ALL POSTS

Preparing for Success - 8 Ways to Stack the Odds in your Favor

What does preparing for success look like? In this short video, a small team prepares to break a major barrier of human achievement; here’s what it takes.

Building a Team - What to Look for When Assembling Your Squad

Whether we get to choose who will be on our team, or we have to work with the people we have right now, building a team for the long-haul is not something we can do overnight.  Here’s a new favorite

Achieving Goals - 5 Ways to Make Your Dreams a Reality

How do we make achieving goals actually happen? The 28th of July was huge for me.  I had been chasing a goal for nearly a year, and was doing my best to make it a reality.  On that particular Sunday,

Getting-Their-Attention-The-Oddball-Effect

How can we get our teammates to sit up and take notice? By slowing down time. Odd as it may seem, we can actually do this, and unlocking this power can be an effective leadership tool. It involves a simple

Transformational Leadership

He found a creative way to complain about a relationship gone bad, but the words of his song reveal the difference between merely managing people and truly leading them. What did he say?   Today I’ll share his thought-provoking quote and

Making Noise - 3 Tips for Better Leading in a Noisy World

“Are we making progress, or just making noise?” Mark Twain has said a lot of funny and interesting things, but do you know what he said about chickens and eggs?  Or how his comment applies to good leadership?  Stick around

Taking the Easy Way

“What’s wrong with taking the easy way?” Sometimes the answer to our problem seems easy.  But the easy solution may not always be the right one.  Today in “Lines for Leaders” I’ll share what one famous person said about the

Planning to be Lucky

Can we really plan to be lucky? He said, “Luck is the residue of design.”  Who was it, and what did he mean?  And more importantly, how can we put his idea to work so that the lucky breaks come

Establishing Trust - Why the Details Matter

How do we establish trust? We know that establishing trust is a key to leading well, but how do we go about it?  An unexpected encounter in the back of a dark garage shines a light on how we can

Leading Your Army - Is it Really the One You Wanted?

If leading your army feels like a parade, you might be doing it wrong. Appearances are important, and first impressions matter, but too often we can find ourselves overly focused on how things look at the expense of how well

Overloaded - The Thing That Keeps Us From Leading Well

“Are we carrying around things that make us poor leaders?” It’s easy to collect things, harder to let them go.  But as leaders we have to be aware that some of those things, one in particular, can get in our

Following the Follower - 15 Ways to Lead Better by Following Better

Can being better followers make us better leaders? Focusing on following may seem an odd way to tackle the challenges of leading, but there’s a power in this approach we can easily overlook. There’s a danger in ignoring it, too. 

Setting Limits - 15 Ways to Do More By Giving Ourselves Less

Is having no limits really a good thing? We often find ourselves wishing that the limitations in our lives were gone.  We yearn for a mythical time when we can do whatever we want however we want for as long

The Eraser Test - How to Know When Its Time for a Change

How do we know when to change the plan? A casual remark by a friend last week got me thinking about the idea of flexibility and change.  As leaders, we choose the objectives and set the course.  But once we’re

Change the Game - 7 Ways to Build Teammates Who Can Do More

How do we increase the odds of “winning” with the team we have? At the beginning of any game, everyone starts with the same number of players on the board.  And in the rush to get things done, we focus

Welcome to the Team!
It's great to have you join us!
Ken Downer - Founder of RapidStart Leadership
Please check your email
to confirm (and get a gift)
lead your virtual team

Subscribe now