On the second day of the darkroom, something shifted... On the second day in the darkroom, something changed. The noise settled. And I noticed I could do something I'm not sure I had ever done before. I could take a single thought. Like lifting a box down from a shelf. Open it up. Think the thought all the way through to the end. Close it. Put it back. And then sit there in the quiet for a moment. And then decide what I wanted to think about next. It sounds simple. But it was

And what I learned really surprised me... I've had some interesting responses since I told you about my darkroom experience. Some people said: "That sounds terrifying. I could never do that." Others said: "I actually think I need something like that." Both reactions tell me something. Because what people are really responding to isn't the darkness. It's the idea of stopping. Fully stopping. No input. No agenda. No performance. Just... presence. And most of us haven't done tha

That's what a friend said to me before I went in... “You’re going to lose your mind” That’s what he said to me before I did it. 4 nights. 3 days. 88 hours. Total darkness. Total Silence. No phone. No lights. No sounds. No distractions. I thought it would be peaceful. But it wasn’t. At first… nothing. Then slowly… My mind got louder. Not quieter. Memories started surfacing. Random thoughts. Images and memories. And at one point I realized: I wasn’t distracted by the outside

This is something new like I've never seen before Are you reacting from a state of Resilience or Fear? In the many years I’ve worked with leaders, teams, and businesses, I’ve never seen this much change happening this quickly. We are living through extraordinary times. AI has opened up more opportunity, more possibility, and more uncertainty than most of us know how to process. And as I’ve been navigating this shift myself, I’ve noticed something very human happening inside m

I asked a friend this… and his reaction surprised me I asked a friend something the other day. “What’s your true purpose?” He just laughed. Not because it was funny… but because it felt too big. And as we talked, it hit me— How I, like so many others, avoid that question. Because if I really sit with it… it starts asking something back of me. And yet… There’s a quieter voice underneath it all. A sense of what really matters. What feels meaningful. What I'm drawn towards. I’ve

We need something deeper to hold onto Last night, I made a little mistake. Before bed I started reading the news. And before I knew it, I was deep in it. Wars. Conflict. Unrest. The quiet (and not so quiet) fear that everything we know as “human” is shifting beneath our feet. Somewhere in the middle of the night, I couldn’t sleep. It felt like one of those moments where the noise of the world gets loud enough that you can’t avoid the deeper questions anymore. The ones we usua

How can we deal with the increasing pace of life? Lately, I’ve been feeling unsettled. And so are many of the people I know and work with. The world feels suddenly more complicated. Business feels less predictable. And the decisions we’re being asked to make seem heavier than they used to. I think that’s why I and so many other people are asking deeper questions right now. Not just: How do I keep up with the pace? How do I keep going? How do I stay focused? How do I manage th

What really charges my batteries? This weekend… I went into the mountains with four friends. High up into the Jotunheimen National Park in Norway. We cross-country skied… ate great meals we made together… baked in the sauna heated by burning logs… and we rolled in the snow like kids, throwing snowballs and laughing for no reason. And I caught myself thinking… This is it. This is something deep that I think we all search for. Not in the big life moments. Not in the achievemen

Are we missing the most important point? I woke up this morning and looked at my iWatch. It was telling me my sleep score. My recovery score. My readiness score. And then it struck me… I’ve become pretty good at measuring my individual resilience. So many people these days are chasing resilience. Sleep trackers. HRV monitors. Cold plunges. Supplements. The perfect diet. Everyone trying to become a little stronger. A little calmer. A little more optimised. And honestly… I thi

And why this is important to my life and career? Lately I've been thinking a lot about Joy.
 It's such a simple word. Almost too simple. Easy for me to dismiss.Easy to treat as something extra. Something optional. Something I can get to later, after the serious things are done. But joy is what happens when a few simple things come together:
playfulness,
connection,
and flow. When I look back on some of the best moments in my life and work, those elements are nearly always the

And why this is important to your career and business This morning my partner gave me a book: The Power of Fun by Catherine Price. The title made me pause. Fun. It’s a word that feels almost… unserious. Sometimes I treat it like a reward. Something I allow myself after the real work is done. After the deadlines. After the responsibilities. After the important things. But the argument in the book is the opposite. Fun isn’t optional. It’s essential. Not because life should alwa

I found my joy! Last week I was onstage again. 200+ people. No script. Just an informal 30-minute onstage conversation with Eva Camerer, VP at Innovation Norway at their Made-In-Norway day event. It’s been a long time since I’ve done something like that… and I forgot how good it can feel when I stop trying to perform… and just show up. Something in me relaxed. Something in me woke up. It surprised me how quickly joy returned — not the “big celebration” kind… but that quiet,

Resilience has a blind spot Maybe I was wrong about Purpose? Resilience has a blind spot. Lately I wrote about how "Burnout isn't the problem, Disconnection from Purpose is". Yesterday I got an email from a friend and colleague that stopped me in my tracks. He wrote: “Rick… my experience was a bit different. Passion was exactly the problem because it masked the signs of burnout. It made me not take my own medicine. It made me feel I can get over anything because it’s my pass

What happens when we lose connection to purpose? A strange thing happened to me last week. I was sitting in a meeting — on paper, a “good” meeting — and yet I had this sinking thought: Why am I here? Not in a dramatic, quit-my-job way. More like… I couldn’t feel the thread. The link between what I was doing and why it really mattered. And when that link disappears, something else creeps in: stress without a clear source. It felt like burnout. I got a vague sense that things w

We will never go back to the good old days... Change is not slowing down. It’s accelerating. Not just in technology. Not just in geopolitics. But in the pace at which we’re asked to adapt, decide, and respond. We won’t be going back to the “good old days.” That chapter is closed. AI is reshaping work faster than most organisations can absorb. New tools and technologies arrive before we’ve even integrated the last ones. Attention is fragmented. Nervous systems are stretched th

Pitching was never my real work If you’ve worked with me before, you probably associate my work with pitch coaching. And that makes sense. Pitching is visible. It’s tangible. You can hear it, see it, judge it. But here’s something I’ve come to understand more clearly over time: Pitch coaching was never my the real work. It was the doorway. Whenever I challenged someone on their pitch, I wasn’t really interested in clever wording or polished slides. I was listening for somethi

Are you Hiding in your Comfort Zone this Summer? It’s summertime. That means it’s time for us to do some unusual things; things that we don’t normally do. But lately I have realised how much of my life I’ve spent hiding. Hiding in the familiar places, routines, tasks and patterns. Hiding deep within my comfort zone. Hiding in the dark. It’s just so damn easy to stick to the familiar and comfortable; to say Yes to the easy jobs, to kick back on the weekend and do as little as

Most entrepreneurs think that pitching is something you do in an elevator or to win a competition. While these are indeed 2 types of pitches, there is a lot more to this. Pitching is how you first get people interested in your product, service or new idea. Think of Pitching as a movie trailer before a full-feature film. Think of it as the intro or executive summary, only with a splash of passion and fun. A pitch is the start and the point at which you begin to infect the audi

As an entrepreneur, there is really only one way to fail. But before I tell you how, let me define what I think an entrepreneur is. My...

My best friend’s wife died recently. Suddenly. Nothing can explain a tragedy like this. But in the midst of bottomless grief and sorrow,...