how to have zero competition [5 Rules]

 Rule 1: The producer that helps the most humans wins, regardless of economic volatility. So make it your obsession to deliver outright magic to your clients.

 

Rule 2: It’s a dangerous cognitive bias of our brains to think that the way things have been in the past will be the same in the future.

 

Rule 3: It’s easier to serve more people, innovate beautifully and lead your field in hard times versus easier ones because so many people are scared.

 

Rule 4: Mastery and domain dominance are far less about having natural talent and far more about the work you do each day to improve your craft. Remember that victims love the television and leaders adore the pursuit of education.

 

Rule 5: Practice is your superpower and while your industry peers are playing with their phones, make sure you’re setting aside at least one hour each day to enrich the one skill that will cause you to be more useful to your customers.

Why you’re being overlooked for VP

 

How VP Promotions Really Get Decided Promotions into VP roles are not merit badges for effort. They are strategic decisions.   Senior leaders look at a bigger, more complex, more visible set of problems and ask one thing. If we give this person that scope, does the business feel safer and move faster?   Inside calibration rooms, no one is studying your last twelve status reports. Leaders are scanning for signals that show you can operate at their altitude. Those signals fall into three buckets.   Perception of leadership Do you lower the noise or add to it. When you speak, do hard things become simple or more complicated. In the first two sentences, do you surface a decision, a tradeoff, and a next step. Or do you list activities and caveats. At the executive level, clarity under pressure is the currency. Your stance, your structure, and your brevity create the perception of leadership. That perception moves decisions.   Trust at scale Directors can still win by doing more. VPs win by scaling more. Leaders look for proof that your results come from systems, operating processes, and decisions that work through other people. Not late night heroics. They notice when meetings end with owners and dates. They notice when momentum continues without you in the room. That is what trust at scale feels like.   Strategic fit Timing matters. Promotions accelerate when your bets point at the problems the company must solve in the next two quarters. Alignment is not politics. It is listening, translating, and tying your outcomes to the metrics that matter now. When your plan matches their goals, leaders feel safer moving you up.   If you remember one line from this section, remember this. At VP altitude, the bar is not did you deliver. The bar is can we trust you to make the business safer and faster when the stakes are high.   Your job is to make the answer to this question “hell yes”.

Four Patterns That Keep High Performers Overlooked Most professionals who get stuck at mid-management are not missing talent. They are trapped in old behaviors that create the wrong perception of how others read their talent. Let’s see if you can recognize yourself in one or more of these:   Pattern 1: Doer optics You move fast and solve problems by yourself. That instinct made you invaluable early on. At this stage, it works against you. Executives see someone who keeps the trains running, not someone who decides where the tracks should go. The more you prove you can handle it all, the more people give you more. Not a promotion. More work.   Pattern 2: Invisible above the manager line Your manager knows your value. Their peers do not. Promotions are decided by the people two levels up who have to feel your impact. If your updates are not visible to them, or if they read like status updates, the conversation ends before it begins. Executive promotions require visibility. They can’t promote what they can’t see.   Pattern 3: No sponsor bench Executive promotions are a team sport. Someone has to say your name in rooms you are not in and vouch for you. Think of it like getting 5-star reviews in real life. If you have not cultivated senior sponsors, you are fighting with no one in your corner. Without advocates it will be hard for your manager to make a case for your promotion.   Pattern 4: No business case for you People like you. They respect you. But could they argue why you should be VP right now. If the answer is no, you are vulnerable. Decision makers want low risk. Without a tight narrative that ties wins to company goals, spells out insights, and names the bets you would make when you have the VP scope, you won’t stand out (and at this level the competition is fierce).   The cost of these patterns They are silent career killers. They stop you from being seen at the next level no matter how hard you work. Over time the cost compounds. More work, same title. Peers leapfrog you.   You’re perceived as reliable but not executive material. The longer it sticks, the harder it is to scrape off.   The VP Shift Model Don’t worry, you do not need a new personality to level up. You need new signals. The VP Shift framework (the one I teach inside of my coaching. program) shows you the three levers you need to work on. When these levers are visible, decision makers start reading you as executive.   Confidence This is not about speaking the loudest. Confidence is about having clarity and conviction. The confidence to push back and protect priorities. The courage to make the hard call even when it’s uncomfortable. People feel safer when you speak because the noise drops and the can see the path forward.   It also means you don’t second guess yourself or try to outsource decisions. You learn to quiet the voice that says you’re an imposter and show up regardless.   What it feels like: Being comfortable in every room you step into, no matter the stakes. Facing hard conversations instead of avoiding them, and making fast decisions without guarantee for success.   Executive presence Presence is not polish. It is a pattern. Rooms feel calmer and more decisive when you are in charge. Conflicts turn into tradeoffs. Meetings become decision factories. People leave with energy because ambiguity got converted into motion.   What it looks like: Taking space, but still making room for others. Thinking strategically at the organization level, not just your scope of work. Getting buy-in and budget approvals because your communication lands just right. Driving change and massive impact with authentic leadership - people just want to follow you.   Strategic visibility Visibility isn’t about bragging - it’s about adding value. It allows you to be in control of how your impact travels to the people who decide on promotions. Your work becomes visible above the manager line. You connect your wins to company goals and make it easy to advocate for you.   What it includes: A monthly update to senior leadership that ties outcomes to company priorities. Speaking up at all hands or asking strategic questions at big meetings . A living business case document capturing both past and future success stories.   Assessment: Are You Being Seen at the Right Level Okay so now you know how decisions are made and what matters most. Time to take a quick assessment to learn where you stand. Check the boxes that apply:   1. Perception of leadership [ ] A senior leader has recently seen me make a clear decision tied to a company priority. [ ] My peers would describe me as strategic and decisive, not just hardworking and reliable. (If the words point to effort instead of altitude, you are being boxed in as a doer).   2. Trust at scale [ ] Recent outcomes can bee attributed to a system or process I built, not personal heroics. [ ] If I stepped away for two weeks, results would hold steady. (If everything depends on you, leaders will not see you as safe to scale).   3. Strategic fit [ ] I can clearly name the company’s top three problems this half. [ ] I can show how my team’s work ties directly to at least one of them. (If you cannot connect the dots, your impact is invisible where promotions get decided).   4. Advocacy [ ] I know which senior leaders would advocate for me if promotions were decided tomorrow. [ ] Those leaders have great success stories to make the case for me. (If no one is advocating for you, performance alone will not get you into the conversation).   If you are not exactly checking all the boxes, it’s time for a change. But understand this: it’s not that you are not good enough or not doing enough. It’s about signal. The people above you aren’t experiencing you as a VP, and that gap compounds over time.   The Cost of Staying Overlooked What happens if nothing changes? If you keep doing more, waiting for recognition, hoping this is the year your manager finally puts your name forward.   More work. Same title. You become indispensable at the wrong level.   Peers leapfrog you. Not because they are better, but because their story sends the right signal. Credibility debt grows. The label great operator, not quite executive sticks more with each cycle. Burnout creeps in. Effort without recognition turns into frustration, then exhaustion.   The good news? Perception is not permanent. With the right shifts, it can change in a single promotion cycle.   Rafael worked for the same company for 10 years, and for 10 years he heard “you’re not there yet” when he brought up a promotion. He had 5 different managers but he was never considered for the role. He did above and beyond, but it seemed like it didn’t matter.   12 months after joining my program he was promoted into a Sr. Director. He didn’t take on more projects or put in more hours. In fact he did less. He spent his time positioning his wins, getting visibility (including a shout out from the CEO) and building relationships with the decisions makers.   He changes his perception.

Your Next Steps Here’s the bottom line: getting promoted into executive leadership isn’t about adding more to your plate. It’s about being experienced differently by the people making decisions.

Kidlin’s Law: The Shortcut to Clarity

 Albert Einstein was once famously asked how he would approach a challenging problem if given one hour to solve it.

His response:

“I would spend 55 minutes defining the problem and 5 minutes solving it.”

It’s an interesting answer. Most of us assume that problem-solving is about…well…solving.

But Einstein’s response highlights an important reality:

Effective problem-solving is often enabled by problem-defining. By creating clarity around the problem, we make solving it much easier.

As it turns out, many of history’s most influential thinkers agreed:

• Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks were filled with questions about the world that he was wrestling with, from “Why is the sky blue?” to “Why does water form waves?”
• Thomas Edison had thousands of notebooks with pages of scratch notes, sketches, and thought experiments as he attempted to deconstruct the big problems he was facing.

This is at the heart of an idea called Kidlin’s Law (origin unknown):

“If you can write down a problem clearly, you’ve already solved half of it.”

Writing is a powerful tool for problem-solving, because writing is thinking. You cannot write clearly if you aren’t thinking clearly.

In a professional context, writing forces you to simplify. Break a complex challenge into its component parts. You begin to see where the real bottlenecks have formed, where the leverage points lie, and how an elegant solution might emerge.

In a personal context, writing cuts through life’s noise. When you feel fear, stress, or anxiety swirling in your mind, write it down. What’s the actual problem? What are you afraid of? Why does it bother you? The moment the problem hits the page, it loses some of its power. The writing itself is part of the solution.

In my own life, I’ve found that writing changes everything. And interestingly, it’s less about what you create on the page and more about what the page creates in you.

Kidlin’s Law offers this reminder:

The clarity you seek is found on the blank page you avoid.

The 25 Best Rules for Leadership by Robin Sharma

 1. When faced with a problem, a leader’s only option is to find a solution. And get the job done.

 

2. If you’re not making the people you lead greater, you’re not really leading. You’re only following.

 

3. You can change the world or you can play with your phone. You can’t do both.

 

4. Income and impact are the marketplace’s reward for the delivery of value and magic.

 

5. You can’t inspire your team and customers if you’re empty of inspiration. So run your calendar so you don’t drain yourself of inspiration. Ever. 

 

6. You must believe in you, when nobody believes in you, until the entire planet believes in you.

 

7. The job of a leader is to walk into what’s uncomfortable, not away from it. Fear is simply freedom waiting for you to embrace it. 

 

8. Instinct is more powerful than intellect and energy is more valuable than intelligence, when it comes to building a great business. And leaving a gorgeous legacy.

9. If you’re not being laughed at a lot you’re not thinking very big.

 

10. The key to a domain dominant company isn’t your products and services but your values and culture. Focus on building amazing ones and your people will live that message.

 

11. A key goal of business is to find a pain that many people suffer from and then solve it elegantly and efficiently. Solve people’s problems and they’ll pay you a fortune.

 

12. Rest for a leader isn’t a luxury but an absolute necessity. Genius-grade ideas show up not when you’re exhausted, but when you’re fresh.

 

13. Getting into the finest fitness of your life by exercise, nutrition and intelligent recovery isn’t a cost but an investment. Cheap costs more.

 

14. Reward is experienced in direct proportion to the amount of risk you’re taking. If you’re not having the level of winning you want, ask yourself if you’re taking enough risks each day. 

 

15. No idea works for someone unwilling to do the work. The billionaires and top leadership teams I mentor are true masters of execution (not meetings!).

 

16. Success in leadership while losing your soulfulness and happiness is fool’s gold.

 

17. A difficult client is a fanatical fan in disguise. Turn the frustrated consumer around by wowing them.

 

18. Stop worrying so much about being interesting or liked and focus more on being interested and helpful. Leadership is not a popularity contest.

 

19. Grit, resilience and being relentless will help you rise to the top so much more than intelligence, good genes and lucky breaks. Persistence is the mother of mastery.

 

20. Join The 5AM Club! It’s a life-changing morning routine that has already helped tens of millions of people just like you consistently make their days magic. Own your mornings and you’ll win your days. Go ahead and get your copy of The 5AM Club book here and start reading it fast! 

 

21. To lead fully is to serve greatly. Being useful to as many people as possible is the master skill of superb leaders. And it’s the gateway into joy, peace and true power. Trust me on this one. Please. 

 

22. Life’s too short to wait for the perfect time to make your ethical ambitions real. Think big, start small and begin now.

 

23. Real leaders pursue a cause that’s larger than themselves. Ego-chasing is a limited game.

 

24. Build a great company and delight many customers yet don’t forget your family. Arriving at the top but being all alone will yield an empty victory.

 

25. Fortune favors the leader who disrupts. Please don’t fall so in love with your winning formula that you begin to fall in love with it.

 

How to Prepare for Executive Meetings

 

The 5 Questions to Answer Before Any Executive Meeting These are the questions I coach every aspiring executive to answer — not because they sound impressive, but because they force you to think like a business leader. Let’s break it down with real guidance:   1. What problem are we solving? This sounds basic, but most people skip it and jump into what’s been done. You’re not there to share progress, you’re there to anchor the conversation in business value.   Before you walk into the room, ask yourself: What is the underlying issue we’re addressing? Is it a drop in revenue, customer engagement, team efficiency, market share?   You need to name it clearly and tie your work to it directly.    Instead of: “We redesigned the homepage.”  Try: “We’re addressing a 40% bounce rate on our pricing page — which is one of the top drop-off points in the conversion funnel.”   Why it matters: This shows you’re not just doing tasks — you’re solving meaningful problems that impact the business.   2. Why does this matter right now? Executives are constantly prioritizing timing matters more than you think.   You need to signal urgency, tradeoffs, or strategic alignment: What’s at risk if this doesn’t happen? Why is this a priority now, not next quarter?    Instead of: “We’re preparing for a fall launch.”  Try: “If we delay go-to-market, we’ll miss the back-to-school cycle — which accounts for 30% of annual revenue in this segment.”   Why it matters: When you frame your work in terms of what’s at stake, you get taken seriously — and prioritized accordingly.   3. What does success look like? How would we measure it? Don’t just describe outputs. Describe outcomes.   Show that you’ve thought about metrics, KPIs, or operational impact: What should change if this works? How will you (and they) know it’s working?    Instead of: “We’re seeing positive engagement so far.”  Try: “Our goal is to increase feature adoption from 12% to at least 25% by the end of Q2, based on weekly active usage.”   Why it matters: Leaders want to invest in outcomes, not activities. Speak in terms of measurable results and strategic payoff.   4. What’s the biggest risk or objection? This is where most people default to vague status updates. Don’t.   Call out what could derail your plan, and what support might mitigate that risk: Is a dependency at risk? Are you short on budget, people, or alignment?    Instead of: “We’re still gathering requirements from the data team.”  Try: “We’re dependent on the data team to finalize the schema by Friday — if it slips, we’ll need to cut two dashboards from phase one.”   Why it matters: Executives don’t expect perfection. They expect foresight. Flagging risks earns trust — as long as you bring a path forward.    5. What do you need from leadership? Too many high-stakes meetings end with… nothing.   If you’re asking execs to spend their time, give them something to decide. Be specific: Do you need a decision? A budget? Cross-functional alignment? What will unblock your next step?    Instead of: “Would love your feedback.”  Try: “We need a decision on whether to proceed with Vendor A or B this week — otherwise we won’t be able to start implementation on Monday.” Why it matters: Direct, timely asks position you as someone who can drive momentum — not just report on it.   Bonus move: Run a pre-meeting listening tour One of the best ways to prepare for a successful exec conversation… is to make sure it’s not your first conversation on the topic.   Before any major meeting: Set up quick 1:1s with key stakeholders. Share a draft of your proposal. Ask, “What concerns do you think will come up?” Listen for priorities, objections, or decision-making cues.   Now you’re walking into the room with insight not assumptions. And you’ve positioned yourself as a collaborative, strategic thinker before the meeting even begins.

Your Next Steps Choose one upcoming meeting — ideally one with visibility or senior stakeholders. Don’t just build your deck. Sit down and answer all five questions — in writing.   Then test your answers: Are they clear and specific? Do they align with what leadership cares about? Do they position you as the kind of leader who sees the big picture?

How Engineering Managers can actually get promoted

 The jump from Engineering Manager (managing ICs) to SEM / Head of / Director (managing managers) is huge.

It might not be as big of a transition as going from IC to EM, but it is certainly not straight forward to navigate.

The ask is simple.

Expand your focus to having organisational influence and transition from tactical execution to initiating and executing strategic bets.

How to get there is not though.

Engineering Manager → Engineering Director

If you’re managing 5–15 engineers today, you likely focus on project plans, 1:1s, some code reviews now and then, and feature delivery. Success feels measurable: did your team hit their sprint goals, did releases go out on time, did bugs stay under control?

At Director level you’re suddenly responsible for 20–80 engineers through multiple managers. You’re expected to:

• Set vision across teams.

• Work with product and business leaders across the company as peers.

• Manage budgets, headcount, and resources.

• Play the long game - making bets today that may not show results for a year.

0Progression stories

The most illuminating career progressions come from engineers who documented their journeys with specific timelines, achievements, and lessons learned.

Emily Nakashima's journey to VP of Engineering at Honeycomb shows how early-stage startup growth creates accelerated advancement opportunities. Starting as employee #12, she progressed from IC to VP in roughly four years through "thousands of small steps rather than dramatic promotions." Her frontend and design background was initially unusual for a VP Engineering role, but she succeeded by developing holistic business thinking, complementing the CTO's technical expertise, and building strong relationships with senior individual contributors who handled complex technical challenges.

Andrew Phillips began his career as a graduate engineer at Skyscanner in 2009 and eventually became VP of Engineering (and now CTO). In his post, “From grad to VP: my journey to leading Skyscanner’s engineering teams globally” he shares how early‑stage impact, hands‑on growth, and deliberate career navigation helped him scale into leadership.

C S Sriram, now VP of Engineering at Betterworks, shared his journey on the groCTO Podcast in an episode titled “How EMs Break into Leadership—Road to Success”. Moving from engineering manager to VP, he talked about the mindset shifts needed, balancing quality with speed, building a culture of accountability, and using structured communication to scale his leadership.

The skills that actually matter

To move up, you need to grow across four axes:

1. Technical depth → technical breadth
   You don’t need to be the best coder anymore. You need to understand enough across systems to make sound decisions and guide decisions. Charity talks about the engineer/manager pendulum - switching between IC and manager roles to stay sharp.

2. Individual output → team development
   Promotions stall for managers who still act like the hero engineer. Your job is to make others successful.

3. Tactical execution → strategic thinking
   Learn how to connect engineering work to business outcomes. Read product strategy docs. Join roadmap discussions. Practice telling execs why this matters in business terms.

4. Direct authority → indirect influence
   At higher levels, you can’t just order people around. You’ll need to persuade, align, and win trust across teams that don’t report to you.

Projects that can prove you’re ready

Not all projects count the same. The ones that catch exec attention share a few traits:

• They solve org-wide problems.

• They show business results (time saved, revenue unlocked, risk reduced).

• They pull in multiple functions (product, design, ops, sales, etc).

• They stretch you beyond your current scope.

Examples:

• Building internal tools that cut costs company-wide.

• Leading a migration (infrastructure, cloud, monolith to services).

• Creating mentoring programs with measurable outcomes.

Tip: If the project feels messy, political, or like no one else wants to own it, it’s probably the right one to grab.

Timing matters

Your effort isn’t the only factor. Company stage plays a huge role:

• Startups in growth mode: You might move from Manager to Director in under two years because new layers of leadership are forming fast.

• Big tech: Expect 3–5 years per level, with heavy process and promotion committees. It’s slower, but more predictable.

• Restructures, acquisitions, or other big changes: Those who stay loyal in difficult times can come out ahead.

Why managers plateau

Managers stall for the same reasons over and over from my experience.

• They stay too focused on writing code instead of enabling others.

• They fail at delegation, trying to be the hero.

• They don’t invest in relationships outside their team.

• They can’t explain impact in plain, measurable terms.

You can be technically brilliant and have great execution skills but still be stuck.
Advancement past the Manager level requires having strong vision, people skills, and be able to navigate politics.

What you should do to progress

If you’re serious about growing, here’s a framework:

1. Gap analysis: Compare yourself to the next role. Where are you weakest: business thinking, indirect influence, technical breadth, or impact measurement?

2. Track your impact: Keep a doc of every win, with metrics. Don’t assume your manager remembers.

3. Grow your network: Connect with other managers, senior leaders, and peers in product/ops. Communities like Rands Leadership Slack can help too.

4. Pick projects wisely: Say yes to the scary, messy, org-wide problems.