Leading Beyond the Horizon
Reflecting on 2025 and Building Momentum for 2026
A year of lessons and leadership evolution
As we are a week away from closing out 2025, many leaders like you across industries pause their usual day-to-day to-dos to reflect on the year that challenged the norms, accelerated innovation, and redefined what it means to lead with resilience. This year has truly ...
Leadership is not just about influence or success—it’s about living out values that endure. For me, the Five Pillars of IOL—Faith, Family, Foundation, Leadership, and Work—are more than concepts. They are the lived experiences that have shaped my journey as CEO of CCB Technology, founder of Impact of Leadership, and as a husband, father, and second-generation business ow...
Break Free to Move Forward
The Silent Struggle of Feeling Stuck
Everyone faces a moment when they hit a plateau, when progress feels impossible. The overall goals are clear, and the vision is motivating. Yet, the path forward seems to have a roadblock. The sense of being “stuck” isn’t just frustrating, but it also decreases confidence, stalls ideas, and can impact t...
Lessons from Cedarville’s IMPACT Conference: Lead With Conviction & Compassion
Let’s be honest—leadership isn’t always glamorous. Sometimes it’s awkward. Sometimes it’s painful. And sometimes it’s just plain embarrassing. I’ve failed as a dad, a son, and a business leader more times than I can count. But here’s the thing: I’m st...
From the Locker Room to Leadership
Lessons Learned On and Off the Ice
From an early age, I have been involved in sports, either as a fan or a player. Being the youngest of two, I was introduced to athletic environments through my brother's participation in various sports, which sparked a desire in me to follow in his footsteps. Whatever sport he was playing, I had to give it...
Hitting the Wall
The path toward surrender as a leader
My husband and I made a large-scale move back to our hometown of Racine, Wis. four years ago. It was spurred by two things: a job opportunity for my husband, and my feelings of isolation during Covid. These were compounded by the fact that I had been dreaming of raising our children near our extended family for quite some time. W...
When Life Punches you in the Teeth
Leading through crisis
I am not resilient.
When life gets hard, I usually do one of two things: I get angry and demonstrative, or I run away. Usually, I do the latter since it generally does less damage. Running away doesn’t mean literally hoofing it down the street and away from my life. Instead, I like to dress it up and call it, &ldq...
Listening to your Gut
On Making Decisions
Each day is comprised of a multitude of micro-decisions. What to eat, what to wear, where to go, when to leave, what to say, how to say it, when to apologize, when to apologize again, and then again, and so forth.
Motherhood has come with an even greater number of decisions, and I’ll admit I wasn’t particularly great at mak...
And Get to Work.
Sometimes we think too highly of ourselves.
I blame it on team sports for young children. Every player gets a medal—the winners, the losers, the ones who hardly showed up. No matter the effort put forth from the child, each one will leave the last game with a shiny award around his or her neck for a job well done.
As a mother of young children, I ...
Michelle has worked as a customer service representative for almost two years. She fields calls and emails each day with tact, clarity and care. When she began, she was required to obtain a large knowledge base about the company’s many complicated services. She learned quickly, eager to do her job well. Since then, she has responded to customer inquiries with efficiency and accuracy.
...
