CardCast

Most companies do not really imagine the future.

They look at last year’s numbers, add 8%, 10%, maybe 12%, and call it a strategic plan. But that is not CEO's vision. That is arithmetic.

This is why the card Imagining the Future matters so much to me.

As a CEO, your job is not simply to manage what already exists. Your job is to see what does not exist yet. To imagine where the organization could go and what it could become. 

And yet, this is one of the places where I see CEOs struggle most.

A real CEO vision includes the market you want to play in, the customers you want to serve, the capabilities you need to build, the team you need around you, the position you want to hold, and the kind of business you actually want to lead.

That takes imagination. Not fantasy or wishful thinking.

Strategic planning for CEOs has to start with the ability to place yourself in the future, look around, and ask: What do we want to be true once we get there?

Only then can you work backward and build the plan.

The moment you can communicate that vision clearly is the moment your team can start moving toward it, but you cannot lead people toward a future you have not imagined.

And you cannot build a strategic plan around a vision you have not learned how to communicate.

Key-Card points:

• Most CEOs plan from the past. 

• The CEO’s job is to imagine what does not exist yet. 

• A clear future is more than a number. 

• Vision has to be communicated. 

• Learning feeds imagination. 

Links & Resources

• Imagining The Future

• Veverka.ca

Connect with Milan

• Veverka.ca

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• Crystalyzer.com

• LinkedIn

CardCast is produced by Lovemore Media.

I used to think “Luxury To Waste Time”  sounded like something a CEO had to earn.

Something you got to do once the inbox was empty, the team was aligned, the fires were out, and the business was finally running smoothly.

But of course, that day rarely comes. There is always another message, another meeting, another customer issue, another decision waiting for attention. And somewhere along the way, many CEOs start to believe that being constantly busy is the same thing as leading well.

That is why this card challenged me.

Because the more we talked about it, the less it felt like a luxury. Sometimes, the time that looks unproductive from the outside may be the very time a CEO needs most. Time to think. Time to step back. Time to see what the business cannot see while everyone is trapped in the whirlwind.

Busy has become a badge of honor. It has become a way of proving that we matter, that we are contributing, that we are needed. But busy can also be a warning sign.

It can mean I have no time to think. No time to look ahead. No time to read, learn, plan, recharge, or imagine what is possible next. It can mean I am still holding onto work that should have been handed off months or years ago.

A CEO might spend fourteen hours coding, checking customer support emails, or closing sales because that is where they feel competent. But if the real fire is in operations, strategy, team design, or the board, that busyness is not leadership. It is avoidance dressed up as productivity.

The real work of a CEO often happens in the space between tasks.

It happens while reading a book, walking the dog, going to a conference outside your industry, studying the market, spending time with family, or simply letting your mind get quiet enough to see what is next.

That space is not laziness. It is not indulgence. It is where vision forms.

I called this the CEO’s ability to “time travel”: to place yourself in the future, imagine the end state, and then work backward. It reminds me of something I learned in pilot school: never point the airplane somewhere you have not already been in your mind.

If the business is flying you, you are not flying the business.

And if you are too busy to think about where you are going, you may be wasting the most important time you have.

Key-Card points:

• Busyness is not proof of leadership

• The real waste is doing work that is no longer yours 

• White space is strategic work 

• If you cannot step away, something is wrong 

• The CEO must be able to “time travel.” 

Links & Resources

• Luxury To Waste Time

• Veverka.ca

Connect with Milan

• Veverka.ca

• LinkedIn

Connect with Ged

• Crystalyzer.com

• LinkedIn

CardCast is produced by Lovemore Media.

I used to think meeting prep was just the responsible thing to do before a meeting. Read the dashboard. Check the agenda. Know your numbers. Show up ready.

Useful, but not exactly profound.

Then Damien Burn said something years ago that I have repeated more times than I can count:

“I didn’t have time to prepare for a short meeting, so we are going to have a long one.”

That line stuck with me because it names something every CEO has felt. You walk into a meeting expecting a decision, and instead, you spend half the time getting everyone caught up. The simple thing becomes complicated. The short meeting becomes a long one. And usually, it is not because the issue was unclear.

It is because someone did not prepare.

That is why this card is Meeting Prep.

Meeting prep is not really about meetings. It is about accountability.

Damien Burn joins us for this episode, and that feels especially fitting. He was my coach during a pivotal season when I was still a CEO, and his influence helped shape my own path into coaching. He brings a direct, practical lens to accountability, meeting rhythm, metric ownership, and the habits that turn strong individuals into a real leadership team.

Because when someone shows up late, unprepared, or sees their numbers for the first time in the meeting, they are telling you something. They may not mean to, but they are saying, “I did not treat this as important enough before I walked in.”

A prepared team can make decisions. An unprepared team creates more meetings. A prepared leader can own the number, name the issue, and ask for help early. An unprepared leader waits until someone notices, then offers an excuse.

Meeting prep opens the door to the bigger conversation: peer accountability, metric ownership, first-team thinking, and culture. If you own a metric, you should know the number. If you sit on the leadership team, that is your first team. And if you are the CEO, culture is not something you delegate and hope for the best.

Key-Card points:

• Meeting prep is a signal of respect 

• Unprepared meetings create more meetings 

• A players prepare differently 

• Peer accountability matters 

• Culture is the CEO’s accountability 

Links & Resources

• Meeting Prep

• Veverka.ca

Connect with Milan

• Veverka.ca

• LinkedIn

Connect with Ged

• Crystalyzer.com

• LinkedIn

CardCast is produced by Lovemore Media.

I keep coming back to one simple hiring question: 

What DON’T you want to do?

It sounds simple, but in a job interview, it can reveal what a polished resume never will. Most interviews focus on what someone is good at, what they’ve achieved, and what they want next. But this question flips the conversation. It asks for the truth behind the performance.

That’s what I love about this card. It doesn’t try to trick anyone. It gives people room to be clear, and it belongs in every serious hiring conversation.

A-players usually know what energizes them, but they also know what drains them. They are not trying to be everything to everyone. They know where they create value, and where they start to lose energy.

And that kind of clarity matters.

Because hiring for fit is not just about finding someone who can do the job. It is about finding someone who actually wants the work the role requires. A great hiring question should help both sides see the truth before day one.

Hiring someone is only the beginning. Keeping them means giving them more of the work they came to do, and less of the work that quietly makes them want to leave.

Sometimes what a candidate says matters. But how they answer tells you even more.

Key-Card points:

• What A-players know about themselves 

• Why “what don’t you want to do?” belongs in interviews 

• How to spot role misalignment early 

• Why vague answers are a red flag 

• How leaders can hire for fit, not just skill 

Links & Resources

• What DON’T you want to do?

• Veverka.ca

Connect with Milan

• Veverka.ca

• LinkedIn

Connect with Ged

• Crystalyzer.com

• LinkedIn

CardCast is produced by Lovemore Media.

Welcome back to CardCast! Today, we’re going to be talking about Reframe.

There’s a moment I keep noticing in everyday scenarios where everything just stops… And it usually sounds like, “We can’t do that.”

And the second that lands, the room changes, and the energy drops. It’s like we’ve all agreed to shut the door without even checking if it’s locked. That’s where Reframe steps in.

Instead of accepting it, you flip it: “What would need to be true for this to work?”

That one shift doesn’t guarantee anything, but it changes the posture completely. You move from defending the problem to actually exploring it. Because “we can’t” is almost never a fact. It’s usually a pile of assumptions we haven’t bothered to question.

And then there are the harder moments, the ones no one wants to reframe, like layoffs. The shift there wasn’t to pretend it was good, but to recognize that the company was heading toward a restructure anyway. Now it was being forced to do it. So the question became how to do it well, without wasting the moment.

That’s the thing about reframing. It doesn’t make situations easier. It just makes them usable.

Key-Card points:

• “We can’t” is usually an assumption, not a fact

• Reframing shifts you from defensive thinking to creative thinking

• Constraints can become strategic advantages

• The best reframes often involve who, not how

• Comfort is the biggest enemy of better thinking

Links & Resources

• Reframe

• Veverka.ca

Connect with Milan

• Veverka.ca

• LinkedIn

Connect with Ged

• Crystalyzer.com

• LinkedIn

CardCast is produced by Lovemore Media.

Welcome back to CardCast! Today, we’re going to be talking about Prioritization.

There’s a phrase that sounds harmless… but quietly wrecks more progress than almost anything else: “I didn’t have time.”

It’s insane how often that line slips out without being questioned. It feels true. It feels justified. But when you actually stop and look at it, it’s rarely accurate.

Because the truth is a lot less comfortable: you didn’t run out of time, you chose something else.

What if every time you said “I didn’t have time,” you replaced it with “I prioritized something else” instead? Suddenly, your decisions become visible, and once they’re visible, they’re hard to ignore.

The issue with priorities is that they lose meaning when there are too many of them. Seven priorities isn’t prioritization, it’s avoidance. At some point, you have to force the trade-offs. Not theoretically, but brutally.

If you could only do one… what survives? And more importantly, what are you willing to let go of to protect it? Because every “yes” is quietly a “no” to something else, whether you acknowledge it or not.

That’s the real tension here. Not time management. Not productivity.

Choice.

Key-Card points:

• Scheduling priorities is the only reliable way to ensure they actually happen

• “I didn’t have time” is a lie

• Too many priorities = no real priorities

• Every decision carries an opportunity cost

• Effective prioritization requires forced trade-offs

  
  

Links & Resources

• Prioritization

• Veverka.ca

Connect with Milan

• Veverka.ca

• LinkedIn

Connect with Ged

• Crystalyzer.com

• LinkedIn

CardCast is produced by Lovemore Media.

Are we debating or are we deciding? That is the question.

Welcome back to CardCast! Today, we’re going to be talking about Big Debate vs Big Decisions.

This card takes me back to every meeting that somehow ends with… “let’s circle back.” It’s not because the team is lazy, but because no one ever decided what the meeting was actually for.

The Big Debate, Big Decisions card draws a sharp (and surprisingly powerful) line between two very different modes: debate and decision. One is about exploring and questioning, while the other is about committing, choosing, and moving forward.

The problem? Most teams try to do both at the same time and end up doing neither well.

When you remove the pressure to decide, the debate gets better. When you separate the decision, commitment gets stronger. And when people feel heard in the debate, they’re far more willing to disagree and commit to the decision.

It’s not about more meetings. It’s about a clearer intent.

Key-Card points:

• Debate and decision are two completely different mental states

• Removing decision pressure creates better thinking

• If you only have two options, you probably don’t have options

• A short pause goes a long way

Links & Resources

• Big Debate, Big Decisions

• Veverka.ca

Connect with Milan

• Veverka.ca

• LinkedIn

Connect with Ged

• Crystalyzer.com

• LinkedIn

CardCast is produced by Lovemore Media.

Welcome back to CardCast! Today, we’re going to be talking about The Impossible Goal.

This card takes me back to a moment where something felt completely impossible: realizing the night before a flight that both my kids’ passports had expired.

For a second, our trip was over… But then it wasn’t about options anymore. There was only one question: Is there a way?

And there was. We didn’t have time to overthink the situation. All we could do was execute and see if it worked.

And it did!

That’s really what this card is about.

That’s what The Impossible Goal is about. That situation only worked because it was constrained and forced quick thinking and execution.

Most of the time, we give ourselves more time and flexibility, and ironically, that’s what slows us down. We create options we don’t need.

But when you set something that feels almost unrealistic and ask, “What has to be true for me to achieve this goal?”, everything sharpens.

You stop doing things that don’t move you forward, and you focus on the one path that does.

Key-Card points:

• Impossible goals create clarity

• “What needs to be true?” is the unlock

• Constraints are not the enemy

• Focus requires sacrifice (or prioritization)

• You can manufacture urgency

Links & Resources

• The Impossible Goal

• Veverka.ca

Connect with Milan

• Veverka.ca

• LinkedIn

Connect with Ged

• Crystalyzer.com

• LinkedIn

CardCast is produced by Lovemore Media.

Welcome back to CardCast! Today, we’re going to be talking about The Don’t Do List.

We’re all great at building to-do lists. Adding. Expanding… But is anyone intentional about stopping?

And that’s where the real leverage is.

Because every low-value task we keep doing isn’t neutral, it’s actively stealing time and energy from something better. That’s the real cost. Not what we’re doing… but what we’re not doing because of it.

The greatest thing about the “do not do” list is that it exposes hidden inefficiencies, and that the highest ROI move in most organizations isn’t adding something new, it’s removing what no longer matters.

The takeaway is simple, but not easy:

If you want better outcomes, don’t just ask what to do next. Ask what needs to stop.

Key-Card points:

• Low-value work creates hidden opportunity cost

• Stopping often requires investment

• The best organizations treat the don’t do list as ongoing

• Even useful tasks can be harmful if they block higher-value work

Links & Resources

• The Don't Do List

• Veverka.ca

Connect with Milan

• Veverka.ca

• LinkedIn

Connect with Ged

• Crystalyzer.com

• LinkedIn

CardCast is produced by Lovemore Media.

Welcome back to CardCast! Today's episode sees us joined by our second guest, Carter Jensen, and the topic couldn’t be more relevant today:

Everything A.I.

This episode brings three AI cards together: AI, Not How, How to AI, and Value of AI.

AI isn’t just another hype cycle like past tech trends; it’s a fundamental shift. The real divide isn’t between companies using AI and those that aren’t; it’s between those using it well and those using it poorly.

AI is quickly becoming a new kind of workforce, one that can take on repetitive, research-heavy tasks, freeing humans to focus on their actual zone of genius. 

When it comes to actually using AI, the answer is surprisingly simple: start. Don’t chase every new tool or trend, but bring AI into your day-to-day workflow. Treat it like a co-pilot.

Every task becomes a prompt: “How could AI help with this?” 

The real value of AI is leverage. It gives individuals and teams access to a level of knowledge and capability that simply wasn’t possible before.

The cost of ignoring AI isn’t standing still, it’s falling behind.

Key-Card points:

• AI is a “who,” not a “how.”

• AI should free humans to focus on their zone of genius

• Treat AI like a co-pilot, not a shortcut

• The winners are integrating AI into workflows

• The biggest risk isn’t using AI wrong, it’s not using it at all

Links & Resources

• AI, not How

• How to AI?

• Value of AI

• Veverka.ca

Connect with Milan

• Veverka.ca

• LinkedIn

Connect with Ged

• Crystalyzer.com

• LinkedIn

CardCast is produced by Lovemore Media.