I just recorded a podcast with Elizabeth Garvish, founder of Garvish Immigration Law Group, LLC.
Her story reminded me how much leadership is about trusting people we can’t always see and choosing what Elizabeth calls “love.” In practice, that means leading with empathy, trust, and courage, even when leading from afar.
Elizabeth runs a fully distributed team with lawyers and staff across the United States, Spain, Argentina, Colombia, and Honduras.
Her goal is simple yet powerful: to build the happiest law firm in America.
My top three takeaways:
1️⃣ Love as a leadership system
Elizabeth doesn’t lead with rules; she leads with trust. Her team works globally, across time zones and cultures, connected not by oversight but by shared values.
2️⃣ Flexibility as a gift, especially for working mothers
Her firm is built around women, many of them mothers, who can choose how and where they work. She proved that flexibility doesn’t have to reduce performance.
3️⃣ Structure makes freedom possible
Behind the idea of “love” is solid structure: EOS meetings, SOPs in Trainual, and remote systems that make clarity the default. It’s a vivid reminder that this is how culture scales beyond the office.
For me, this conversation reinforced that remote leadership requires a different set of skills, approaches, and practices—and that it absolutely works. When trust, support, and clarity are part of the system, teams don’t just function remotely; they thrive.
Grateful to Elizabeth for sharing her vision of what leading with love looks like in the real world.
Full episode coming soon. 💫
-
What Travel Taught Me About My Business
What Travel Taught Me About My Business
I learned more about my business while flying to Panama than I do on most workdays.
Not from dashboards.
Not from meetings.
But from stepping away and watching what happened next.
One of the quiet measures of a healthy business is what happens when the founder steps away.
Not the highlight reel.
Not the revenue numbers.
But whether the wheels keep turning without constant intervention.
I was in Panama recently, and stepping away made this impossible to ignore. Travel has a way of revealing the truth. When you unplug, gaps show up quickly. Decisions stall. Questions pile up. Or… everything keeps moving.
The difference is rarely talent.
It’s structure.
Strong teams don’t need to be micromanaged. They need clarity, trust, and systems that allow good decisions to happen without waiting for permission.
Building that kind of business takes intention.
You design for absence, not heroics.
Because freedom isn’t something you take once the business is “done.”
It’s something you build into the model from the start.
If your business can’t run without you, that’s not a leadership failure.
It’s simply a signal.
And signals are useful, if you’re willing to listen.
Please follow and like us: -
The Cost of Every Yes
The Cost of Every Yes
The most dangerous word in a growing company isn’t “no.”
It’s “yes.”
Yes to one more client.
Yes to one more feature.
Yes to one more hire.
Yes to one more “quick favor.”
At first, it feels like momentum.
But unchecked “yes” creates:
• diluted focus
• confused teams
• overwhelmed leaders
• and blurred standards
Growth doesn’t usually break companies.
Overcommitment does.
Mature businesses aren’t built on how much they can say yes to.
They’re built on disciplined restraint.
The founders who scale well ask different questions:
Is this aligned?
Does this strengthen our core?
Do we have the capacity to do this well?
What are we saying no to by saying yes?
Clarity isn’t just about direction.
It’s about boundaries.
The strongest teams I’ve worked with don’t chase every opportunity.
They protect their lane.
Because focus is a leadership decision.
And every “yes” has a cost.
Please follow and like us: -
Clarity Isn’t Certainty. It’s Direction
Clarity Isn’t Certainty. It’s Direction
I used to think clarity meant having the answers.
Now I know it usually means asking better questions.
Most leadership breakdowns I see don’t come from bad intentions or weak talent. They come from leaders assuming everyone understands what feels obvious to them.
But clarity in your head is not clarity in the room.
Teams don’t struggle because they don’t care.
They struggle because they’re guessing.
Guessing what matters most.
Guessing how decisions are made.
Guessing which tradeoffs are acceptable.
Guessing what “good” actually looks like.
And guessing quietly erodes confidence.
The moment a leader says the obvious out loud, something changes.
People relax.
Execution speeds up.
Ownership increases.
Not because people suddenly became smarter.
But because they’re no longer operating in fog.
Strong leadership today isn’t about certainty.
It’s about orientation.
Naming priorities.
Making assumptions explicit.
Saying “this matters more than that.”
And being willing to revisit decisions as new information shows up.
If your team feels stuck, don’t push harder.
Try clarifying faster.
The question I ask most often with leadership teams is simple:
What do you know in your head that your team hasn’t heard yet?
That’s usually where the work begins.
Please follow and like us:
