Shut the door. Turn on Focus Mode.

Grab your coffee, tea, or sparkling water. 

Dig in.

Not just knowledge, though. Learning.

Watch, read, listen — and then do.

End the day ahead of where you started. 

Make $10,000 a Week From Your Couch — No Experience Needed!
AI Will Run Your Entire Business So You Don’t Have To!
Lose 20 Pounds in 7 Days — Without Exercise or Dieting!

These are easily dismissed. But the more subtle…

This AI Tool Writes Perfect Emails Without You!
This One Hack Will Make You Instantly Happy!
Buffet’s Secret Investment Formula!

And the possibly clickable…

Automate the Tasks You Hate!
Get Back an Hour Every Day!
Never Doubt Yourself Again!

One point of view says that if it seems too good to be true, it must be. We arrive at that perspective honestly. Our experiences and personal history shape how we perceive the world and those within it. We’ve been burned. We’ve looked stupid. We’ve been disappointed. 

It’s why children are generally more gullible than seniors. 

But it’s also why children are more open than seniors.

Openness is the cost of possibility. It’s the space where creativity lives and new ideas erupt. 

Cynicism protects, but it also closes. Openness risks, but it also receives.

Some things are just as they seem — too good to be true. But some things are better than we could have imagined — too good and true. 

You won’t know unless you stay open. 

You can outsource your financial planning, but is it better?
You can ask Alexa to turn out the light, but is it better?
You can hire a lawn service, but is it better?
You can load the dishwasher, but is it better?
You can flip the switch on the electric fireplace, but is it better?
You can have your groceries delivered, but is it better?
You can swipe left or right, but is it better?
You can have the mechanic change the oil, but is it better?
You can electronically pay your bills, but is it better?
You can have the landscaper plant your flower beds, but is it better?
You can hire a service to decorate for the holidays, but is it better?
You can video chat rather than show up, but is it better?
You can have AI write the letter, but is it better?

Only you can answer these questions for yourself. 

Beware, because convenience may thwart meaning. Ease might kill engagement. And faster isn’t always better.

Sometimes the doing is the point.
Sometimes the work is where the life is.

What are you trading?

And is it worth it?

On the map, it’s usually easy. 

Point A to Point B. Set the goal. Make the plan. Start driving. 

Clean. Predictable. Efficient. 

But it never works that way.

We hit traffic and detours. We miss exits. We run into flooded streets, trains stopped at the crossing, and protestors shutting the route down. None of that is on the map. 

How could it be?

The map has no temporal context. It doesn’t know anything but a static route. It doesn’t see the flat tire, the person who wants to talk, or the temporary shutdown.

But would be who you needed to become if the line were straight?

The straight line looks great on paper.

But it wouldn’t have been better. 

You’ll get some cards. They are what they are.

You can hit, stand, or fold.

All can work. All can fail.

Best to learn who’s at the table. 

The first bounce gets all the attention.

The idea. The pitch. The launch.

What happens next?

The second bounce is where we see if it sticks, spreads, and survives.

Resilience lives with the second bounce. 

Make it useful. Make it simple. Make it spreadable. Follow the signal. Iterate.

Design for the second bounce. 

You can’t turn the corner if you’re waiting for permission.
You can’t turn the corner if you’re waiting to see the whole road first.
You can’t turn the corner if you’re unwilling.
You can’t turn the corner if you’re blaming the last detour.
You can’t turn the corner if you’re mad at the shape of the road.
You can’t turn the corner if you’ve never put the car in gear.

You can’t turn the corner if you’re standing still. 

Most politicians, in all of their forms, are usually great dancers.

I don’t mean the Cha-Cha, the Get Sturdy, or the Running Man, although they may be good at those also, at least at the wedding, inaugural ball, or corporate off-site.

They’re usually good at dancing around the hook. 

Jumping on when taking credit helps them, and avoiding it when somebody needs to be blamed.

So where does that leave the non-politicians?

The rest of us — the doers, builders, and leaders — we gotta always own the hook. 

The win and the loss. The one that worked and the one that didn’t. The praise and the consequences.

Real leadership and real difference-making have nothing to do with your ability to dance.

You don’t need to be perfect, but you do need to be accountable. 

So dance when you can, but when the hook comes around, jump on it.

We need you on it. 

You think you got it right.

You built it, after all. You understand it. You’ve lived it. Defended it.

Plus, it’s hard. You’ve spent a lot of time and effort. Mental and physical. 

Which is exactly why you might be wrong. If you’re too close, you can stop seeing clearly.

Ask yourself the following:

• Are you justifying instead of being open?
• Are you protecting instead of improving?
• Are you telling the whole story?
• Could there be another way?

That’s where the outsider might help.

No bias. No baggage. Nothing to defend.

You need truth. Not validation.

When we lean into truth and give ourselves the permission to change our minds, we can go anywhere.

Sometimes the best move is to borrow someone else’s flashlight. 

With over 8 billion people in the world and 600 million products listed on Amazon, it seems hard to be unique.

Thousands, if not millions of people, do what you do. They have the same title, skills, and tools. Just look around on LinkedIn to confirm this. 

Same with your product. Dozens or hundreds offer the same features, same problems solved, and the same colors. 

So how do you stand out?

You don’t win by being just another, or slightly better, or slightly cheaper.

You win by bringing you to the table. Unmistakable you.

No one else has your story.
No one else sees the world like you do.
No one else has your fingerprints.

Find the only you. 

Minimum Viable Audience

Can you lead if nobody is following?
Is it worth doing if nobody sees it?
Does it make a difference if nobody hears it?

Well, it depends.

Who’s it for? 

Because it might be just for you. If so, you’ve got your MVA.

Now get started. 

Streaks can be motivating or daunting.

They can keep us on the right path, or keep us from the right path. 

What streak do you have going that you should keep? Which one should you quit?

Today is the perfect day to keep a streak, quit a streak, or start a new one. 

All the inspirational posters talk about not giving up.

But they’re wrong. Sometimes you should give up.

But not because it’s hard, or uncomfortable, or you can’t yet find a solution. 

You should give up when it’s wrong — the wrong path, outcome, or the ends don’t justify the means.

Giving up is the best approach when it’s wrong. 

Sometimes it’s, “Hey, look at that over there.”

A spectator. Observer. Unengaged. 

Sometimes it’s, “Hey, let’s go over there. Let’s go that way. Let’s get there. Come with me.”

Sometimes it helps to point. 

I’ve been a renter. College, just out of college, and many vacations over the years in many locations.

I’ve been an owner of rental properties. College apartments and single-family homes. 

As a renter, I just showed up, kept the place nice, paid my bills, and called the landlord when there was a problem that needed fixing. 

As the owner, I cared. Deeply. About everything. Even things I didn’t cause. The pipes. The paint. The neighbors. The future value of the place. I couldn’t just show up.

Same thing happens with work.

You can rent your role. Check the boxes. Wait to be told. Clock in, clock out.

Or you can own it.

Solve problems that might not be technically your problem. Put yourself on the hook. Show up like your name is on the building.

You can tell who’s renting and who owns it.

AI won’t ever take the job of the owners. 

You call it a “first draft” for a reason.

It’s the raw footage, not the edited version. It’s the napkin, not the document. It’s some tiles laid out on floor in front of you, not the cut and glued pattern on the wall. 

You don’t have to make your first draft the final plan. It’s a starting point. A vehicle to get your thoughts down. A catalyst to help you think about it and see where it might go. 

Write the garbage version. Say it badly. Build the barely-functional prototype. 

The first draft allows you to play. You can rethink it. You can change directions. You can change your mind. 

You don’t have to show the public.

But you gotta start laying bricks. 

If you’re a broadcaster, you never want dead air. 

Dead air indicates a problem. Something technical, procedural, or even human. The producer panics. The talker scrambles. The audience wonders. 

That silence screams loudly — what’s wrong?

But in your life, dead air is a signal.

Dead air gives you a chance to listen, breathe, think, feel, and allow the next thing to rise. 

Embrace the dead air. 

The cutback, sometimes called putting his foot in the ground by announcers searching for new descriptions, is a fundamental tool of the running back.

Everybody and everything is flowing to the right — the lineman blocking, the running back following,  defenders pursuing. The play unfolding like a river flowing. 

And then BLAM. 

He plants his right foot. Defies inertia. Cuts hard left. Against the flowing water. 

If he’s picked the right moment and executed it correctly, the defenders don’t have a chance against the river that’s already flowing. 

Because now it’s chaos. Defenders legs and bodies still moving right as they reach back to the left. The blockers keep them flowing. The angles collapse. 

The cutback wasn’t part of the plan. 

But he saw something and made a split-second decision. An opening. An opportunity. Or maybe he saw that the plan was going to fail miserably. It was going nowhere. A loss of yards. 

And he had the guts to cut back.

Sometimes you gotta take that opportunity. Even if it doesn’t score. 

Trust your eyes. Trust your knowledge. Trust your people. Trust yourself. 

Keep your eyes open for the cutback opportunity. 

You can probably have it your way. 

It might even feel good or comfortable in the moment, or make you feel like you’ve accomplished whatever you set out to do. 

It’s also usually easy to say, “This is how I want it.”

But what would it take to have it our way? Or making it possible for them to have it their way?

You can build something — a business, an organization, a family, a marriage — around that. 

We do it all the time, especially as parents.

We say we can’t afford it. Whatever it is. Could be money. Could be time. 

We say it because it’s irrefutable. It’s a get of out jail free card. But it’s usually not quite true. 

What we really mean is we don’t want to prioritize the money or time. We’d rather spend it on something else. 

It’s healthy to occasionally rethink our priorities. 

From one or even several perspectives, this is the first and only question that matters.

Will somebody pay you for what you made?
Or, will somebody pay you for what you do?

This is what the market asks. Investors, bosses, even friends and family. We’ve normalized getting paid as a measure of what it’s — and you’re — worth. If you’re “in business,” then this is the question at the top of your mind.

And fair enough. Our system is built upon the exchange of money.

It’s an important question, but is it the most important? 

Here are some other important questions that need to be asked:

Will it make a difference?
Will it build trust?
Will it help someone?
Will it teach me something?
Will it get me in the room I want to be in?
Will it make me proud five months or years from now?
Will it attract the kind of people I want to work with?
Will it challenge the status quo?
Will it create a new system?
Will it make me better?
Will it make someone else better?
Will it make the system better?
Will it get me out of my comfort zone?
Will it make others want to talk about it?
Will it build community?

These questions get at the heart of the matter — what’s your signal? The signal is your work. Your impact. The dent you make in the world.

Profit isn’t the signal itself, but it rides on top of it. It modulates it. Amplifies it. Distorts it. Sometimes overtakes it.

But the signal is still yours to send. It’s the heart of the matter.

So yeah, we should ask, “Will it make money?”

Just don’t stop there because snake oil makes money if you know how to sell it.

But it poisons the well. 

First, there was SEO (Search Engine Optimization). 

If you were clever, you could figure out how Google ranked websites in its search results. Once you knew that, you could game the system. Once you could game the system, you could sell your services to others. 

Then, Google became more sophisticated and outpaced the gamers. Then the gamers caught up. And then SEO became YouTube and social media algorithms. 

And so on. Round and round.  

Is this the game you want to play?

You can chase the algorithm, but they have the control, and they’re trying to keep out the gamers. 

But there is a different and deeper algorithm. One that hasn’t changed in 1000 years. 

The human one.

It’s built on curiosity, trust, relevance, usefulness, and impact. 

The “you should see this” impulse and it spreads around dinner tables, break rooms, and group texts. It’s shared not because it was optimized for the algorithm, but because it hit something real. 

You can choose. You can play for the click, or you can play for the conversation. 

The real algorithm is still human. 

Hunger is physical. 

Our body needs food. Our physical state drives physical hunger.

Hunger is also emotional.

We desire particular tastes, forms, and food experiences. The stories we’ve experienced, we tell, and we hear drive emotional hunger. 

One keeps you alive. The other makes you feel alive.

We need food. But we want tacos. We want the corner booth, the smell of lime and cilantro, the basket of chips before the meal. The margarita. 

We want the feeling.

Needs keep the system running. Desires shape the experience.

This isn’t just about food. It’s how we build products. Lead teams. Raise our kids. Choose careers.

Desires and needs don’t always align. Sometimes they conflict. Sometimes they trick. 

Our job isn’t to eliminate desire or shame it. It’s to see both. To design for both. To build stories around both. 

A life that meets only needs is starvation. 

A friend of mine has an amazing little trick she uses with her kids. 

Well, it’s not a trick. To call it so is to undervalue its brilliance and the truth it uncovers. It’s psychology at its most powerful. 

Two photos:

1. Very happy and excited
2. Sad, upset, crying, or angry

In the moment (whatever moment that is), you simply show them each of these pictures of themself and say, “Both of these are you. You get to decide which one of them you want to show up. It’s up to you.”

How you show up is a choice. 

At the table. At work. For your partner. For your family. For your community. 

You are all those people in the pictures. 

How do you want to show up for this? 

Have you seen the (brilliant) Miller Lite 50th anniversary commercials? 

Christopher Walken voicing over, “Legendary stories start with a Lite.” 

It taps into something powerful about human nature (as does most good advertising) — life is all about stories. 

And the start is magic. You’re staring at the fork in the road. You can go either way. Which way? Well, where do you want to go? You don’t know? Then it doesn’t matter. Just go. 

Yet, starting is sometimes the hardest part.

We don’t like unknown. We like guaranteed. We want to know the ending before we commit to the beginning. 

If this, then that. Go this way, you’ll end up here. 

We obsess over perfection. Over what they’ll say. Over how we’ll look. Over losing what we have. Over never making it to the destination.

So we stay put. We stay in our lane. We keep sipping the green juice. We keep funneling the 6% into our 401k. 

But that’s not how legendary stories are made. 

Legendary stories start with an unknown ending and a host of possibilities. 

They start with a desire and a little risk. A little curiosity. A little stupid. A little brave.

They start before the plan is ready. They start with motion.

So go ahead. 

Crack one open and take that first step. 

Start your story.

In Season 5, episode 2 of Downton Abbey (IYKYK), Carson and Mrs Hughes face a disagreement. 

He and she are on different sides of an issue he feels strongly about, and he’s uncomfortable. He doesn’t like it when they’re not on the same side. 

But also, he’s convicted. He believes he’s right. She’s wrong. He can’t simply go along to get along. He’s too principled for that. 

However, he remains open. He admits that he’s willing to be convinced. All he needs is someone to convince him. 

And eventually, a simple conversation does the trick. He’s been convinced. 

That’s what we need more of. More openness without tossing our principles to the wind. 

Open to new data, new arguments, new feelings. Open to changing needs, changing perspectives, and changing culture. Open to changing one’s mind. Open to being convinced. 

Open.

Changing your mind isn’t a weakness. It doesn’t mean you don’t have principles. 

Openness is the bridge between conviction and wisdom. Without it, all you have is stubbornness.

Today is my birthday.

Thanks. No big deal.

Yet, it is a big deal. Not because it’s me, or it’s a milestone, or there’s some need to celebrate. 

It’s a big deal because a) there aren’t that many left, and yet b) there are many left. 

What will I do with them? 

I plan to keep the “I will be” list long and inspiring. 
I plan to express my gratitude.
I plan to keep learning.
I plan to ensure those around me know I love them.
I plan to get better.
I plan to take it as it comes.

I plan to get started. 

I stood in front of potential investors, giving my pitch, and was asked the following:

“Are you all working full-time in the business?”
“Yes”
“Oh, good, we like our founders to be PhDs.”

A little confused, I said, “PhDs??”

“Poor. Hungry. And desperate.”

Oof.

When you see movies about startups or hear founders talk on Guy Raz’s show, you get a lot of this. Couch surfing. Living in a barely running sub-compact (that you park around the corner so nobody sees). Skinny and scrounging. Two different shoes or homemade clothes. Lots of kindness from family, friends, and sometimes strangers. 

Poor. Hungry. Desperate. It makes a good origin story. 

You have two things when you are in this state:

1. Nothing to lose. 
2. No power.

That’s right where they want you.

Nothing to lose means you should have the fire to do whatever it takes. Yet, no power means you’re desperate for the money/resources. Which means if they give it to you, they have the power.

The magic here is hungry.

You don’t need to be poor or desperate to be hungry. Hungry can come from vision, hope, and desire — a deep inner need to make a difference. 

So the question isn’t just, “Are you hungry?” The real question is, “Who holds the power when you are?”

Because with hunger as the fuel, power is the steering wheel. If you hand off the steering wheel, then someone else is in control of your destination. 

Maybe avoid one or some of these today:

• Hitting snooze
• Sitting all day
• Taking what’s yours
• Looking past the person talking to you
• Talking over someone else
• Checking your phone in the middle of a conversation
• Getting upset about gas prices
• Taking revenge
• Skipping a lunch break
• Staying comfortable
• Overexplaining
• Overpromising
• Underdelivering
• Staying in your lane
• Sugar substitutes
• Doing the easy thing
• Busyness
• Filling the silence
• Focusing on what you can’t control
• Doomscrolling
• Saying “I can’t”
• Reacting to a post
• Waiting for permission
• Multitasking
• Gossip
• Quicksand
• The News

If you need something to do, here are some ideas. 

We all know the jealous form of comparitus. 

The teenager on Instagram. The mid-career professional in the high-end neighborhood. The younger brother at the family reunion.

But there’s a hidden, and just as insidious, form of comparitus.

It’s not based in jealousy. It’s based in false equivalence. 

It shows up like this: “There are plenty of people my age who are running marathons. Why can’t I run marathons?” And, “Look at all of these people who have started and succesfully run their own businesses. Why hasn’t mine been successful?” And, “Einstein published his most famous papers in his 20s. Why haven’t I?”

On the surface, this looks like a “good” form of comparitus. After all, it can be motivating: If they did it, I can do it too. That belief is often the first spark of ambition. It’s important to believe we can do it. 

But here’s the psychology trap. Social comparison theory tells us we constantly measure ourselves against others to gauge progress. It is natural. However, those comparisons only work if the contexts are equal. Most of the time, they aren’t. We don’t see the unseen variables: genetics, geography, family, decisions, timing, networks, even luck. 

We assume similarity where there is none. Yet, we just drop ourselves into the middle of their situation. 

The antidote isn’t to stop comparing. It’s to start appreciating. Gratitude for your own story. Your own timing. Your own path.

The trap is asking, “Why not me?”

The freedom is realizing, “I already have mine.”

You can set it up perfectly. The perfect time, surroundings, and tools. 

Maybe it’s overlooking the water at sunrise. Or the mountains at dusk. Or a balcony as the city bustles below. 

You’ve got your favorite brush, notebook, or coffee mug.

And nothing.

Not because you don’t want to feel inspired. You just don’t.

Until you start. 

Then you realize it’s not the sunrise, or the notebook, or the mountains.

It’s the work. It’s the act of doing. 

If you want to be inspired, start the doing. 

When the iPhone first came out, it was remarkable. 

But not everybody wanted one. Price. AT&T. And most importantly, “What will I do with this thing?” The culture was set up against it. It was remarkable. 

Then, over time, the culture flipped. 

Now, the iPhone, plus the equally remarkable Android phones, are mainstream. 

New model releases don’t impress us much. Using them is just part of our daily existence. Oh crap, I dropped mine. I’ll just get another. 

Apple, Samsung, Google, and all of the others spend just as much, actually more, engineering time and effort to make the next version as they did the first one. It doesn’t cost them any less. It’s not easier.

Who benefits when the remarkable becomes mainstream? 

It’s a bit of a paradox — the work is hardest when no one cares, but the payoff is biggest when everyone does.

Here are some ideas for you to do today:

• Take a walk
• Make a list
• Knock items off the list
• Call a friend
• Call your mother
• Call your son
• Dream about the future
• Read a chapter
• Write a page
• Tell someone “Thank You”
• Say “Hi” to a stranger
• Hold the door for someone
• Have coffee or tea at the coffee shop
• Clean out a drawer
• Organize your desk
• Stretch your back
• Drink an extra glass of water
• Cook a meal 
• Try a new recipe
• Donate something
• Read a poem
• Sit outside and watch the people, cars, or birds
• Watch the sunset or sunrise
• Play a song you loved in high school
• Find a new song
• Pray
• Write down five things you’re grateful for
• Write down five things you want to let go of
• Plan your next trip (the big, exciting one)
• Learn one new word
• Forgive someone (in your head or out loud)
• Forgive yourself
• Plant something
• Water your plants
• Weed your garden
• Cut the grass
• Take a cold shower
• Take a hot bath
• Organize the garage or basement
• Organize the spice rack/drawer/cabinet
• Paint a wall or room
• Throw away all of the old, useless paint
• Rearrange the furniture
• Pay a bill early
• Roll the coins
• Put $20 in a safe place for another day
• Put your watch on the other wrist
• Look through an old photo album
• Back up your photo library
• Delete old emails
• Unsubscribe from 5 things
• Change your phone wallpaper
• Try a puzzle
• Paint on canvas (by numbers, or freehand)
• Sketch something
• Design a flag for your household
• Learn a card trick 
• Build a house of cards
• Ask ChatGPT/Claude/Perplexity to explain Bitcoin as if you’re 8 years old
• Ask ChatGPT/Claude/Perplexity to explain why socks disappear in the laundry
• Ask ChatGPT/Claude/Perplexity to help you design a new card game
• Ask ChatGPT/Claude/Perplexity to research the history of your building, house, or plot of land
• Go a different way
• Get started

Today is a great day. What will you do?

One second, I was innocently trimming the cherry tree on my front walk. The next, I was running across my front yard, yelling and swatting like a maniac.

Hornets. The angry, malicious, bald-faced kind.

And they got me. Just a few, but still.

It was a big nest. The size of a basketball. How could I have not seen it? Obviously, this thing had been growing over the whole summer. There must have been hornets in and out for a couple months. 

How could I be so blind?

In work, leadership, and life, danger doesn’t always announce itself, or it disguises itself, or even hides in plain sight. You don’t see it till you get stung.

But also, maybe that’s OK. Maybe getting stung was the best path. At least at this time. It helps you course correct. It helps you change your focus. It helps you find a better path. It helps you learn to spot signs earlier.

Sometimes the only way to know the danger is real is to kick it and see what happens. 

Do something hard today.

Your later today self will thank you for it.

Choose the hard path today.

Your tomorrow self with thank you for it.

Companies today are conflicted. 

Especially companies that invested in an address. A parcel of dirt with concrete and steel on top of it. 

Company leadership today is conflicted.

Especially leaders who prefer to sit in the room, or even more so, those who want to sit at the front of the room.

Employees today are conflicted.

Especially employees with children, a hankering for travel, or an extroverted need to be with others. 

If you ask people where they want to work, you’ll get an answer. If you measure where they work best, you may get a different one. Same is true for company leadership and the finance department. 

But the path forward — what we’re looking for — is the overlap in the Venn diagram. That’s the sweet spot. Where people want to work and actually get it done.

How can we find that overlap? Can we design a work system where you get to work where you want most of the time, and also deliver what we need most of the time? Can we design a system that works for the finance department and leadership?

Those are good questions to ask and wrangle.

But they’re not the most important ones. Leadership, the finance department, and even the employees miss the important one.

How do we design a work system that makes all of the people’s lives better, including our customers? 

Because the office doesn’t matter if the work doesn’t matter.

You’re faced with a choice. 

The person in front of you is asking you to lower your value. Maybe that person is a potential partner or friend. Or maybe they’re a potential client or investor.

It’s part ideological, and part practical. 

You know that if you lower your value far enough, you’ll win. 

What is your value? Do you have an accurate view of your value? Are you overvaluing yourself? Is this question an indicator that you need to rethink your value?

Maybe the win isn’t in proving your value to them, but in refusing to let them define it for you.

You know the difference between being busy and being productive. 

We can fool ourselves. We can convince ourselves. We can justify it to ourselves.

So we clean the desk, reorganize the files, tweak the colors, and work on the fun little idea. 

Resistance whispers in our ear that these things are important. 

They’re not. 

The income comes from doing the things that generate income.

Make the call. Send the message. Expand your network. Schedule the meeting. Create the pitch. Try a new pitch. Get punched in the face. 

What are you avoiding right now that you need to do to generate income?

Start there. 

Not long ago, off-campus student housing was all about surviving. 

Shared bedrooms, a single shared bathroom, a couch rescued from the curb, stained rugs, and faded paint.

Today? It looks more like a luxury resort. Private bedrooms. Designer kitchens. Rooftop lounges. Fitness centers. Pools. Fire pits. 

Student housing developers are upping the ante. 

But who’s the target? Is it the students or the parents?

Once the ante goes up, there’s no going back. Nobody’s choosing the wood-paneled walls when the rooftop pool is an option. Especially if parents are on board.

Upping the ante happens everywhere. Hotels. Gyms. Cars. Power tools. Phones. Jobs. Even relationships.

Once you’ve had a taste of better, your baseline shifts. You don’t just want it. You expect it.

That expectation creates both opportunity and danger. 

Opportunity because if you’re the marketer who can offer just a little more — up the ante just a bit — you can win. Danger because now you’re on the hook to keep raising it. 

Every time you up the ante, you’re deciding and then signaling what matters.

Is it the granite countertop or the person standing across from it?

The rooftop grill area or the people you share it with?

Up the ante in the right direction. 

You’ve seen it. You’ve experienced it. You’ve been frustrated by it.

Maybe it’s your server, or colleague, or even your partner. It could be your customer, vendor, or CEO. 

The person you’re counting on has disengaged. 

Why do people disengage? 

• They feel unheard.
• They feel unvalued.
• They’re overwhelmed.
• They’re underwhelmed.
• They’ve lost trust.
• They’ve lost interest.
• They’re burned out.
• They’re protecting themselves.

When somebody no longer sees a reason to care, they stop showing up. 

The challenge is to restore connection. To create trust. To make it matter again. To make them matter again. 

Because when they feel like they matter, they show up. When they show up, they engage.

Things you can rely on:

• The sun will come up  
• You’ll need food and water
• Gravity
• You and everyone will age
• Seasons change
• Time moves forward
• You and everyone will make mistakes
• Effort
• Skill development

Things you can’t rely on:

• A safe job
• Market stability
• A weather forecast
• Trends
• Traffic
• Rules
• Luck
• Promises

Plan accordingly. 

Places have characteristics. 

They have a climate, a geography, flora, and fauna. They also have a culture, history, and demographics. They have a look, a sound, and a pace.  

They shape how we feel and how we act when we’re there.

They have meaning.

But is it the place, or is it what we bring to the place? 

Four tines on a fork is the most common and widely considered the best balance of function and form.

Two tines don’t hold enough. Three don’t provide the same balance. More than four, and well, that’s just overkill.

Four tines. Strong. Balanced. Versatile. Large enough to handle the mouthful. Small enough to fit in your mouth.

Life’s forks aren’t much different.

Too few options, and you’re stuck. Too many, and you can’t decide. The sweet spot is just enough forks to give you a real choice without paralyzing you.

Choose your fork. Choose your future. 

You only lose if you turn around. 

On a network, if you want to know if something is alive and reachable, you ping it.

Ping is a computer command that sends a simple message to your intended target. A successful reply gives you some basic but useful information:

1. I’m alive
2. Here’s my address
3. Here’s how close I am to you

If the ping comes back as “unreachable,” then you also get some useful, if opaque, information:

1. You can’t get to me
2. I’m powered off
3. You’ve got the wrong name or address

Ping your friends. Ping your family. Ping your colleagues. Ping your customers. Ping your partners. 

Ping me. 

Life rides on the curve. 

The mean is everywhere. Everything is average. Everyone is in the middle. 

Statistically, anyway.

But if you can find a way to get ahead of the curve, for just a little while, with at least one thing, you can win. It could be early adopting some tech. It could be trying the thing nobody wants to. It could be listening to the person nobody believes yet. 

• Experiment early
• Learn faster
• Listen differently
• Challenge your beliefs
• Ignore the noise

You can’t stay ahead forever, of course, because life rides on the curve. 

But for just a little while, if you can see what others can’t, or do what others won’t, or go where others haven’t.

That’s where the win lives.

I packed the bags and slung them around my shoulders a while ago and set off down the road.

Actually, it’s not just the tidy bags with shoulder straps. I’m also juggling the stragglers that wouldn’t fit in the bags. The two shirts still on hangers, a fan with its cord swinging like a tripwire, and an open box of kitchen odds and ends threatening to spill.

And now I’m standing at the gate.

The guard’s looking at me through the safety of the guardhouse window. He’s on the phone checking my credentials. 

I don’t know what he’ll say. 

So I wait. Trying to keep it all from hitting the ground. My forearms are burning. My back is tired. Things are slipping. I readjust every few seconds.

Any moment now, he’ll wave me through.
Or he won’t.

If he does, I’ll stumble through, drop everything in a heap, and let my muscles recover for just a minute.
If he doesn’t, I’ll have to turn around. And I’ll lug the same load back down the road I just came.

Either way, the waiting will be over.

It’s not just willpower. 

You might know the famous “Marshmallow Experiment,” but if not, go to YouTube and search for it. There are dozens of examples. 

You’ll find lots of funny, antsy, and cringeworthy moments of pre-K kids trying to decide whether one marshmallow now is better than two in a few minutes. 

The popular and original hypotheses from this experiment were centered on personal willpower. The kids who waited had more self-control, and that self-control predicted better life outcomes. Better grades, better jobs, better lives.

It’s a tidy, comforting story. Willpower equals success. Delay gratification and you’ll go farther. Plus, as parents, it’s a life skill we can model and teach our kids. Be patient. 

As it turns out, however, maybe it’s not just about self-control. 

It’s also about trust. Would the second marshmallow really show up? Would the adults actually keep their word? That single marshmallow sitting in front of them is a sure thing. 

If a child has been disappointed by adults in their life, they’ll probably go with the sure thing.

It’s also the Powerball dilemma. $500M today, or $1B in annuity over time. But that’s not really a dilemma, is it? Neither is a choice between $5k today or $1B later. If you were deciding between $500k or $5M today and $1B later, maybe that’s a dilemma.  

The point is that you have a price where the unknown future promise might be worth foregoing the sure thing now.

The real test isn’t about patience. It’s about belief.

Do you believe the promise of a future that’s worth waiting for? 

The finish line. The summit. The big goal. 

What happens when you get there?

We see it publicly in pro sports and entrepreneurs who make it big. You did it, now what? 

But it’s not just them. It’s you and me also. We’re all going somewhere. We’re all going to arrive. Many will arrive at the destination they’ve been working toward. 

It’s not really about the arrival. 

It’s the daily motion. The effort. The people. The practice. The identity we shape, not the title we wear.

The win is just a moment. The becoming is the legacy.

Once we realize the destination isn’t the point, we can stop waiting to get there and start living here.

You’re backstage. 

You can hear the murmur of the crowd on the other side. The crew bustles around you. Excitement fills the air. But the curtain is down. There’s no risk yet. There’s anticipation, but that’s all so far. 

You know your lines. You’ve rehearsed. You’re confident in what you can do. You’ve done the work, and you have the skills. You know the audience has paid a fair price. 

But your heart doesn’t care about any of that.

Your mouth is dry. Your hands tingle. Your heart is suddenly a percussionist with something to prove.

When the curtain rises, it could go either way. The standing ovation and the audience satisfied. Or they won’t care, didn’t get it, and think they paid too much. 

And that’s what makes it real.

Because if it were certain, it wouldn’t be worth doing. If it were easy, it wouldn’t matter. That mix of hope and fear — of maybe and maybe not — is the cost of doing something that matters.

You don’t get to skip this moment. You shouldn’t skip this moment.

So you breathe.

You take that step forward and put a smile on your face. 

The curtain rises.

When a fire hose — sometimes even a garden hose — gets loose, look out.

It whips, spins, jumps, and makes a mess. It’s erratic. Even a little dangerous. It certainly doesn’t behave the way you want it to.

If you try chasing the end, you’ll never gain control and maybe even get bruised. Just when you think you’ve got it, or know where it’s going, it darts out of the way and leaves you a soaking mess.

Better to find its source and grab it there. It’s steady there. Get your feet solidly underneath you and walk it out toward the end. Slow and steady. Breathe. Focus on the outcome. 

Guide it to where you want to end up.

Because no one tames a hose by chasing the end. 

Have you ever reached for the hot water knob on a sink and either the handle turns the wrong way, or the cold and hot water knobs are backward?

It’s jarring.  

First, you freeze. Confused. It takes you a blip to get your bearing. You might even, just for a second, question yourself, “Am I doing this right?”

Then, you figure it out. Because it’s an easy problem to solve. Oh, turn the knob the other way. Or, the hot water must be on the right side. And, “No, I’m not doing it wrong. This thing is wrong.”

Is it wrong? What makes us think it’s wrong? What gives us the expectation of how it should work?

Intuition, of course. Built up through years of using sinks that conform to the US Plumbing standard of how a sink and its knobs should work. That standard has a whole history behind it that seeks to accommodate right-handed people. 

Sinks that don’t conform to this standard won’t land the plumber in jail, nor will some enforcement agency confiscate the contraband sink. 

But it’s jarring for the user.

If you’re making something for someone else, is that what you want? Possibly. That might be exactly what you’re going for. You need them to think differently or feel something.

But if not, the Law of Least Surprise is your friend. 

Know your user. Know how you want them to feel.

[P.S. I have a sink in my house on which the cold water knob spins backwards. After 23 years, it’s still jarring. I still spin it the wrong way every time. Every time. Why haven’t I changed it?]

Scientists have reconfirmed one of the most famous and vexing theories in physics — light is both a wave and a particle.

Which is it when? That depends on whether it’s being observed or not. 

If you measure it, it’s a particle. Precise and localized. Unobserved, it’s a wave. Fluid, adaptable, interfering with itself.

Effective leaders share this dual nature.

They’re decisive and clear when the team requires structure and certainty. They’re reflective and fluid when creativity and exploration are needed.

Great leaders recognize when to be each and can switch back and forth. 

Effective leadership isn’t about choosing a side. It’s observing, taking the pulse, and knowing the desired outcome. Tension isn’t a threat. It’s a signal. 

Which does your team need right now? 

Your town decides to build a centralized water system.

It helps many in the community. It’s more efficient. It provides standardized quality and access to that quality for more people. The generated revenue lessens individuals’ tax burden. 

But, you have a well, and it works fine. Water’s clean. Tastes great. You maintain it. Cheap. No need to change anything.

Now you’re being asked to pay for installation and then monthly for access to something that you think is probably worse than you currently have.

You didn’t ask for it. You don’t need it. 

That is the conundrum of the individual versus the collective and the present versus the future. The new system may not serve you better, at least not right now. 

But what about tomorrow, or five years from now? And what about your neighbor? 

When you’re a centralized system, here are some of your advantages:

• Speed – You can make decisions and engage machines or people quickly
• Efficiency – You can spread and use resources with little waste
• Communication – You can create a speedy and efficient communication system
• Control – You set the standards, enforce consistency, and lead with impunity
• Security – You can monitor and guard your systems more easily

When you’re a distributed system, here are some of your advantages:

• Resilience – You can easily ensure no single point of failure
• Self-sufficiency – Each part can operate independently, adapt locally, and take initiative
• Scalability – You can grow organically, node by node, without a total overhaul
• Flexibility – You can respond differently in different regions or contexts
• Innovation – You can empower the constituents 

Coming to the table knowing your advantage is, in itself, an advantage. 

When you’re a startup, here are some of your advantages:

• Flexibility – You can say “yes” or “no” to anything
• Decision-making – You can decide for yourself 
• Speed – You can start, stop, finish, or change at any time
• Attention – You can be razor-focused on whomever you want
• Creativity – You have no box or boundaries
• Upside – The upside is all yours

When you’re a multibillion-dollar enterprise, here are some of your advantages:

• Budget – You can afford capacity, technology, teams, and systems
• Access – You can access capacity, technology, teams, and systems
• Systems – You can create, acquire, use, and polish systems
• Risk – You can spread your risk
• Emotions – You can flatten out the emotional rollercoaster
• Downside – You can significantly reduce the downside

Coming to the table knowing your advantage is, in itself, an advantage. 

The 100-year flood, or for that matter, the 1000-year flood isn’t a real thing. 

It’s a set of statistical values used for engineering, insurance, and planning purposes. The engineers who design the burms, drainage, and pumps need a target. The actuaries need a target to price insurance policies. Community leaders need a target to put systems and policies in place. 

It’s a model, and nature doesn’t have to follow the model’s rules. 

Models are helpful for thinking through possibilities. For our business. For our retirement. For our health. 

But the real 100-year flood doesn’t know what year it is. It doesn’t know where it’s supposed to dump its water. It doesn’t know how much water. It doesn’t know which path it’s supposed to take. 

Plan all you want. And you should. But make room for chaos. Because it’s coming. 

The ones who thrive aren’t the ones whose model was better. They’re the ones who figured out how to float when the levee broke.

Do you know what your future looks like?

Have you planned it out? Do you know what you’ll be doing, where you’ll be living, and who you’ll be with? Can you picture it? 

You need a strategy, and I hope it works out.

But what if it doesn’t? 

What if there’s medical stuff? What if you miss on your market assumptions? What if your product doesn’t resonate? What if the kids move away? What if you have a financial inflection? What if you change your mind? What if the system changes? What if the world changes? 

All we know is today and history, but something, probably many things, will not look tomorrow like they do today or did last year.

Crazy will get crazier. The “can’t happen” will happen. The “never thought about” will become the focus.

However, there’s a solution — resilience and flexibility. Design resilience into your plans and foster mental and emotional flexibility. 

It’s simple, if not easy, to combat the unknown future with resilience and flexibility. Here are some ideas. 

For resilience: 

• Assume it will break
• Create margin, checks, guardrails, and failsafes
• Abstract the interface from the implementation 
• Have backups
• Have a plan B, C, D (burn the ships is romantically overrated)
• Watch what they do. Modify accordingly. 
• Invest in a network

For flexibility:

• Allow yourself to decide later
• Play devil’s advocate
• Instead of “What will happen?” try “What else could happen?”
• Follow your curiosity
• Challenge and reconfirm, or change, beliefs
• Practice discomfort
• Daydream about the what-if (not all the time, but occasionally)
• Give yourself grace for past failures and poor decisions. The lesson learned should rarely be “I’ll never do that again.” Rather, it should usually be “This is what I’ll do different next time.” There are some important exceptions, of course. 

Preparing for the future isn’t about being right. It’s about being able to respond when you’re wrong. 

Rule-followers (I’m one) take heed.

Paraphrased from The Third Door, by Alex Banayan.

• Front Door: This is the main entrance for the ticket buyers. The people who follow the rules to see the show. It’s where 99 percent of the people wait in line, hoping to get in.
• Back Door: This is the door for the people who have an “in”. Maybe they know somebody who can let them in, or introduce them to the right person. 
• Third Door: This is the door that the truly successful person creates — out of thin air. It’s created by sheer force of will, effort, and creativity. It’s the entrance where you have to jump out of line, run down the alley, bang on the door a hundred times, crack open the window, and sneak through the kitchen.

People matter. Connections matter. Relationships matter. 

Creativity matters. Grit matters. Force of will matters. 

The rules don’t matter as much as you think they do. What the paper says doesn’t matter as much as you think it does. The sign on the front door doesn’t matter as much as you think it does.

If you can get in through the back door, do it. That’s a great way to get in. 

If you can’t get in the back, find the third door. It’s often the best door.

True for engineering deliveries. True for contracts. True for the rock band’s rider. True for packaging. True for the smart home water sensor you just ordered on Amazon.

There are exceptions, of course, but should you rely on the exception?

Nobody reads your documentation. 

Plan accordingly. 

Childhood is the perfect time to teach and build resilience. It’s much harder as an adult. Maybe impossible.  

Resilience stems from emotional and physical recovery, as well as the confidence to overcome the challenges they face. 

Here are some things you can do to help your kids build resilience:

• Enroll them in baseball or softball. 
• Let them get the zero on the forgotten homework assignment.
• Have them discuss the zero or failed test with the teacher themselves.
• Don’t confuse embarrassment with bullying. 
• Give accurate, if empathic, feedback. If you don’t like it, it’s OK for them to know. 
• Encourage them to explore their curiosity.
• Allow them to walk on the curb, climb the monkey bars, and play hockey in the street. 
• Allow them to talk to strangers. 
• If they don’t feel good, but want to continue, maybe let them. 
• Encourage them to play with others.
• Argue with them. Respectfully, of course. 
• Fail in front of them (sometimes). 
• Don’t get involved.
• Sometimes, “Because I said so” is the perfect answer. 
• Let them figure it out.

Life is full of disappointment, failure, and challenges. Let’s help kids build the skills to handle it.

My friend, one of the best engineers I’ve ever known, has a saying about how we should do good engineering:

“Requirements first, then principles, then feelings.”

This clearly and helpfully lays out the hierarchy of how we go about our engineering work individually and collectively. 

Requirements are the objective north star. Does it do what we’ve been asked to make it do? Requirements are worth arguing about to come to a consensus. They rule the decisions we make. 

When we lack a specific requirement, we rely on our engineering principles. The principles in play are worth discussing and arguing about, but consensus isn’t necessary. What should it do in this situation? What’s the “right way” to do this? 

Feelings are not only third, but the gap between principles and feelings is a chasm. We’re here to make this thing according to the provided requirements. In cases where we need to derive a requirement, we rely on solid engineering principles. Your feelings are irrelevant. 

Let’s contrast that with good product marketing.

It’s exactly the opposite. 

First, feelings. Then principles, and finally requirements. 

What’s the story around the product? How do we want our users to feel? What problem do they care about? 

What kind of person would use our product? What do they care about? What tribes do they belong to? What status do they want to achieve?

What are they trying to accomplish? Why would they use it? 

The engineer tries to build the thing right.
The marketer ensures it’s the right thing.

You need both. In tension. In conversation. With respect.

Because in the end, no one buys specs. They buy the story the specs create.

When you show up at a well-stocked drum shop to buy a cymbal, you’ll have hundreds to choose from. 

One method is to just start hitting them. Grab a stick, start at the beginning, and smack each one.  

Although maybe fun for a few minutes, this method will take you the longest, and ultimately won’t yield what you’re looking for. After a few dozen, they don’t all sound the same, but your ear will be tired and you won’t be able to remember what sound you came in hoping to achieve.

Plus, you’ll mark yourself as a complete amateur, and you’ll annoy everybody else in that store. If you need any help from someone, well…

Another method is to know what type of cymbal you want when you walk in. A crash cymbal. Okay, now you’ve narrowed the selection down to around 100. 

Better yet, an 18” crash cymbal with a dark overtone to complement the 16” bright crash you already have. 

Now you’re down to 15-20. 

If you’ve really done your homework, you’ll know the one or two from each manufacturer that might be the one you want. 

Now you’ve got less than 10 to choose from. 

What’s your budget? Is there a specific look you’re aiming for? Do you favor or dislike one of the manufacturers? 

A professional walks into the drum store and hits 5 cymbals and walks out with the one he was looking for. 

The pro always brings a compass. 

As a startup company, 4TLAS always has one hurdle to cross — trust.

We’ve had to answer various versions of the following question in conversations with every potential customer:

“What happens [to us] if you go out of business?”

I get it. I don’t blame them. I’d be asking the same questions. I have asked the same questions of potential partners in the past. 

It’s a catch-22. 

Because, of course, the answer is “if you work with us, that’s one more brick in our foundation that will assure that never happens.”

We can’t build the trust without those bricks, and we can’t lay those bricks without having our customers trust us.

So we show up. We look them in the eye. We stay transparent. We delight. We say “yes” and “no” appropriately. We solve real problems with real urgency. We put contingency plans in our contracts for our customers’ benefits. 

We don’t use sleight-of-hand. We don’t put small print in the Terms of Service. We never overpromise and underdeliver. 

We do the things we can to build that trust. One brick at a time.

That’s how you build something unshakable — one brick at a time. 

I use Grammarly to write my articles. 

Today, I open it up and bang! Wholesale changed the interface overnight. Doesn’t look anything like it did yesterday. Totally different. 

No warning. No easing into it. Just opened up the app, and there it was. New, unfamiliar, and, frankly, irritating.

They moved my cheese. 

When someone moves your cheese, the first thing you notice isn’t the new layout, features, or promises of improvement. What you notice is your frustration. The interruption. The feeling that someone messed with your stuff.

Your cheese was right here, and now it’s over there. And it’s not just a small adjustment. It’s a whole new cheese map.

Maybe Grammarly did this to make things better. Maybe the interface is genuinely smarter, faster, and more intuitive. Maybe in a month I’ll wonder how I ever lived without it.

But today, I’m grumbling. Because change, even good change, is rarely comfortable.

I have a choice: Spend my energy wishing they moved my cheese back, or spend it adapting to the new location. 

Adaptation isn’t about the cheese. It’s about us. It’s about how quickly we can get from frustration to acceptance. From disruption to productivity. From resistance to resilience.

Maybe the cheese needed moving.

And maybe it’s me who needs to adjust.

I had a naive approach when I first trained for triathlons (all in my past now). 

I assumed training for swimming, biking, and running was about getting my body able to exert the most energy for a long time. Therefore, training was all about time and intensity. More, more, more. 

Wrong. 

It’s really about wasting the least amount of energy over the three legs, and you do that through getting better mechanics.

Swim mechanics — least resistance, most economical power stroke.
Bike mechanics — smooth cadence, proper gear selection, proper bike setup.
Run mechanics — Posture, stride, rhythm. 

Winning a triathlon isn’t necessarily about who can keep the highest heart rate for the longest time. It’s who can go the fastest with the lowest heart rate.

Mechanics.

If you’re stuck, not getting to where you want to be, or frustrated, maybe it’s time to look at how you’re doing it, rather than simply what it is.

Not a chance (unless you let it).

AI can write song lyrics because it knows statistically how to put words together. 

AI can write software because it knows statistically how to put words (syntax) together.

But AI has no purpose. It has no meaning. It has no desire (other than incentives we give it). It has no responsibility. It has no will. It doesn’t decide a problem needs a solution. It doesn’t care about risk. It doesn’t care about judgment. It doesn’t care about status. It doesn’t get tired, or excited, or nostalgic. 

AI has helped me be more productive, but at a very personal level, and marginally. Me with a power saw instead of a hand saw. Not at an organizational level. 

As the leader of a startup, I’ve been trying over the last year to figure out how AI can help me in the areas in which I’m deficient. I’m open. I’m a good guinea pig. I’d really like it to. 

Bottom line is it hasn’t helped me replace anything wholesale yet. Not really. Maybe it won’t, either. It has helped me do some things with words and research. Like the power saw gets me through the wood faster. But is it better?

AI isn’t gonna take over the world. It’s not gonna kill us all for its own benefit. It’s not gonna replace you or me. 

Unless, of course, you let it. 

But that’s no different than letting the younger and hungrier colleague replace you. 

Grades. Degrees. Titles. Certifications.

These are the systemic qualifications. But they don’t tell the whole story.

I’ve met straight-A students who couldn’t hold a conversation. I’ve worked with PhDs in engineering who couldn’t design, build, or debug their way out of a paper bag. I’ve worked for leaders who couldn’t lead their family on a vacation. I’ve hired ISO-9000-certified firms that couldn’t deliver a sandwich, let alone quality engineering.

Sometimes, and in some genres, it’s all we got. You may have to play the systemic qualification game.

However, if you want to make an impact, or hire someone who will make an impact, here’s what you’re really looking for:

Competence. Competence is skill, and skill isn’t the same as talent. Developing a skill simply requires a choice and then the work to get better.

Adultiness. Show up. Call back when you say you’ll call back. Deliver when you say you’ll deliver, or be up front when you can’t. Respect your coworkers, their ideas, and their perspectives. Take it on rather than pushing it off — get on the hook.

Curiosity. Be curious and follow it. Curiosity never killed anything. Rather, it’s the engine that leads to innovation.

Becoming. You might not be it now, but you can be. We’re all becoming something. Become who you need to be on purpose.

These are all choices that you can make.

In whatever line of work you’re moving through, the system may demand its formal qualifications.

But don’t substitute systemic qualifications for real qualifications.

When you work for yourself, you can give yourself whatever professional title you want.

So why take conformist or boring titles like CEO, lead engineer, or machinist?

If you want to be the “Curator of Human-Centered Synergies” or the “Chief Evangelist of Synergistic Paradigms,” no problem. Even “Mindful Experience Architect” might be the one.

However, you’d better know your audience, because that title is the first they see in your professional bio.

If you’re selling vision and vibe, then sure, make your title sing. But if you’re building trust, shipping product, or solving gritty problems, your audience might be looking for something a little more boring, yet understandable.

The point is to remember the purpose. Titles are shorthand. A signal. A pitch in a single phrase.

What are you signaling?

Have you ever worked for a micromanager?

Gives you the task list for the day. Gives you the timeline for the day. Gives you the “how” it should be done. Repeatedly checks. A daily dashboard full of KPI’s, metrics, and graphs.

Chains you to your workstation.

“Check with me.”

This is the industrial way. People as machines.

But we live in a post-industrial world. The post-industrial world doesn’t reward people as machines. It rewards people who use machines.

The teams that win combine creativity, curiosity, and humanness with the ability to deliver. They know the destintation, and they figure it out.

The best leaders of today encourage it. They don’t obsess over control. They build trust.

When you treat them like builders, they’ll create more than you imagined.

Not with chains. With guardrails.

The weight’s getting heavier.
The water’s rising.
The hole’s getting deeper.

The news is always bad.
The bank account’s getting close to zero.
The bills are piling up.

The glass isn’t even half empty — there are only a few drops. There is no way to be optimistic, especially for a realist. In fact, you’re pretty sure if someone tosses a “lemons into lemonade” line your way, you’d punch ’em.

There’s no f’n lemonade.

So what do you do?

Breathe. Make your list. Do one thing. Then the next. One bite at a time. One step at a time. One shovel-full. Faith. Family. Friends.

But never nothing.

The glass will start to fill. One drop. Then another.

Then it’s half full.

Trust is necessary.

Trust yourself. Trust the process. Trust God. Trust it will be all right. Trust you’ll figure it out.

And don’t forget to trust the team.

The team got you here. The team will step up.

Trust the team.

Everything has a user interface. You might want to pay attention to it.

The UI allows you to work it or tells you how it’s working. Is it levers and buttons? Gauges and windows? Maybe it’s audio or video. Do you need physical effort or mental intuition?

The UI is the connection whenever you’re making something for someone else. It’s what you or they see. It’s what you or they use.

What does your UI tell them? What does your UI tell you?

If the interface is unclear, somebody is filling in the blanks. Either them or you.

What are those blanks telling you?

Sometimes the temperature and the breeze is just right. The people standing around you are just right. The activity is just right.

The moment is just right.

Look around. Take it in. Be thankful.

Don’t miss it.

Because tomorrow you’ve gotta climb back down into the trench.

We talk about when it all works. The sunny day scenario.

We highlight it. We get excited. We show the investors. We show our friends.

But it’s gonna break.

You’ll get 8 inches of water in the basement. Your client will no-show. You won’t get a response. You’ll get stuck on the side of the road. The power will go out. The user will do something you never thought of. You’ll have no internet connection.

What will you do then?

We wake up to the buzzing rectangle on our bedside table.
We spend our day staring at the rectangles on our desk.
We drive to where the rectangles tell us to drive.

Maybe we need more circles and triangles.

Tornado warning. Trees and branches falling all around. Inches of rain per hour. Flash flood. Roads unpassable. The groundwater table rises above the elevation of the basement floor. The power goes out. 

What can you do? What does a leader do?

1. Breathe.
2. Assess.
3. Prioritize.
4. Focus.
5. Direct.
6. Empower.
7. Work quickly.
8. Let go what needs to be let go.

Because in a real crisis, everything’s not equally important. Some things will be lost. Some things can’t be saved.

A leader doesn’t panic.
A leader doesn’t freeze.
A leader sees the mess, accepts the chaos, and makes the next decision anyway. Even if it’s the wrong decision.

Leadership isn’t about controlling the storm.

It’s about moving forward within it.

Even when the water’s rising.
Even when the lights go out.
Even when it feels like the end of the world.

Especially then.

I recently visited the Museum of the American Revolution.

Well done. I highly recommend it.

My big takeaway: the US came to be because of the crazies. 

Not the reasonable people. Not those with a cool head. Not those with the ability to look at both sides and find the common ground.

The crazies.

And as someone who considers himself a reasonable person, that gives me pause.

But also, it helps me appreciate the big, beautiful chaos that is this wonderful country. We fight. We yell. We argue. We push it this way and that way. 

Most importantly:

We can fight. We can yell. We can argue. We can push it this way and that way.

This is freedom. This is what it looks like. 

Thank you, crazies. 

My cat woke me up last night, and then kept me up batting a little plastic spring around the floor and generally making an ass of himself.

First, let’s clear this up: Cats aren’t nocturnal.

They’re crepuscular. That’s a strange-sounding word that simply means “most active during the twilight hours.”

Bullshit, this was 3 am. 3 am is never twilight in southeastern PA. Now, I’ve been to Sweden, Finland, and Norway, and in the summertime, 3 am can indeed be twilight in those areas. But not here.

Regardless, crepuscular means they are adapted to seeing much better than you do in the low light. They don’t have perfect night vision, but they don’t need much light at all — the moon, a porch light, a street light down the block — to see just fine.

It’s the rods. They got a lot more than you do.

When you stumble over the coffee table or step on an errant shoe in the dark, it’s so tempting to look at the cat and wish you could see like they do. It seems like such an advantage.

But you got the cones.

Which means you see much better color and detail in both near and far distances than your cat.

Every time you look around at others and the world, you have a choice. You can continue to wish you were like the cat, or you could recognize the advantages you have.

Life is a journey of change.

Your experiences. Your family. Your work. Your body. Your ideas.

What would be the point of living if we didn’t let life change us?

We’re (I’m) wired to resist it. We (I) lean into what’s familiar, what feels safe, what’s comfortable.

But comfort isn’t the goal. Change is.

New problems present an opportunity to change your skills.
New people present an opportunity to change your thinking.
New seasons present an opportunity to change your priorities.

This you is a different you, whether you’ve embraced it or not. The trick isn’t ignoring or avoiding change. It’s participating in it. Each day presents the opportunity of change.

Change isn’t the interruption of your life.

It is your life.

Money is a charlatan. A trickster. And it is oh, so good. 

It says, “Look over here,” and we do while it pockets the card with its other hand.

We fight over it in our personal lives. We fight over it in our public and political lives. We bluster, yearn, blame, and chase. 

We say it doesn’t matter, yet we fashion our lives around it. We put it on the vision board as the goal.

But money isn’t a worthy goal. It’s not the end. 

It’s the means to an end. 

Money’s superpower is as a tool.

Once you recognize the real power of money, you stop chasing it for its own sake. You chase what it unlocks. You start chasing the real goal. 

But the goal? That’s still on you.

You can do all the science for your new startup business.

You can research the market and find the gaps. You can research the perfect product to fill that gap. You can research the development effort. You can research all the costs, risks, competition, and the pricing model. You can build a rock-solid pro forma.

But at some point, you still have to make the art.

What color? Rounded or square? What should we leave out? Who’s our person? What’s the story? What’s the story our person tells themself? What do we want them to feel? How do we convey the story? What are we willing to give up? What are we willing to change about our perspective?

Science gives you the data. The art determines success.

Anything worthwhile takes both.

Often, it’s easy to recognize when you’re the storyteller.

If you’re standing at the front of the room, you’re the storyteller.
If you’re posting on the socials, you’re the storyteller.
If you’re talking to a potential partner, you’re the storyteller.

Sometimes, however, you may not recognize it. But make no mistake, you’re still the storyteller.

If you’re looking in the mirror, you’re the storyteller.
If you’re replaying last week, you’re the storyteller.
If you’re thinking about next week, you’re the storyteller.

You’re the storyteller about yourself. About what happened and what’s possible. What didn’t and what could.

You own the narrative. You own the perspective. You own the feeling.

So, what kind of story are you telling yourself?

I got my first car in 1987. It was a 1979 Chevy Chevette. Mint green, 2-door, 3-speed automatic with a whopping 70 hp.

There is no way to sugarcoat this — this car sucked.

Don’t get me wrong, I was happy to have a ride, but every day it was something. I carried around a large adjustable wrench. Not because I might need to tighten some bolts (although that, too) but because sometimes I needed the all-metal handle to short the starter motor terminals. Sparks would fly, but the motor would kick over, and we’d be on our way.

I still have the wrench. Here it is, and you can easily make out the distance between the terminals on a 1979 Chevette starter motor.

The Chevette followed directly from the 1973 oil crisis. American car manufacturers, who had been spending most of their engineering effort on bigger, faster, musclier, and more luxurious cars, suddenly had to pivot to fuel efficiency. But it took time. It took real products out in the real world to figure out how to make them better.

In 1987, this car had less than 50k miles. I passed it on to my brother when he turned 16, and when he finally put it out of its misery, it had less than 75k.

How many miles are on the cars sitting in your driveway?

They don’t make them like they used to.

And thank goodness.

The shifting sands aren’t quite the same as the rug pull, but they rhyme.

The rug pull hits you all at once. One minute, you’re standing on solid ground, and the next, your feet are firmly planted in mid-air. The decision has been forced upon you. Solve the problem. Today.

The outcome of the shifting sands is the same, but the journey is different.

If you’re not paying attention, you probably don’t notice the ground moving. Or maybe you notice it, but it’s so slow and small that you decide it’s not immediately important.

A slow erosion. What once was stable is now a bit tilted. Not because something snapped but because it’s been shifting beneath you for months.

The shifting sands don’t demand action like the rug pull. They seduce you into complacency.

The danger of the shifting sands is not that you’ll fall. It’s that you’ll sink.

Even though it feels solid, the ground beneath us is always shifting.

How will you adapt?

Perfection is an unattainable target.

Perfection only exists in a lab with ideal conditions, a controlled environment, and a finite set of known inputs.

Perfectionism is a form of Resistance. Avoidance. It can keep you in your comfort zone. Perfectionism can help you feel better about not trying.

Toward perfection, however, is not the same as perfectionism.

Toward perfection is toward better. And toward better is how you make a difference.

Sometimes, it really is just a fork.

But also, that one fork might have changed everything.

One fork became the spoon, bowl, and three coffee mugs sitting in the sink. Then you wiped down the counter, which led to wiping the cabinet doors. While wiping them down, you could no longer just close the door on the dysfunctional storage container cabinet. Before you knew it, not only was the kitchen clean on the surfaces, but also under the covers.

The full job. The one you knew needed to be done. Was done.

All because of that one fork.

Somedays you just gotta find that fork and take care of it.

Ready, Fire, Aim
Build the bridge as you cross it.
Leap before you look.

Measure twice, cut once.
Have all your ducks in a row.
Look before you leap.

So which is it?

Well, that depends.

On what you’re building.
On what’s at stake.
On who’s involved.

The trick isn’t choosing one over the other. It’s recognizing how to be the right amount ahead.

“The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.”

June 19, 1865. 

That’s the day when Union Major General Gordon Granger, along with 2000 troops, arrived in Galveston, TX, and announced the end of slavery.

But this was over two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

Of course, information traveled and filtered into the masses slower in the 1860’s. No internet, radio, TV, or automobiles. Not everyone heard. 

One could blame it on that. And that would be a lie. 

The system didn’t change because it wasn’t ready to change. It didn’t want to change. 

It’s always the system. 

We celebrate Juneteenth not because of the declaration of the end of slavery. We celebrate it because this is the day it arrived. 

We live in a big, beautiful world.

So many interesting things. So many unknown things. So much to learn.

So much to be curious about.

Yet, The World tries to steal your curiosity.

“Don’t think about that. We’ll take care of it.”
“Don’t wonder about that. We’ll do it for you.”
“Don’t look into that. We’ll tell you how it is.”

One quality that will keep you young, make you happy, and help you remain useful is curiosity.

Never stop thinking. Never stop wondering. Never stop looking into it.

Figure it out.

Deep down, you know.

You know that more outrage doesn’t help you. It helps them.
You know that more scrolling doesn’t help you. It helps them.
You know that being more offended doesn’t help you. It helps them.

If your goal is to help them, then by all means.

But if not, maybe less is better.

I’m sure, or at least I hope, you know the flow state.

It’s that beautiful moment of full immersion, where time vanishes, doubt disappears, and the doing comes effortlessly. 

For me, it can happen when writing code, writing words, or building a spreadsheet. But also, I can find it when sharpening the knives, fixing the lawn mower, or wrestling with a jigsaw puzzle.    

I don’t find it every time I do something on that list or every day. But I’m always in pursuit of the flow. 

How do we summon it?

It’s not a sudden spark or a lightning bolt. It doesn’t hit in the shower or the middle of the night. 

It shows up when we show up. 

Steven Pressfield talks about the muse and how she shows up because you summon her. She doesn’t show up because she feels like it. You’re not waiting around until she shows up. You sit down and do the work. That’s when she shows up. 

The Flow follows effort. It’s a pattern. A rhythm. Deliberate.

The Flow finds you because you put in the effort. 

Show up. Do the work. Make bad stuff. Get punched in the face. Make it again. And again. 

Summon The Flow. 

People at my age often stagnate.

And just as often, it’s on purpose. They’re tired, or feel like they’ve earned where they are, or feel done.

I don’t blame people for this. We’re 30 years into our careers and probably 20-30 years into family life. We’ve been there and done that. We’ve figured some stuff out.

However, you’re also never done.

The world keeps shifting. Technology and culture keep marching forward. Changing around us, if not with us.

You keep shifting. Physically, mentally, and emotionally. Whether you’ve embraced it or not.

You’re still becoming, whether by default or design.

The question is: Are you happy with who you’re becoming?

We confuse the two all the time. 

Knowledge is what you know. The dates, specs, and procedures. The contents of a book, the lecture, a YouTube video, or what you see from the stands. You can gain knowledge without ever leaving your chair. 

Learning is what happens when you engage. 

You can memorize the rules and strategies of chess, but what happens when you start playing? One gives you information, the other, transformation.

You can know everything there is about fitness and still never work out. You can know the steps of a sales process and still never close a deal. You can know leadership principles and still be a lousy leader.

Because knowledge doesn’t necessarily affect behavior.

Learning shows up in how you act, how you adapt, and how you grow. It shows up when you fall, reconsider, revise, and try again. It’s the shift in how you see the world, not just what you can recite from it.

Knowledge might help you join the conversation at a dinner party, but learning is what makes you worth listening to. 

Despite some rumors, your Costco ID will NOT work at the airport.

The Costco card indicates you’re part of that club, but that club doesn’t carry any weight at the airport.

We all carry various physical, intellectual, and emotional membership IDs. The key is to know which one to use when.

Deep down, we know what the real work is.

The phone call. Reworking the pitch for the umpteenth time. Redoing the research and the numbers. The thing that might not work.

But we don’t do it. Not right away.

Instead, we clean our desk.
We tinker with the fonts and images.
We attend a meeting that doesn’t need us.

It feels productive.
It feels like progress.
But it’s just sedation.

Busy work dulls the discomfort of real work.
It keeps us feeling safe, but not moving forward.

The real is scary. Uncertain. We might fail. We might be told we stink. We might be told we don’t have anything.

But it’s the only work that matters.

The rest is just anesthesia.

Are you doing the real work, or are you just staying numb?

You easily recognize the size of some decisions.

Marriage is easily recognized as big. Renting an apartment you’d probably call medium. And where you’ll eat lunch you wouldn’t think much about.

In the moment, or the lead-up to the moment, you may recognize the size, but it’s also just as likely that you won’t or you’ll get it wrong.

Maybe your lunch was tainted, and it put you in the hospital. Or, while eating your lunch, you serendipitously met your future partner, employer, or largest customer.

The reality is, size isn’t always measured by effort or emotion in the moment. Some big decisions feel small when they’re made. Some small ones echo for decades.

That job you took because it was convenient.
The person you met because you sat next to them.
That time you said yes, or no, without much thought.

Only hindsight can provide the necessary context.

Stay awake. Pay attention. But also, don’t fret too much. Don’t be paralyzed. Keep marching. Reflect, OK. Give yourself grace. The small may be bigger than it seems. The big may be more flexible than it feels.

Each decision shapes the story you’ll tell later, but that story is your own.

Big, medium, or small. They’re all chapters in your life.

It seems there is a pretend work trend in China.

“Many citizens who don’t want to explain their employment status pay to rent a position in a fake office, with some even assigning fictitious tasks and organizing supervisory rounds.”

Why? 

Because work is meaningful. For some, it’s identity. For others, it’s purpose. And others, it’s just what needs to be done. 

Work, by the way, doesn’t need to be “professional.” It’s application. Utility. Creativity. Expense of energy for some purpose. 

But in any case, it’s meaningful. 

Having “work” to do — or appearing to — communicates value. We want to feel valuable. 

We can talk about systems, institutions, and governments and how each of these has contributed to and sustains “where we are in human history,” but none of these exist without basic human ambition. 

The Smart People don’t give enough credit to the human spirit. To ambition. 

Humans want to matter. They want to contribute, to be seen, to be relevant. They want to work. 

Not everyone. But enough. 

The danger isn’t fake work. It’s systems that don’t make space for human ambition. It’s when bureaucracy, risk-aversion, and status produce work that feels just as fake but pays better.

Is our system perfect? Heck, no.

The good news is that if we continue to work on the systems, we can build work that matters. Work that welcomes people. Work that sees potential and encourages contribution. 

Because the future of work isn’t pretend.

The human spirit is too ambitious. 

A great way to think about and socialize your unique advantage is a differentiation grid.

It looks like this:

What are the axes on which you (or your product, your service) look the best?
Who are your competitors?
Where are they on the grid?

Find your axes. Find your magic.

When I was a young engineer working on the products that our company made and sold, I was quite naive. 

Actually, I was worse than naive. I was insular and egocentric. Basically, I thought that engineering was the most important function of the company. Engineering was the purpose of the company. 

Sales? Can’t sell something that doesn’t exist.
Marketing? Can’t market something that doesn’t exist.
Accounting? Can’t create P&L statements if there’s nothing that brings in P.

Yeah, I’m not proud of my thought process at the time.

I missed the fact that we were all pieces in the system. All important. None functions without the other. It’s a symphony, not a solo performer.  

You can’t sell or market something that doesn’t (or won’t) exist, but also, you don’t have a business (or a job or a purpose) without marketing and selling what you make. You also won’t be in business if you can’t understand your finances, keep them in order, and make decisions based on them.  

So here’s a better approach: 

When you walk into the room, assume everybody is important, and ask yourself, “What does the system need from me?”

That’s the shift from solo performer to symphony.

It’s easy to do, and it’s easy to buy in when others do it for us.

“You deserve this.”
“You’re doing a great job.”
“It’s not your fault.”

To be clear, these may be true, but what if they’re just comfort in disguise?

Are you snowing yourself?

Attention is a currency.

You spend it, and others are trying to extract it.

We talk about, write about, and argue about how we spend our other resources. We made up the term ROI (return on investment) to measure it.

“What’s your ROI?”

How are you spending your attention? Are you investing it? Wasting it?

“What’s your ROA?”

Where you spend your attention shapes what you produce, how you feel, and who you become.

Attention, like time, is one currency you can’t earn back.

A friend of mine recently said that when we were commiserating about useless meetings in our businesses.

In the industrial work paradigm, you clocked in, moved parts down the line, and then clocked out. Today, we do the same thing, except the parts are useless meetings, and the line is our calendar.

We replaced the factory with the meeting room.

We gather six people with the right titles for an hour to address a $100 problem.

The repetition feels safe. Familiar. Productive-ish. The hierarchy is satisfied.

Useful work — the kind that solves $100k and $100M problems — often takes place with a collaborator or collaborators. In assertion. In tension. In collective energy. In conversation.

Wait, aren’t meetings the problem?

Meetings, yes. Conversations, no.

If you’re a leader, encourage the conversations. Give them room to exist and breathe. Give them tools and the power and responsibility to use them.

Skip the meetings.

You’ve lost momentum.

To get back at it, you don’t have to start with inspiration, intensity, or the answer to whatever stopped you.

It’s simply motion. Not everything or even the most important thing. Start with the next thing. One foot in front of the other.

Now you’re back at it.

Tables and charts are just tables and charts. 

Until you enter the picture. Does this table beg new questions from you? Will this chart inform your decision? Do either of these help you change your mind or bolster what you already know? 

The data doesn’t talk, but when you come together with it, it may undergird your voice. Or maybe not.

Yet, smart marketers use data as part of the story they tell. It’s part of their influence campaign. It’s a bludgeon.

More data — bigger hammer. 

Don’t be impressed, distracted, or confused by the data if it doesn’t help you see it better. 

Data should be a flashlight, not a weapon. 

[NOTE: I commandeered/plagiarized/stole the title from The 1440.]

Penny’s cost almost four cents to make. Yet, they’re worth only one cent. 

The government lost $85 million last year making pennies. $85 million. A pittance for the government, sure, but for you and me? 

And what did you do with them? 

You probably left them at the register, or tossed them in a tip jar, or stuffed way down in the console of the car, or even threw them out. About 6.7 million people toss their pennies in the trash. In total, we discard about $62 million in coins each year, with pennies comprising a significant portion of this amount.

And yet, we kept stamping them out. Why?

Nostalgia — The penny feels foundational, plus it’s a tie to times past. 

“That’s how they get ya!” — People are concerned about businesses rounding up and having to pay more.

Infrastructure — Pennies are built into the system’s infrastructure. Changing the system is hard. 

Politics — Somebody’s gonna spin this as taking away something “the people.” That somebody will tell you a story with a name and a face about how this person is suffering without the penny. 

OK, fair enough. 

But sometimes you gotta rip the band-aid. 

Just because it used to work doesn’t mean it still does. Just because that’s the way we always did it doesn’t mean you still should. Just because one or some people may be worse off doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it anyway. 

The hardest part of progress isn’t necessarily building the new. Sometimes, it’s letting go of the old. 

I’m coming out of the closet. 

The best car we ever owned was a minivan. Specifically, a 2004 Toyota Sienna. Dark green. Tan interior. Stone-cold awesome.

We put 250,000 miles on that thing.

Three kids. Countless vacations. Thousands of sporting events, lake trips, and hardware store runs. It towed our jet skis, cruised the interstate, and swallowed everything we threw at it.

It was reliable. Comfortable. Easy to drive.

You might be thinking, “A minivan? Really?” Yeah. Really.

Why does a minivan trigger a little cringe?

Probably identity. And that identity has been shaped by the culture and the market. 

Minivans became shorthand for “settled-down.” People want vehicles that say “adventure.” Even if the closest you get to off-road is the garden section of Home Depot. 

Manufacturers know this, and they leaned in. Minivan margins are slim, and SUV margins are fat. Target the marketing dollars at the fat margins. 

And we followed. Not because SUVs and giant pickup trucks are better for our lifestyle. But because of story. The story we tell ourselves about the person we are or want to be. It’s a story of freedom and adventure.

I don’t, but I could. 

Whenever you’re making something for someone else, make sure you know the story they tell themselves about themselves. 

Because it’s the story they’re really buying. 

P.S. About 80-90% of the 30 million Jeeps, SUVs, and trucks with knobby tires, roll-bars, and lift-kits on the road today have never been, and will never go off-road. That’s about 24-27 million “I don’t, but I could.”

Disagreement feels like rejection. Agreement feels like validation.

Disagreement is discomfort. Agreement is comfort.

But if you’re a leader, agreement can be a trap because your idea isn’t always the best.

The best ideas, or maybe the best outcomes, come from creative tension. From friction. From someone brave enough to say, “That doesn’t make sense.”

Want better ideas? Invite your people to disagree. Create space where people don’t have to nod along.

If no one’s pushing back, you’re probably not leading. You’re just broadcasting.

More is many things.

We chase more because it looks like progress, value, and better.

More is easy to sell. It’s harder to maintain.

More meetings mean more overhead.
More stuff means more stuff to deal with.
More choices mean more decisions.
More features mean more bugs.
More success requires more success.

More is unstable. Because it requires more.

That’s about 450 words. What will you say?

It’s a hallway conversation. A coffee line moment. A surprise introduction or run-in at the grocery store.

That’s just enough time to either make someone lean in or check out. It isn’t long enough to say everything. But it’s more than enough to say something.

Will their eyes glaze over or flit about? Or will their pupils narrow just a bit as the muscles around them tighten slightly?

Start with the spark. Not the history. Not the digression. Not the explanation.

The spark.

What’s the essence of the story?

You’ve got 3 minutes. What will you say?

The elevator pitch has several origin stories.

Here’s one I like:

In 1854, Elisha Otis dramatically demonstrated his safety elevator at the New York World’s Fair by cutting the support rope on a hoisted platform on which he was standing. The platform safely stopped mid-air.

Here’s another:

In early Hollywood, screenwriters used elevator rides to pitch ideas to busy executives, prompting the creation of brief, persuasive pitches that required clarity and efficiency.

So what is it? Here is an elevator pitch for an elevator pitch:

“An elevator pitch is a powerful, concise summary of your idea, product, or value proposition that you can deliver in the time it takes to ride an elevator.”

Elevator pitches are very difficult for someone who rambles, tends towards overexplaining, uses too many words, includes too many details, digresses, inexplicably feels the need to explain tangential concepts, is secretly afraid that the audience thinks he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and really and truly just wants to ensure that everyone, everywhere gets the point.

That’s me. And that’s a terrible explanation, like most of mine.

Now, here’s the elevator pitch version of the previous (from ChatGPT):

I ramble, overexplain, and occasionally give TED Talks on side topics, which is why delivering an elevator pitch feels like a personal nightmare.

Or, here’s another (from ChatGPT):

Elevator pitches are hard when your brain writes a novel, your mouth reads the footnotes, and the elevator only goes up three floors.

This post is proof. I set out to write an elevator pitch but ended up walking you around the entire building, door by door, floor by floor. We went to the basement to see the plumbing and electrical infrastructure. We went to the roof to see the antennas. I told you about our contract with AT&T and Verizon to lease antenna space. I probably pulled out the documentation. I showed you the custodian’s closet. I explained the lighting strategies and provided some wonderful (ly boring) anecdotes about the automation features. Did you know that the floors use a new compound that not only meets the green requirements for this building, but have actually saved us almost 5% compared to the alternative?

I’m sorry for that. I can’t help it. That’s why this blog is called The250.

Here’s the elevator pitch for this post:

Elevator pitches are simple, but not easy, especially when your instinct is to explain the elevator before you ride it.

Contractually, you might get paid for hours or milestones. At least according to the terms and conditions. 

But you’ll get paid much more for value.

(Thank you, Seth)

I’ve written a few proverb lists over the years. Here’s a curation of those, plus some new ones that apply to the professional. No matter where you are, what you do, and what role you have, these are for you. 

1. The same old mistakes form the walls of your prison. New mistakes pave the highway forward.
2. Multitasking is a myth. 
3. You don’t have a time management problem. You have a time priority problem.
4. Avoid hanging out at the corner of bitch and moan. 
5. Be willing to get punched in the face. 
6. The one who gets ahead is the one who takes responsibility. Especially for the failures.
7. Compete.
8. Follow the money, power, and status, but learn to navigate all three without becoming owned by any.
9. Color outside the lines. Walk on the curb. Run with scissors. Not all the time, but sometimes.
10. Creative tension is how great teams get better. Embrace the disagreement.
11. Always assume the other person doesn’t mean harm and that you misunderstood.
12. Consensus does not equal truth.
13. Curiosity and the desire to explore keep you young and make you more valuable.
14. Bring your passion with you. 
15. Value doesn’t necessarily mean hours or KPIs. Be valuable. 
16. Legacy isn’t a name on a building. It’s the effect you’ve had on the people around you.
17. You are a work in progress. So is everyone else. Remember that before casting the first stone.
18. Learning how to recognize, confer, and use status is a superpower.
19. Don’t be snowed by credentials. Respect everyone. 
20. The best method for learning is to teach someone else.
21. Do things that make you feel like an impostor. That feeling means you’re growing.
22. Inspiration shows up more often in the middle of the work than in the middle of the night.
23. It’s OK, maybe encouraged, to geek out on tools.
24. You don’t have to start in the mail room, but pay attention to those who have. Their perspective is likely a magnetic pole to which you should be attracted or repelled.
25. Leave your colleagues feeling, “I want to work with this person.” That’s not the same as, “I’d love to hang out with this person.”
26. Once you learn how work works, you’ll never worry about machines taking your job.
27. Professionals play hurt.
28. Professionals show up when it counts.
29. The leader isn’t necessarily the name in the box at the top of the chart. Be a leader. At the very least, lead yourself.
30. Teach others to do your job.

Stuff you can’t control directly:

If someone else says “yes.”
What politicians decide.
The price of gas.

Stuff you can:

How many conversations you have.
Who you vote for.
What you buy, where you go, how you get there.

It’s important to both recognize and remember what you can control directly.

Not just intellectually, but emotionally.

Although it’s useful to discuss and debate the things over which you have no direct control, it’s not useful to lose sleep over them.

Somehow it all got away.

Have you ever, if even just for a second, stepped out of yourself, out of your existential presence, looked around and realized, “this is not as I planned it” or, “this is not how I imagined it” or, “I don’t think I recognize any of this?”

Yeah, OK, I realize that probably sounds crazy. But if you know, you know.

Somehow it all got away.

It’s jarring. It’s odd. It feels kinda destabilizing. Like vertigo, but in your soul.

Maybe that’s the point. Maybe that’s God telling you that it’s not about planning and control and exactly as you pictured it. It’s about sowing and watching it bloom. Once it’s bloomed, to continually reshape, weed, tend, untangle, or retangle.

Maybe the point is to notice and to stay long enough to see what it becomes.

Earth’s current population is ~ 8.2 billion.

Walmart has the highest revenue of all companies on this planet at $681 billion in the last year.

So, each person on the planet spends approximately $83 per year at Walmart. But, of course, we know that’s not true. Even Walmart isn’t for everybody. Not even close.

Perplexity estimates about 600 million shopped at Walmart last year. That’s about 7% of earth’s people. Which means each Walmart shopper spent about $1135 last year.

So what?

You’re not Walmart. You (probably) won’t have 7% of the earth’s population as your customer.

Yet again, though, Walmart doesn’t build its business around the average of 600 million customers. They break it down further.

The average Walmart shopper makes 67 trips per year and the average spend is about $54 per trip. That’s $3618. But they’re still not done. Now they dive into geography and demographics to further understand their customers. They know what a middle-income, older adult in West Virginia will spend versus a lower-income, young mother in southern California.

Your product or service isn’t for everyone.

Who’s it for?

Building a great product or service is a bit like cooking dinner for someone you don’t know.

There are some things you know, however.

They expect it hot.
They desire something delicious.
They (believe they) deserve a great experience.

That’s product design.

They expect it to meet the basic requirements.
They desire it to meet their personal requirements.
They deserve to feel valued, heard, and respected.

If you build a washing machine, your customer expects it to clean the clothes, they desire that the features work as advertised, and they deserve to feel like they received value.

If you’re an airline, your customer expects to arrive at their destination, they desire to sit in the seat they paid for (or upgraded), and deserve to be treated with respect.

Expectations and desires are easy and concrete. Talk to your customers. Survey the market.

But it’s that last one that sets you apart.

Finally, I’m excited about a new car and car company. 

We have a saying in 4TLAS: “Make the right thing to do the easy thing to do.”

One thing I’ve learned in over 30 years of making stuff for people to use is that they generally do the easy thing. We wax eloquent about doing the right thing and doing the hard thing, but mostly we do the easy thing. 

We like it easy.

Therefore, if you want people to behave in a particular way, make it easy to do.

How does this relate to the Slate EV?

Most people don’t care about EV’s. At least not in the way that The News portrays it, or that we might argue about at a serene, rooftop cocktail party or a loud BBQ picnic bash in the infield at Daytona. 

Slate is showing us the very essence of making the right thing to do the easy thing to do. 

EVs will become dominant when they make practical financial sense. 

You go, Slate. 

Smart can be measured.

Test scores. Speed. Memory. Pattern recognition.
Smart is right. Smart is efficient. Smart gets there quickly.

You know the smart ones. 

But wisdom plays a different game.
Wisdom doesn’t rush. It watches. Waits.

Wisdom requires experiences. Wisdom has felt consequences. It doesn’t just answer the question, it asks new ones like, “What happens if we’re right?” and “Do we want to be right?”

Wisdon isn’t always interested in the right answer. 

Smart will build it.
Wise asks if it should be built at all.

Smart wins the argument.
Wise wins the trust.

Smart and wise aren’t the same, but the Venn Diagram shows an intersection. It doesn’t have to be or. It can be and. 

That’s where you want to stand. It takes effort, generosity, empathy, skills, observation, confidence, awareness, and history to stand there.

Not IQ or credentials. 

It depends on where you start and what you mean by “learn how to use.”

If you’re a novice at construction, a hammer will take you less than a minute to learn how to use. Same with the saw. But how long will it take you to learn how to use those tools to build a house or the cabinets for your kitchen?

If you’re a novice at software, GitLab might take you years to learn how to create an automated build pipeline (because what does that even mean?). However, if you’re a pro developer, it will only take you a couple of hours.

Tools help us get from here to somewhere. But context matters. Not every tool needs to be easy for a novice.

Mastery takes context. It takes reps and commitment.

More impotantly it takes intent.

The best tools aren’t magic. They reveal the craft.