the prompter." So I did. And Pulse 2014 was BY FAR my worst keynote. I was robotic. My speech was forced. Very few smiles. A typical CEO speech. You can see it for yourself on YouTube. Actually, please don't! The next year, I went back to me. No script. No notes. My typical, frenetic, nerdy, corny self. Fired up. And yes - ridiculous props and outfits. Over the years I was: * A robotic man from the future * The wizard from Wicked * Ted Lasso * A kid from the Breakfast Club * And a rapper (who actually rapped on stage!) It worked. And damn it felt good to be myself again.

Energy is strategy. Health is a competitive advantage. Presence is a leadership skill.

The companies that scale aren’t built in meetings. They’re built in the spaces between them

Pull up your calendar right now. Look at this week. How many hours are genuinely yours?

Unstructured time is where strategy and creative breakthroughs live

@BrandonMChu Seriously though, I have always been impressed by your transformation into an elite product leader. I never started a company because I never felt I could make the transformation that you did.

@BrandonMChu Not bad for an accountant. I need to start working on my skills 😜

Never been a good website designer but as per Mr. Burns"I'm no art critic, but I know what I hate, and I don't hate this." So I've made a skill (in 🧵) that: - intakes creative direction - makes 100s of sites - rate ones u like - learns from ratings & iterates until u converge

When you make yourself a bottleneck and call it work ethic, you’re not building a company, you’re becoming its ceiling

Suffering = pain & resistance. If you don’t resist what you need to do, you will not suffer. Whether it's a layoff, a co-founder conversation, or a pivot you've been avoiding, the cost of the slow path is almost always higher than the cost of the decisive one.

Everyone is talking about doing more with AI. The better question is: what can you remove? Clarity of focus compounds faster than volume of activity.

Too much of a good thing is by definition too much. No matter what the thing is. You are still an organic creature. You still need time with no screens, no agents, no output. That is not weakness. That is how you stay in the game.

@LewisHowes Sleep is the number one performance hack, though it is anything but a hack. Never sacrifice sleep.

Wake up at 4am to get ahead vs. Sleep a full 8 hours to recover? 👇

You only begin to master your craft when you begin realizing how little you know.

When you are fully present, decisions become effortless. Not because the problems are easier. Because you are bringing all of yourself to the moment. Intuition only shows up when the noise is gone.

The programming language for the AI era is English. Everyone in your company needs to learn to program. Not code. Think. Communicate precisely. Direct AI to do the work. That is the new leverage.

Ask yourself: what is standing between me and the growth I want? Everything else is a distraction. Not every opportunity deserves your attention. Only the ones on the critical path to breakthrough

Electricity doesn't work when it's ungrounded. Neither do you. The higher you want to go, the deeper your roots need to be.