Hi, I'm Jeff. He's Dale.
Meet Jeff.
Yes, I'm related to Dale Earnhardt, the Intimidator himself. Our families came from Germany to Pennsylvania, then Pennsylvania to North Carolina. My brother and I joke that if you couldn't drive 180 miles an hour and turn left at the same time, you had to leave North Carolina. That's how my side of the Earnhardts ended up in Georgia.
No, I never met him. And no, the name has never gotten me out of a speeding ticket. Though it definitely influenced me to earn a few.
Here's what I do: I get to take really good people who are extremely strong in their particular craft, and turned them into top leaders.
The Earnhardts
From the North Carolina crew of Earnhardts to Georgia: this is my crew. I met my wife Marion on jury duty in DeKalb County 30 years ago. I got $50 and a spouse out of doing my civic duty, still the best deal DeKalb County ever offered. Four kids later, the dinner table is my favorite place in any building.
Take it from Mick Jagger:
“We all need someone we can lean on, and if you wanna, you can lean on me.”
Mick Jagger, 1972
Everybody needs a coach. It is a catalyst that transforms your top performers into your top leaders.
Great leaders know there are seasons where they need help in order to see clearly discern wisely and act courageously. In that order every. single. time.
Also, major bonus points if you bring up Mick Jagger during our coaching call.
What Drives Me
Five values shape how I show up, at the evening dinner table and in every coaching room:
Present
Giving my entire attention to what I'm doing right now
Adventure
Pursuing what's next and what's possible, bridled by my guardrails
Ideation
Connecting disconnected ideas. It's where I make my greatest impact with leaders
Generosity
Thinking more of others as i steward my time, my words, and my dollars
Excellence
Prioritizing being wildly intentional over chasing perfection
Together they spell PAIGE, my daughter's middle name. I revisit how I define these words almost every year. It's the same work I ask of every leader I coach. The words don't matter nearly as much as the definition does.
MY COACHING FRAMEWORK
Your top performers become your top leaders as they learn to See Clearly, Discern Wisely, and Act Courageously.
PHASE 1
See Clearly
What are the blind spots and habits that prevent leaders from seeing the situation as it really is.
PHASE 2
Discern Wisely
Timeless leadership principles that give leaders a lens bigger than their own instincts.
PHASE 3
Act Courageously
Turning insight into measurable and courageous next steps to close the gap.
How the framework came to be
I put off writing a newsletter for longer than I care to admit.
So when I finally sat down to write it, I started where I always start every coaching session: reviewing my notes from the last call with that leader. It's a habit I've kept for four thousand hours of coaching, pages of scribbles, quotes, and half-formed observations, with lines drawn between disconnected ideas. Think the scene from A Beautiful Mind, colored string connecting images and data across a wall, except mine was a stylus on an iPad.
As I read back through them, a pattern surfaced that was incredibly simple, and 100% true for almost every call.
Strong leaders, the kind who'd already proven themselves capable, kept getting stuck in the same place. Not from lack of skill. From a blind spot, or an idea they were holding onto, that they couldn't quite see past on their own.
4,000+
hours of coaching notes — scribbles, quotes, and half-formed observations, with lines drawn between disconnected ideas — that revealed the pattern.
The pattern in how we'd work through it was just as consistent. First, I'd let them describe the moment, in their own words, without rushing them toward a solution. Somewhere in that telling, the real problem would come into focus, often different from the one they walked in with.
From there, we'd bring in a leadership principle, not as a formula, but as a lens, something bigger than their own instincts to view the situation through.
And then we'd build the plan together: one courageous, specific step toward actually responding to what they now saw clearly.