They say, in business there are only two types of best practices: those we learn from others, and those we learn the hard way.
Welcome to The Executives Institute
Where the guiding principles that built America’s greatest companies; the lessons learned by the boldest founders and entrepreneurs; and the hard-truths that reveal themselves only in the c-suite are preserved and passed forward to the next generation of leaders.
Four Pillars 🏛️ One Purpose
📚 America’s Business Library
The first step in building this project was to create a Top-100 list of highly-respected business books that, over the years, had been the most widely-recomended to our executive team. If you’ve been in business long enough, you know these titles.
From each of these books, we pulled one hard truth; one guiding principle; one timeless bit of wisdom; — these became The Rules.
Timeless Business Principles.
✍️ The Weekly Edge
With those 100 Rules, we created a 50-week self-study program. This powerful program takes less than 30 minutes per week. Once a week, 50 times per year, you will…
- read one fundamental Rule to sharpen your thinking
- ask yourself one challenging question to begin each week with clarity (instead of chaos)
- initiate one Action Step in the right direction, gaining the edge on your competition
The program is specifically designed to make you slow you down and keep busy entrepreneurs grounded in the fundamentals.
🧭 10k Leaders
Reading the Rules is one thing, applying them is very much another.
The 100 Rules of Business come alive in a room full of your colleagues —fellow leaders who carry the same weight, ask the same hard questions, and are willing to speak candidly about what’s actually working and what clearly isn’t.
This is where we encourage executives across the U.S. to meet in small groups of 10 to 20 leaders on a weekly or monthly basis, working through the Rules collectively and candidly. Each month focused on a theme, a set of Rules, and open conversation, not presentation. We provide free cirriculum for 12 months of meetings.
📈 The Boardroom
Adding your insights to the Rules is your opportunity to do more than learn — it’s your chance to shape the collective wisdom of business leaders for generations to come.
If you have a lesson, a turning point, or a hard-won principle that shaped how you lead or build —we invite you to this living archive of practical business knowledge.
The insight you share might be the turning point someone else is waiting for.
The Founding Creed
We believe strong businesses are built on timeless fundamentals.
We believe those fundamentals are learned through experience and passed from one builder to another.
And we believe they should remain accessible to every entrepreneur willing to study them.
If you spend enough time studying great organizations —and the leaders who built them —one thing becomes perfectly clear:
the fundamental Rules of building scalable, sustainable, enduring companies have not changed in decades.
All strong companies are each built on a similar foundation of guiding principles and simple truths. These principles are repeated with discipline —not overnight, but over time.
This is where we’ve chosen to build The Executives Institute —on this same foundation.
Podcasts saved but unlistened. Shelves full of books you never quite finish. Coaches, consultants and online courses, each one promising the breakthrough you’re looking for. Vast amounts of business wisdom exist. It’s simply scattered, random and tough to access (or act on) when you’re busy running the company.
If you’re leading and building —whether you’re young and hungry or gray-haired and battle-tested —you’re exactly who we built this for.
The curriculum is free.
No registration. No subscription.
No progress bar. No motivational check-ins.
No surprise upsell for premium content after 6 weeks.
Does any of this sound familiar?
“I’ve been recommended a dozen business books and haven’t finished one of them.”
“I don’t have time to sort through online advice — and most of it feels like someone trying to sell me something.”
“My team is working hard. I’m just not sure we’re working on the right things.”
“I wish I could sit down with someone who’s already built through what I’m facing — but I can’t justify the coaching fees right now.”
“I wish someone had told me this earlier.”
If any of those land — this is for you.
Timeless Business Principles. Collective Modern Insight.
Built by Practitioners
The Institute was not created by academics. It is being built by operators —people who have started companies, run organizations, made mistakes, and learned from them.
Over the past three decades, thousands of conversations with founders, executives, and business owners helped shape the Rules that form the foundation of the Institute. Those conversations have revealed something simple but critical: The best business education often comes from leaders sharing the lessons they wish they had learned sooner.
The Institute exists to capture and pass those lessons forward. Today, we’re looking for:
- Business leaders to follow and engage withour LinkedIn community
- Individuals to challenge themselves and try out The Weekly Edge
- Small groups of executives to join the movement of 10k Leaders
- Executives across the U.S. to browse the Rules contribute your insights to The Boardroom
And, if you believe this kind of business resource should be available to every entrepreneur and executive to follow —please consider supporting it. That’s how this project will survive.
— Kurt McSparron, Founder Connect with me on LinkedIn
“If a movement is to have an impact, it must belong to those who join it — not those who lead it.” —Simon Sinek
May 9, 2026 | Designed exclusively for entrepreneurs and business leaders who believe in the American idea —and prove it every day, by building, leading, and teaching what works —The Executives Institute is being built as a permanent public resource. This free educational platform is where the principles that work and the hard-earned lessons of America’s presidents, CEOs and founders will be preserved, passed forward and forever accessible to the next generation.
Today, we are laying the foundation of The Executives Institute —Rule by Rule, insight by insight, with our full 501(c)3 operational launch Q1 2027.
Follow our LinkedIn page for updates and previews. The discussion begins Monday, January 4th.
Above, is what we offer. Below is what we refuse to become.
The Executives Institute Standard
We Stay Out of Your Inbox
We will not email you, unless you ask.
We will never add you to a mailing list, without your direct permission.
We will never sell, share, or monetize your information.
We will never upsell you additional products.
We will never call you or contact you individually for any reason, unless you specifically request information from us first.
Your attention is yours.
Your information is not an asset for us to leverage.
No emails. No data sales. No exceptions.
We Will Not Chase You
We will not notify you when new content is posted.
We will not follow up to see if you “completed” anything.
Leaders manage their own calendars, commitments, and priorities.
We assume you already do.
We Will Not Compete for Your Attention
We will not flood your feed.
We will not interrupt your day.
We will not fight algorithms for clicks.
We will not manufacture urgency.
The Weekly Edge appears in just 2 places, once a week. This site and our LinkedIn Page. Those who value it will find it.
We Will Not Gamify Discipline
We will not use streaks, badges, points, or progress bars.
We will not turn serious work into entertainment.
We will not reward participation for its own sake.
Discipline is not built through incentives.
It is built through repetition and responsibility.
We Will Not Simplify What Should Be Thought Through
We will not reduce leadership to slogans.
We will not package complexity into motivational soundbites.
We will not pretend hard problems have easy answers.
The Rules are reminders — nothing more.
The work happens in reflection and application.
We Will Not Sell Novelty
We will not chase trends.
We will not rebrand old ideas as new breakthroughs.
We will not promise transformation in 30 days.
We will not pretend fundamentals need reinvention.
These principles have endured for decades — often centuries.
Their value comes from practice, not presentation.
We Will Not Hold Your Hand
We will not guide you step by step.
We will not tell you when to engage.
We will not tell you what to think.
We will not lower the standard to increase participation.
Leadership requires initiative.
We Will Not Build for Everyone
This Institute is not for casual interest.
It is not for passive consumption.
It is not for those looking to be motivated.
It is for leaders willing to take responsibility for their own development.
One Expectation
One Rule is published and ready to study each Monday morning.
No announcements.
No reminders.
No follow-ups.
If you show up, the material will be there.
If you don’t, that’s feedback — not failure.
Great leaders don’t want to be chased.
They want to be challenged.
Lead yourself first.
A Closing Word
The Executives’ Institute respects leaders who respect themselves.
We do not remove friction. We do not replace responsibility with convenience.
Timeless principles exist to be applied — without reminders, incentives, or supervision.
Show up. Do the work. That’s it.
— The Executives Institute