John Peltonen

I’ve been an entrepreneur for over 20 years now. At almost every stage of the process, I’ve had someone telling me that culture matters. The quote, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” has been a common refrain since I started my first company in 2002. I always shrugged it off because my companies always had great … Read more

Usually, the systems that we have in our business that work for our existing scale fail with any significant level of revenue growth. When we start to feel the stress of growth, we look to make our existing systems more efficient. That works for a period of time, until it doesn’t – usually with a … Read more

In the past, I’ve gone too slowly, not wanting to screw up my business, my personal life, etc. In fact, there is a period of my life I call my “beige period” – totally bland. I offended no one, screwed nothing up, and did nothing interesting. On that note, but maybe for different reasons, I … Read more

For most of my life, I thought that that rules and structure hamper both my creativity and ability to get stuff done. I was wrong. Structure drives creativity It’s not where we have unlimited resources that we’re most creative, it’s where we have limited resources. We use our creativity to push our medium, be it … Read more

The difference between a planned city and a city that grew organically is striking. I grew up in and around Boston. While no one is fully convinced that the roads are based on cow paths, the argument makes sense when zoomed out. Either way, I would argue that Boston’s growth happened independently of any sort … Read more

The concept of living an unconscious life seems preposterous… unless you’re in a coma. Yet, it comes up all the time. Most recently, for me, it was in Eckhart Tolle’s book, A New Earth. The thing is, we talk about it with phrases like this: “Am I aware not only of what is happening at … Read more

Recently, I was lucky enough to sit down with Dianna Anderson, CEO of Cylient. Dianna helps leaders transform into growth-oriented coaches. She tells me she does this be working to help shift leaders’ world views on what it means to lead. She shared an image she uses when training these leaders. It is of a … Read more

Before I even start, I want to put this out there: James Clear is the Zig Ziglar of habits. His book, Atomic Habits is full of pithy quotes that stick with me. This whole blog post is inspired by one of his quotes: “Master the habit of showing up.” In fact, I made this quote … Read more

In my last post, I talked about how it is so important to get started on doing the little things that add up to a big goal. And how I get stuck in a preparation/research stage and never get anything done. Frequently, this is because of my inner perfectionist. Perfectionism has your second-best interests at … Read more

When setting goals, I have this tendency to want to move mountains. I love thinking big picture, grand vision, big outcomes, etc. It is much more rare for me to have a goal around shoveling. In other words, the little things that will, if done daily, actually move that mountain. When the New Year rolls … Read more