No #174 | June 22, 2025

by Matthew Boyd

Good morning, welcome to the weekly Lead It Cool newsletter.

I've gotten lots of requests for videos of the "Dads' Dance" performance that I was in last week (video or it didn't happen!).

There's a pretty strict ban on the audience filming during the performances because it's distracting for everyone, however, someone did snap a contraband photo, and while you do need to squint, you can clearly spot my awkwardness from a mile away🩰😜.

In this week's Lead It Cool newsletter:

• 🏫Graduation Season
• 📉Wellbeing Chart
• 🤣Out of Office
• 😎Cool Links

🏫Graduation Season

It's graduation season!

We were downtown in Victoria on Friday night for dinner and saw lots of young people all dressed up, celebrating their graduations. There’s something truly special about the energy and excitement on their faces as they mark one of life’s major milestones.

A couple of years ago, I had the chance to celebrate my own graduation from the UVic MBA program. Accepting my degree in front of my kids remains one of my proudest moments.

Throughout the program, I obsessively took notes. Here are some of my favourite tidbits of wisdom that I captured during lectures, readings, and group discussions that I often reflect on.

🚀You are always selling something. Get good at sales.

🏫School is practice without consequences. Therefore, don't strive for "As", strive for innovation and experimentation.

🤔Not all problems need to be solved. Some problems need to be starved.

😎As a leader, you should be feeling uncomfortable most of the time if you're doing your job properly.

➡️The easy way out usually leads back in.

🎵Too many soloists, not enough music.

🤸🏽‍♀️The most important part of any customer experience is to stick the landing. Everyone always remembers how it ended.

📉Wellbeing Chart

Ok. Look at this chart and what is your immediate reaction?

You're probably drawing the same conclusion I did when I first saw it: Life is least enjoyable during your mid-40s.

True?

Ok, now look at the X axis.

The range they're presenting isn't 1-10, it's 6.2-7.0, meaning the actual fluctuation in happiness over time is less than one point. This graph has been designed to present the data variance swings as being far more dramatic than they actually are.

Here's the chart with a more accurate X-axis:

A barely noticeable difference now🤷‍♂️.

Now if you'll please excuse me I'm going to go make a chart about how our ability to interpret data increases as we get older😜.

🤣Out of Office

Ha!

😎Cool Links

🤔How leaders can change the 'mattering deficit' at work. When we think about what makes an impressive leader, we often color it in terms like inspiring, courageous, or even heroic. But research shows that, when asked about great leaders in their own lives, people don’t talk about grand actions or noble qualities. More likely than not, people point out small interactions—moments—when a leader helped them feel seen or heard, illuminated gifts they didn’t know they had, or provided affirmation. Psychologists call this sense of significance mattering, and the best leaders have trained in and practice the skill of showing people their value.

🦈50 Years Later, 'Jaws' Endures as Well as Ever. Not everyone remembers their first time seeing Jaws so vividly. The movie, which changed Hollywood forever in more ways than one, has been a part of our cultural fabric ever since. It invented the summer blockbuster, launched Steven Spielberg’s career (he was 26 when he directed the film), inspired a slew of sharksploitation imitators, and instilled a fear of the ocean in multiple generations of movie fans. If you’re not old enough to have seen Jaws in theaters, you probably absorbed it by osmosis, thanks to countless cable TV airings and pop culture references.

🤔Always go to the funeral. "Always go to the funeral" means that I have to do the right thing when I really, really don't feel like it. I have to remind myself of it when I could make some small gesture, but I don't really have to and I definitely don't want to. I'm talking about those things that represent only inconvenience to me, but the world to the other guy. You know, the painfully under-attended birthday party. The hospital visit during happy hour. In my humdrum life, the daily battle hasn't been good versus evil. It's hardly so epic. Most days, my real battle is doing good versus doing nothing.

💡Assume lack of context. The person you’re working with might not know what you know, might not see what you see It’s tempting to begin where we are. But it’s more useful to begin where they are.

😹AI video of cats doing Olympic diving. More please.

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