AuthorJosh Nicholls

I teach and invite people to act. Proud husband, father and amateur pizzaiolo

Light vs Dark

By Josh Nicholls
8 months ago
3 Min Read
In Leadership
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I am a deep believer in principle based leadership and decision making. There is no set of processes or approaches that can deal with every single context, but principles can guide our thinking and help us make wiser and better decisions.

For nearly 12 years at Microsoft I was looking for and seeking to discover the principles by which teams, business units, or entire organizations within Microsoft built sustaining impact. There is no one principle that fixes everything, but I have boiled down 12 years of observation into a simple four world principle. 

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2024 Year in Review

By Josh Nicholls
January 14, 2025
6 Min Read
In Self Discovery
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This was the year of two metrics and it is interesting how it panned out. I’m grateful for the greater focus this year, it helped me to see progress in a way I have not seen as clearly before. Let’s take a moment to reflect back on the metrics I tracked and then some of the things I learned.

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2023 Year in Review

By Josh Nicholls
January 9, 2024
4 Min Read
In Self Discovery
2

The year of 2023 was my year to focus on living a healthy life. At the beginning of 2023 I decided a healthy life consisted of several buckets. Alongside each bucket, I documented my intention. Below you will find my buckets, intentions, and learnings/reflections.

Not documented in my post last year were the measurements that I was using to track my progress on these buckets. About halfway through the year I stopped tracking my progress. This happened for two reasons.

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Pause to Focus

By Josh Nicholls
October 2, 2023
3 Min Read
In Self Discovery
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If you have read any of my posts over the last few months then you’ll know I’ve been focusing my efforts and energy on four things: marriage, memories (with my family), health and home. This has proven to be a valuable activity and has been the catalyst for deeper reflection. This reflection has led to some changes I am making with my writing practice.

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Squeaks Come Before the Music

By Josh Nicholls
August 31, 2023
2 Min Read
In Learning
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This year my oldest daughter is in 6th grade and if you have had a sixth grader before you know students in sixth grade have the opportunity to experiment with band or orchestra.

We talked it through with my daughter and she thought the violin would be a fun instrument. For the first two weeks of school, they learned about the instrument and plucked at the strings. This week she came home and with some excitement shared she got to try out the bow for the first time on the violin. She laughed saying that she’s learned how to squeak on the violin but eventually she will be able to make music.

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What is Your Source of Validation?

By Josh Nicholls
August 30, 2023
2 Min Read
In Self Discovery
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Everyone on earth has a need for validation. And by validation, I mean a need to “check” the accuracy or validity of who you believe you are as a human being on this earth. As I have gotten older and been exposed to more adult challenges, I have learned we all have a need to be validated.

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It’s Urgent, Slow Down

By Josh Nicholls
July 28, 2023
2 Min Read
In Leadership
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Earlier this month I had a conversation with Simon Lamb who is a dear friend of mine and brilliant thinker. He pushes me to do better and be better.

We were both discussing our need to focus on family and other things beyond our work. We talked in the context of the famous 2×2 matrix of urgent and important made popular by Steven Covey and we realized that today, that matrix doesn’t serve us as well. The pace of change and the speed at which we are demanded to get things done is dramatically different than it was in the 80’s. There are more things that are urgent and important so that quadrant is being filled with fewer and fewer urgent and not important items.

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About Me

Josh Nicholls

I teach and invite people to act. Proud husband, father and amateur pizzaiolo

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