LIAM CHRISMER

Before you spend thousands of dollars and a dozen workdays a year in a room full of other CEOs, you ought to know what you're buying. CEO peer groups have been around for decades. The granddaddy, Vistage, began as The Executive Committee (TEC) in Milwaukee in 1957. Today, Vistage reports about 45,000 members in 40 countries, making it the world's largest CEO peer advisory organization. Impressive. But does a CEO running a $15 million manufacturing business in Denver really be

When was the last time you read a book that had absolutely nothing to do with your business? I'm not talking about the latest leadership book you snagged at Hudson News on your last trip or the book David Senra summarized on the Founders podcast. Something different. A novel. A biography. History. Philosophy. Perhaps something that challenged a belief you've held for years. CEOs spend enormous amounts of time consuming information: emails, financial reports, dashboards, artic

You have a top-notch C-Suite. You also have an attorney, an accountant, a banker, maybe a wealth advisor. Depending on the size of your company, you may have a bank of consultants crawling all over the place. You hire smart people because you understand that you don’t know everything. Nor do you need to. And then we get to you. The CEO. Oh, now that’s a different story. Maybe you’ve got an MBA, or maybe a Leadership Certificate from Harvard or Wharton. But think about it. The

What to look for, what to avoid, and why it matters more than you think Most CEOs who want a coach don't know how to find one. And most of the advice out there about choosing a CEO coach is written by people who've never sat in the chair. I have. I was a CEO before I became a CEO coach. I made every mistake a CEO can make. You name it: falling in love with my own ideas, ignoring the warning signs in my personal life until they showed up in my business, and operating without a

Many CEOs treat their well-being like an afterthought. Something they'll get to after the new promotion launches or after whatever deal they're working on gets done. You know the story, one thing leads to another. And they never get to it. I know because I was that CEO. I ran myself into the ground because I thought that's what the job required. I confused exhaustion with effort and sacrifice with strength. Nobody told me I was wrong because nobody had the courage or the perm

7 Reasons the Best Ones Do I became the CEO coach I needed and never had when I was a CEO. Why? Because as a CEO, I made a lot of dumb decisions that I thought made sense at the time. I fell in love with all my great ideas, some of which weren’t really grounded in reality. I needed a sounding board, someone to push back and challenge my thinking. And honestly, I rarely had anyone with whom I could have an intelligent, vulnerable conversation, without fear of judgment or discl

our days are jammed. One meeting bleeds into the next. You walk out of a contentious budget review straight into a product design session, followed immediately by a sensitive 1-on-1 with your CFO. On your calendar, these meetings are neatly separated by a thin gray line. But cognitively, they bleed into one another. We've all watched our laptops slow to a crawl because we have too many browser tabs open. Your brain works exactly the same way. You routinely march into critical

This is the seventh and final installment in a seven-part blog series exploring the lessons of James Hollis' Living an Examined Life through the lens of CEO Mental Fitness. Hollis is a Jungian analyst, not a business guru. His work may be the most important leadership reading you'll ever do. He explores the hidden drivers of human behavior: the unconscious patterns, inherited expectations, and adaptive strategies formed long before you ever sat in the corner office. Over 21 L

This is the sixth in a seven-part blog series exploring the lessons of James Hollis' Living an Examined Life through the lens of CEO Mental Fitness. Hollis is a Jungian analyst, not a business guru. His work may be the most important leadership reading you'll ever do. He explores the hidden drivers of human behavior: the unconscious patterns, inherited expectations, and adaptive strategies formed long before you ever sat in the corner office. Over 21 LinkedIn posts, I explore

Don't Worry. Be Happy. Chapter 13 Remember that catchy little song? This Happiness thing is a bugger. That elusive nirvana we're all in search of. Afterall, it's in the Constitution. Our dear friend James Hollis, my favorite psychoanalyst, says we're slapping at the wrong pinata. Most of us were sold on the myth that if we did our homework, worked hard, and ate our vegetables, we would wind up happy. Then we learned that the things that make us happy, leave us hungry for more