2 Min Read
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Your Strategy Didn’t Fail — Your System Did
Let’s not pretend your team didn’t try this week. You probably worked hard. Everyone always does. But did the work move smoothly… or did it feel like sprinting through sand? In The Matrix, Neo learns he doesn’t have to dodge every bullet — he just needs to understand the system. Same thing here. When GovCon…
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Want Repeatable Wins in GovCon? Build Better Systems, Not Bigger Goals
There’s a famous quote often misattributed to Aristotle: “We are what we repeatedly do.” In GovCon, that’s gospel. Your team isn’t defined by the color team goals on a whiteboard — it’s defined by how you prep every Red Team, recover every draft, and lead every kickoff. Greg McKeown’s Essentialism flips the script on productivity.…
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Touched Everything but Finished Nothing? Here’s Why.
You know the week. The one where you “touched” 47 things but finished exactly… one. Maybe? This isn’t a failure — it’s the result of an overloaded attention economy. And GovCon isn’t immune. In fact, it might be ground zero. The Creative Act reminds us that you can’t create (or lead) if you’re constantly reacting.…
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Focus Is a GovCon Superpower — And You’re Probably Undervaluing It
There’s a reason proposals get bloated. A million inputs, constant context-switching, and a pressure-cooker environment that rewards reactivity over depth. But here’s the secret: most winning content isn’t created in a frenzy — it’s crafted in focus. Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act reframes creative work as something intentional, not frantic. I listened to it during…
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What You Made Harder Than It Needed to Be — and Why That Matters
Let’s not pretend. There’s something oddly satisfying about building a gorgeous slide deck with perfectly cropped logos and a clever three-part slogan. But when you zoom out, was that the work… or just your way of delaying the harder stuff? There’s a moment in The Devil Wears Prada where Anne Hathaway’s character stresses over “cerulean”…
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The GovCon Secret to Finishing Faster: Stop Overcomplicating Everything
Proposals aren’t won by perfection—they’re won by relevance, clarity, and responsiveness. And if we’re honest, we often trade all three just to make things “look right.”
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The Real Reason You Didn’t Make Progress This Week (And How to Fix It)
Let’s be honest: Did you spend more time this week thinking about your response than writing it? Did you wait for the kickoff before assigning a tech lead? Did you hold off on that call with a teaming partner until you had your price model baked? If so, you’re not alone—but you might be slower…
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Why Waiting to Feel ‘Ready’ Is Costing You Contracts in GovCon
If you’ve ever worked on a proposal team, you know the drill: someone says “We’ll get started once we have the RFP.” Then it drops, and suddenly your team is scrambling to write 30 or 50 pages, wondering why it always feels like you’re behind. Welcome to the trap of waiting to be ready. In…
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The first one…
Building something from nothing is the extraordinary experience of innumerable ordinary moments tied together to form something entirely new. It’s humbling, it’s overwhelming, it’s frustrating, it’s exciting, and terrifying. Every day. I’m really excited to be at the stage of PN’s evolution where it can be shared with people, however terrifying that is. For months…