TL;DR: This week, I stood in a room of 100+ senior leaders at Maxwell Air Force Base and felt something I’ve been building toward since January 2019 - purpose with pressure underneath it. I walked away with 49 notecards, a nearly finished book, five new coaching relationships, and a body that showed up every day. Thursday, I facilitated a "Connective Cohering" session for an organization in Colorado Springs, CO. The soil feels ready. The question is what grows next. 

TSN 26.10: “On Fertile Soil” 

March 8, 2026 

Hiya 

On Monday, I invited a room full of Colonels and Chief Master Sergeants to stop. Just stop. To take a breath. Pick up a 3X5 notecard. And answer one question in silence: 

What could our members be more connected to? 

Then I asked them to get up and walk - find someone, share what they wrote, see where their answers matched, and where they didn’t. The room shifted. People moved. Small groups formed. Notes got written.

I watched from the edges, and I felt something I’ve learned not to say out loud too fast. 

This is working. 

I’ve been doing this facilitative "cohering" for communities here since January 23, 2019 - the day I took the oath as a civilian in the Department of the Air Force.

That’s more than six years of building a case that we are starved for connection and at the same time... terrified of connecting.

Six years of saying: don’t confuse proximity with connectivity.

Six years of asking leaders to be intentional about what they ask their people to do. And, how they ask their members to #Connect.

This week, at Maxwell Air Force Base, I shared my hypothesis out loud with more than 100 senior leaders.

"Our members are starving for connetiON,

yet they fear connectiNG."

And when I offered to trade a smart-card - a small reference tool on the 7 Connections - for the index notecard they’d just written on, 49 people walked up. 

Forty-nine. I counted. 

I flew home with those cards, and I've read through all 49 a couple of times since. Research. Evidence. Fertile soil. 

Here’s the thing about fertile soil, though. It doesn’t mean easy. It means ready. 

Underneath the satisfaction of that room, I felt pressure. I’ll facilitate this session three more times in the coming months - another 350+ people, all of them on their way to senior leader positions.

I want to be worth their time.

Not in a performative way. In the way that keeps me up just enough to make sure the work is true. 

That pressure followed me home and into the rest of the week. Dinner with two leaders. Zoom calls with three others, each of them managing more than they should have to carry alone. I’ve been reading - Thinking in Bets, Weapons of Math Destruction, How to Be the Love You Seek - and what keeps surfacing is how much of how we lead, love, and live was learned by watching.

That third book... HUGE. I've now recommended it to FOUR people. (One already said it's on the "next-to-read" list!)

Leaders, please remember: We didn’t choose our first models.

We just absorbed them. 

The people we lead... they didn't choose who they got to show them what right (or wrong) looks like. So, if you have someone you're leading that isn't "Getting It," please... do some psycho-social study...or, book a coaching with me. See below...

One more thing landed this week.

I've been reading The Story Grid by Shawn Coyne - a book about how stories actually work, what makes them hold together, what makes them fall apart. It's pulling at something I've been circling for a while. The leaders I sit with aren't just managing complexity. They're influencing during a very, very challenging time.

They have a story.

Many of them haven't written it yet. And most of them aren't telling it as impactfully (is that a word?) as they could.

Part of what I want to offer (as a mentor, not just a facilitator) is to help people to find their story, to shape their story, to say their story out loud, and to amplify the lessons learned... in ways that actually land for the people they lead.

The framework matters. So does the telling.

That’s the work underneath the work. And it’s slow. 

Saturday morning, I looked at the wind forecast. Gusts up to 40 kph. I thought about it - genuinely weighed it - and got on the Peloton instead. Not because I was afraid. Because the ride wasn’t worth the risk that day, and I knew the difference. (I did get out for 37 miles on Sunday, though!)

That felt like something. Listening to what’s actually in front of me instead of proving a point to myself. 

I hit 2,000 pushups in the weekly (Monday through Friday!) competition. I finished seven days of physical therapy, seven days out of seven. 

And I sent the first review copies of my new book - The Debrief - out into the world, asking a few sharp readers to tell me if it resonates. 

The body showed up. The ideas are moving. Five new leaders have signed on to a three-month coaching program together. 

The soil feels ready. 

I keep thinking about those 49 notecards.

Forty-nine senior leaders who paused long enough to write something honest, then handed it to a stranger for safekeeping. 

That’s not nothing. That’s not proximity. That’s the beginning of something. 

Where are you planting right now?

Much love from Pasadena,

JW

PS: What are YOU planting on/in your own fertile soil? Let me know…

PPS: If you’re up for reading a draft of what I’ve got, here’s the link...

PPPS: If you know someone (or you!) who’d like coaching, the next sessions start in April. Schedule here.