Linus Torvalds ruined an entire generation of software developers.

Well, more specifically, he ruined a generation of his disciples in software team environments. He made it seem like it’s OK to be a giant asshole. Let’s be clear. It’s not. Not when you’re trying to build a great team full of sprouts and warriors, and you’re not one of the tech giants.

Torvalds is a master at his craft, no doubt. Yet, he’s equally infamous for a harsh communication style. Public rants and dismissive comments are his hallmarks. These behaviors spawned an intimidating, hostile culture. It squashed collaboration. It quashed innovation. It bred fear, not ideas.

Therein lies a critical lesson: Technical brilliance is not enough. An engineer who can’t play well with others can seriously damage the team’s dynamics, no matter how skilled they might be.

But don’t confuse “plays well with others” with “milk toast” and “B-players.” You need people who care, and you want them to speak up. You want conviction. You want creative tension, and you want everybody to hold each other accountable and to a higher standard. You should listen to ornery people who care. 

You just don’t have to be a dick about it.

You need people who argue about ideas, not about the person. You want people who can find empathy. You want people who contribute to the positive energy in the room.

Find the people who move the team forward, not backward. 

Hiring is hard.

Especially if you’re not one of the tech giants or a hot shit startup. But you can still hire and assemble a great team.

Previously we learned that hiring is not dating and that you’re looking for sprouts and warriors.

The secret is in strategic elimination rather than trying to assess perceived perfection. Shif your approach to eliminating those that will capsize the boat. 

Often, we’re too engrossed in finding ‘the best’, overlooking problematic traits that lurk beneath the surface. It’s like inverse anchor bias. The critical focus? Personality. Misjudge this, and you’re headed for an iceberg.

Consider arrogance versus confidence. You’re craving the confident, and you’re hoping to spot the arrogant. Arrogance dismisses critique and steamrolls colleagues, while a confident one invites feedback, respects peers, and fuels team synergy. You need to eliminate the blustery hype machines. 

Consider introversion versus milk toast. A great team member doesn’t need to be the life of the party or talk all that much. But she certainly needs to speak her mind and argue her convictions. The team needs constructive dissension and creative tension. You need to eliminate those who won’t ever speak up. 

Tune your hiring process to find the right personalities. 

The industrial machine drove the old work paradigm.

Work the hours. Supervisorship and micromanagement. Fifteen-minute increments. Org leadership. Come to this office. Park here. Sit in this office. We’ll give you snacks. Do what we say. Ask the boss. Fit in.

The old work paradigm required ever-increasing productivity, compliance, and hierarchy from the humans. Humans acting like machines.

But the industrial machine is in its death throes.

Queue the new work paradigm.

The new work paradigm values significance — for the mission, team, and the people.

Authority gives way to autonomy. Micromanagement replaced by empowerment. Compliance out, and creativity in. Our days aren’t dictated by the clock but driven by curiosity and commitment. Boundaries have blurred, giving rise to fluid, cross-functional teams. Unconventional thinking is celebrated, not silenced. The office no longer dominates work. Geography independence begets work-life integration.

This is the new work paradigm. Empowering. Engaging. Enthralling. Work of significance. Let the humans be the humans. Let the humans use the machines rather than be the machines.

The future is now. Embrace it with confidence or get left behind.

You’re looking for warriors, but warriors don’t always show themselves through flashy credentials.

Warriors go to battle. Warriors persevere. Warriors don’t stop until you’ve done the job. Warriors invest themselves in the team, the project, and the outcome. They’ve turned their scars into strength.

Warriors are made in the trenches, in the projects that have derailed, the classes they failed, and a life that’s gone sideways. In these harsh environments, they’ve learned to adapt, persist, and most importantly, overcome.

Herb Brooks, coach of the legendary 1980 US Hockey team, didn’t opt for the most skilled players. Instead, he sought fighters, individuals who knew adversity and still pressed on. He looked beyond mere talent, focusing on resilience, dedication, and the will to conquer.

In your hunt for warriors, ignore the shiny qualifications and uncover the gritty stories of resilience. Look for those who’ve fought battles, emerged victorious, learned, and are ready to take on the next challenge. Find those who value commitment over prestige, team victory over personal glory.

Warriors don’t require work experience in your field. Life throws each of us battles. Warriors are chiseled out of life experience as much as work experience. Sprouts can be every bit the warrior, just as a 20-year grizzled veteran.

How do you find them?

Listen to their stories — work, school, life. Discuss the battles they’ve fought. How they fought them. Find the uncut gems of wisdom.

Go beyond the resume and dive into life.

You’re looking for sprouts, and one of the best places to find them is fresh out of college. 

So how do you find them?

Experience has taught me this: the conventional hiring process for new graduates doesn’t cut it if you’re not one of the big tech firms or a hot shit startup. Google, Facebook, and Apple can afford the conventional approach to finding their superstars because they have a line of candidates that stretch out the door and around the block. 

So what if you don’t?

Toss the school name, GPA, and grueling theoretical interviews out the window. They won’t serve you, and that’s what everyone is looking at. You need to look differently. Don’t compete in that ocean. Find your own sea. 

Here’s what truly matters: Will this sprout succeed with us?

Software development demands a mix of technical skill, initiative, productivity, and teamwork. Spotting potential in these areas is the game changer.

Ask them one question: “What are you presently working on?”

If the answer smells like, “Well, nothing, I’m still trying to get my first job,” then pass. Yours will not be their first job, no matter what their GPA and class standing is. 

You need sprouts who are already working on something, regardless of pay because that shows initiative, creativity, focus, and self-reliance. They have curiosity and drive. They already care enough to do it. 

So, look for the sprouts who are already working on something. They’re your future.

You’re on a quest for sprouts and warriors.

Sprouts burst upwards, hungry to grow, learn, and become. They’re not complete, not yet. But within them lies a potential brighter than the brightest star. When you recruit, seek sprouts. Seek the thirst, the ambition, the raw, unshaped talent. More than that, seek the spirit.

Walt Disney built his empire by finding the right sprouts. The genius of Disney was his ability to see the sprouts, the raw potential, and to cultivate it.

Sprouts bring new ideas, energy, and turn into warriors.

Warriors win the war.

Warriors are embodiments of unwavering commitment, less about talent and more about resilience. They dance in the rain of adversity, not always the most gifted, but the most dedicated. They’ve tamed their tools, turned challenges into stepping stones, and carry a fire of willing contribution.

Herb Brooks built the 1980 US Hockey Team from a band of warriors. He chose fighters over flash. Grit over names. Resilience and experience in the ring, and those who had battled their dragons and emerged victorious. He transformed a group of collegiate athletes into an Olympic team that beat the invincible Soviets.

You don’t have to be Google, Facebook, or Apple to build an amazing team. You need to choose and recruit differently.

You’re gonna want to find sprouts and warriors.

Building your team is a quest, and it’s critical to your success. 

If you’re Google, Facebook, or Apple, it’s easy. The people will come to you. The A-listers will be pounding on your door to get in. All you have to do is select, and if you make a mistake, no big deal. Get someone else. The supply is never-ending.

But you’re not Google, Facebook, or Apple. You don’t have a long line of A-listers banging down your door. Don’t worry. You can still build an amazing team. In fact, you can probably build a better team. 

Of course, you’ll need to go about it differently. Ironically, you’ll turn it around on them and be the one to think and act differently. You’ll channel some Billy Beane (finding undervalued and under-the-radar talent by thinking differently), mix in a little Herb Brooks (getting the most out of who you have — warriors), and spread some Walt Disney on the top (finding people who will grow to be amazing — sprouts).

The first thing to understand is that Hiring is Not Dating. 

What’s next? 

Let’s go find the warriors and the sprouts. 

The craftsman knows that mastery itself is a skill.

Since it’s a skill, it can be learned.

Mastery, and by extension craftsmanship, follow curiosity, openness, others, effort, diligence, and time. Mastery doesn’t require special talent or genetics. Sure, those ingredients can accelerate or guide you toward the path, but they’re not necessary.

Each day, each project, and each challenge is an opportunity to learn, grow, and improve. Skill development requires it.

Because mastery isn’t just a destination, it’s the journey itself.

Masters acknowledge others and Luck/God/Universe.

The master knows he is connected to something bigger than himself. The master is one part of the whole.

Sometimes things fall into place for her, and she acknowledges this. She may consider it God, or the Universe, or fate, or the muse, or even incoherent luck, but she knows that the whole has contributed. She does not drink her own bathwater.

He also knows that he is not self-made and there is no such thing. The very concept of self-made is oxymoronic.

The master asks for review, takes criticism, and adjusts. Not for external validation but for growth.

He always gives credit to others and the whole. He is thankful for those before him and with him and who come after him. The master makes gratitude part of his daily practice.

The master knows she is not alone, nor could she have made it alone.

Masters remain flexible and current.

The master questions his own beliefs and his own methods. This may shake him to the core. He does it anyway.

Beliefs are beginning assertions, and methods are test procedures. She knows that sometimes they are wrong. As she produces, she adjusts accordingly, and her output changes.

The master also knows that skill sets and philosophies are fluid and ever-changing, so he keeps up. He doesn’t keep up so that he knows the lingo and can talk a good game. He keeps up to discern progress from bullshit.

He employs progress. He eschews bullshit.

A master knows when to be flexible.

A craftsman masters his domain.

The master turns from consumer to producer.

He does stuff, and he continues to participate. He takes the information, finds his voice in it, and starts producing. The master makes the phone calls.

The master gets comfortable being uncomfortable. She tries the things that might not work. 

Mastery requires going through the hard. There are no shortcuts, or ways around, or tunnels underneath. There is only through. 

The guru on the mountain may be a master, but not because he’s got a robe and a label. He’s a master because he’s dug into it, struggled with his own beliefs, argued with his teachers and peers, written about it, lived it, and is willing to teach it to you. The guru produces. 

The social media influencer may be a master, but not because she’s beautiful and has a team of people around her. She’s a master because she’s built a network, mastered her distribution channel, mastered her content, adjusts the content accordingly, and exposes herself to the emotional danger from the public. The influencer produces.

The master may talk a good game, but maybe not. Because talk doesn’t matter. 

Masters are producers.

A craftsman masters his domain.

What is mastery? How good do you need to be? How do you become a master?

Mastery starts with a beginner mindset.

The master started by setting his ego aside and becoming a beginner.

The beginner is humble and recognizes he will need help. The beginner steps out of his comfort zone. He sets aside what he thinks he knows and is willing to start fresh.

Beginners gather information. They learn from other masters. They may go to school, read books, listen to podcasts, and take courses. They definitely invest.

But information only takes you so far. Information cannot make you a master.

The amateur stops at beginner. He stops at gathering the information.

The amateur can make good dinner conversation, but he hasn’t made a contribution that matters. That’s where the line is drawn, because across the line of contribution lies the emotional danger.

A master starts at the beginning. 

I’m committed to helping you work the way you want.

Because I want to work with craftsmen, and craftsmen care about the way they work.

But also…

Craftsmen keep up with the times. Craftsmen look out for new and better. Crafstmen adapt to new tools when needed or when the benefits become clear. They take the industry’s pulse to see if anything new will help them at their craft.  

They adopt new if new brings forward progress. And they discern forward progress from shiny objects.

If you want to know about the latest tools, gizmos, methodologies, and science in your industry, ask a craftsman.   

If you work for/with me, I will do my best to allow you to work the way want. 

I apply this to environments, platforms, tools, applications, and methodologies. We have standards and agreements, of course, but for the most part, I’m on board. Want a mac or Linux? I’ll get it for you. You need a license for your favorite IDE? I’ll approve. 

Because I want to work with craftsmen and craftsmen care about the way they work. They care about their tools. They care about methodologies. They care about what they produce and how they produce it.

Empowering you to work your way, I believe, is a key element in creating a productive, innovative, and vibrant work environment. I respect your professional expertise and want to equip you with what you need to be successful. In turn, I anticipate the passion, commitment, and high-quality output that craftsmen are known for.

By enabling this level of autonomy, we foster a culture of respect, personal responsibility, and a sense of ownership over one’s work. It’s not about conforming to a one-size-fits-all approach, but rather, embracing diversity of thought, style, and approach to drive innovation and foster personal growth.

By working the way you want, we all get better. 

Where are you trying to go? What is your endpoint?

Project management maps the journey to the endpoint. Without an endpoint, you don’t need a map. If you don’t need a map, you don’t need project management. 

Razor sharp focus on the endpoint saved and built companies like Apple, Southwest Airlines, and Amazon. Choose the endpoint. Unite the project managers. Distractions be damned. We’re on the road to our endpoint. 

However, Twitter (podcasting platform), Slack (game), and PayPal (security software) all became what they are because they chose a new endpoint in the midst of their journey. OK, project managers, throw out the map. Let’s build a new one.

Commitment and adaptability are two sides of the same coin. But in both cases, you need to know your endpoint. 

When you get your team around the table, what does it look like?

Are you at the head, everybody facing you, everybody looking to you to tell them what to do?

Are you the best at all the jobs?

Do all the decision flow through you, up and down the chain?

If so, consider a new order.

Trust is the cornerstone of the new work paradigm.

Trust builds strength, fuels cooperation, and helps team members feel valued. Trust must be actively built and consciously maintained. You build trust through transparency, consistency, and accountability on both the leadership and team sides of the fence.

It starts with transparency and open and honest communication. Leaders should strive for a culture of open dialogue, where concerns, ideas, and feedback are exchanged freely. And team members must contribute their voice, respect the voices of others, and be mission-focused.

Trust follows from consistency. Consistency follows when leaders’ words align with actions, and team members bring their pro game to the table.

Accountability rounds it out. We’re going to try things that might not work. We’re going to make mistakes. We’re going to learn along the way. We’re going make each other better.

Trust is how you win.

Multitasking is a myth. Busy is a distraction.

That’s nothing new, of course, but it’s important to remember, especially in the new work paradigm. The new work paradigm requires leadership to empower rather than micromanage and to entrust individuals with responsibility, nurturing self-reliance and initiative.

Which makes setting priorities critical. Because if everything is important, then nothing is. Empowerment without clear priorities can be a recipe for chaos, leading to diffused focus and diluted results.

Effective leadership in the new work paradigm creates the vision, sets the standards, enrolls the team, and ensures each member understands their objectives and significance. Teaching and empowering to focus on the important, not just the urgent.

This marriage of empowerment and priority transforms the work environment into an arena of focused impact. A shift from busy to significant.

Show and tell was a big deal for us in kindergarten.

I have fond memories of my classmates bringing in their favorite toys, stuffed animals, and vacation souvenirs. We had a friendly contest going about who brought the best item.

My favorite thing that I showed was my hockey stick. This was the mid-70’s in the Broad Street Bully era, and I was proud that I was a “real” hockey player. I remember it having the intended effect as I puffed out my chest just a bit for a few minutes.

And then one day, Jenny walked up to the front, waved at the classroom door, and in walked Jenny’s mom with a furry little puppy. Pandemonium broke out.

Jenny won show and tell.

In the new work paradigm, job descriptions, org charts, and seniority get replaced by impact. New leaders will empower you. They’ll expect you to speak up. They’ll need your courage.

The new work paradigm, and especially remote work, rewards the winners of show and tell.

Which methodology wins in the new work paradigm?

Commitment versus flexibility. Structure versus fluid. Quality versus quantity.

Take (historic) Apple. Meticulous planning, clear objectives, focus on the design. Don’t release until it’s perfect. Refine before anyone sees it.

Each new iPod, iPhone, or Mac fully developed before release. No ambiguity. No uncertainty. Just precision. The result? Device experiences that echo the Apple ethos – sleek, intuitive, impeccable.

Take Microsoft. More experiments, more releases with the bare minimum, focus on the functionality and the roadmap. Release it quicker. Cover up the chinks in the armor with the next release.

Each new version of Word or Windows more capable than the previous, and also full of little gotchas around the corners. No worries, release the fix next week. The teams quickly adapt, evolve, iterate. No long, drawn-out development stages. Just quick responses to ever-changing software needs. The result? A software suite that is constantly evolving, always at the cusp of innovation.

Apple and Microsoft, different approaches. Both successful.

So which methodology wins in the new paradigm?

It doesn’t matter. Both can win, and both can lose. Religion around it is futile. Because methodology is just an agreement among the team — this is how we agree to work.

And agreement is about leadership and followership. Can you enroll the team?

The new work paradigm requires new leadership.

A phrase of the past. A remnant of the compliance workforce of the industrial machine.

It won’t cut it in the new work paradigm.

In the paradigm of significance, your work is about impact. It demands more engagement, initiative, and adaptability. It’s about owning the outcome and the direction, not just completing tasks.

“Just doing my job” was acceptable when work was rigid, segmented. The assembly line model. One task, one worker. No overlap, no questioning. Top-down, org chart leadership.

That model is obsolete. Today’s work environment is fluid, interconnected.
Let the machines be the machines. We need human thinkers, problem solvers, and innovators. People who want to see the bigger picture. Who understand that their job isn’t just to do. It’s to improve, innovate, inspire.

“Just doing my job” isn’t leadership. It’s hiding. Dodging accountability. In today’s work, everyone’s a leader. Everyone’s a follower. We lead, we follow, we contribute beyond our job description.

“Just doing my job” kills creativity. Stifles innovation. Stunts growth. We need creativity to thrive. To keep ahead. To adapt in an ever-changing market.

So ditch the “just doing my job” mindset. Embrace the new paradigm. Engage, innovate, lead. Be more than your job. Be a part of the mission. Be the difference.

Today, that’s doing your job.

The industrial machine valued productivity as the end goal.

Productivity helped everyone. Cars became more affordable. As did food, clothing, TVs, toilet paper, and information. Ford, Carnegie, Bezos, Gates, and the other industrial leaders evolved and then led the charge.

Get more done faster and cheaper.

Human workers were every bit the machine. Each stood in their spot. Each had their job. Each complied. Each generation went faster than the previous.

But productivity as the end goal of work has had its day. The new paradigm values significance.

The leaders of tomorrow will evolve and lead the charge.

Leadership is about followership.

Can you, as a leader, enroll the team. Will they sign up? Will the follow? Will you know when to follow?

The industrial machine sought the loudest voice to lead. It favored the top name, the heftiest paycheck. Yet, today’s work era doesn’t need that. Modern leaders know how to cultivate followership.

Each team member both leads and follows, regardless of the title. The roles dance. One may lead, others follow, then smoothly, roles switch. This interchange nurtures an adaptable, resilient team, ready for any challenge. Many voices coming together as one.

It implies a proactive stance, courage to question ideas, and readiness to collaborate. Followership isn’t subservience, it’s partnership.

This shift from industrial machine leadership to a blend of leadership and followership is the path forward. A leader who can enroll the followers and actively switch to a follower themselves boosts team cohesion, sparks creativity, and engages work that matters.

I told you to throw out the org chart because leadership in the new work paradigm doesn’t need or conform to the org chart. Leave that to the industrial machine. 

But also…

True leadership, the kind that resonates beyond the titles, is timeless. At its core, true leadership was never defined by the position one occupies. Instead, it’s characterized by the ability to influence and inspire others, cultivate growth, and steer the collective toward shared goals. This definition holds, irrespective of changes in the work paradigm.

A leader navigates and captains through the storms of change. The leader reads the room. Sometimes a leader may feel conflicted, but the situation calls for conviction. Sometimes they may feel certain, but the situation calls for consensus.

In the industrial machine version of leadership, you might get lucky. The names on the org chart may intersect with the true leaders. The name at the peak might be the destined one. History has given us glimpses of such alignments. Yet, it has also shown us glaring disparities.

That underlying truth remains constant, but the evolved work paradigm now demands—not merely uncovers—the necessity of true leadership.

Burn the org chart.

The industrial machine loves the org chart version of leadership. In fact, it requires it. 

The org chart used to lay out the structure of leadership. Where am I? OK, I’m under this box here. Who’s on top of that box? OK, let me go ask that person what I should do because they’ll know. 

Then the industrial machine enforces the org chart version of leadership. The top of that box tells the names inside the box what to do, then flows those directions on down to the name on top of the next box. And so on down the org chart. 

And how does one become a leader in the industrial machine? Why, get your name at the top of one of the boxes, of course. We used to promote the people who were good at their jobs, or good at telling those above what they wanted to hear, assuming that would make them good at the job above them on the org chart. This person is awesome at writing code. For sure, they’re gonna be great at telling all the others what they should do. 

The new paradigm requires true leadership, not org chart leadership. 

Leadership in the new work paradigm does require a top-down skillset — vision, what we care about, willingness to try new things (that might not work), connections, and who can best help with what. But it also requires a bottoms-up skillset — willingness to listen, courage to forge ahead, ability to change one’s mind, and the persuasive skills to enroll the team. 

The org chart does have a purpose, though — to give you an idea of “who’s doing what.” If you’re wondering who to talk to or you’re looking for some expertise outside of your circle, the org chart can point you in the right direction. 

Other than that, you might as well use that org chart as a wall decoration. 

Nothing is static. Certainly not work.

You seek candidates primed for growth. Growth within their roles, growth as individuals, growth in enriching the team’s capabilities.

Growth blends the qualities of curiosity and excitement with competence. Competence provides them with base. Curiosity nudges them to question, to experiment, and to learn. Excitement fuels their dedication to their role, the mission, and the teaam.

Growth is potential.

General Managers and coaches all over the sports world talk about growth and potential. Those are the diamonds in the rough — the hidden gems. The raw materials that just need to be shaped like clay in their hands. The ones who might not be all that now but will be all that in the future.

You care about growth, not just because of the hidden gems, but because growth is the engine that drives making great things. Stagnation is death. To ensure your team’s growth, you need individuals who can match that momentum step for step.

Growth, in essence, is the journey from ‘what is’ to ‘what could be’. And it’s this journey that transforms individuals, galvanizes teams, and propels organizations forward.

The days of supervisor, compliance, shifts, and authoritative micromanagement are over.

I started working in corporate America at a large defense contractor in the early 90s. We worked from 7:30 am to 4:15 pm, with a 45-minute lunch break. At 7:15, my manager walked around the office informally tracking attendance. Same thing at 1:00 and then again at 4:30. We filled out weekly time cards and tracked overtime and compensation time in 15-minute increments.

Tucked behind a drawer in my desk, I discovered a crumpled snapshot of this very office from the 50s. The image revealed a workspace reminiscent of kindergarten classrooms—rows of identical desks directed towards the supervisor’s spot. Occupying each station was an indistinguishable man — crew cuts, white shirts, and dark ties only varied by the presence of eyewear.

Compliance. Work the hours. Do what we say. Ask the boss. Don’t question. Fit in.

As a manager today, you’re equipped with numerous tools to enforce similar compliance. Credentials logs, keystroke monitoring, slack statuses, mandatory 9:00 am Zoom meetings—it’s all trackable.

Throw them away. Disable them. They’re the enemy of hiring and leading great teams.

Because what you need today are adults. Individuals who assume responsibility, make decisions, show up, contribute, communicate proactively, troubleshoot issues, respect their peers, voice disagreements, defend their convictions, and manage the integration of work and home life.

A high-performing team calls for such adults. And your recruitment process must be fine-tuned to identify them.

You’re looking for people who care.

Because people who care invest themselves in the mission, and when people invest in the outcome, the tide rises, and so do the boats.

Investment comes in several forms.

It might be investment in the collective mission. What we’re building here is important; therefore, I care.
Or it might be investment in one’s contribution. I’m important to this mission; therefore, I care.
Or it might be investment in the team. This team and its people are important; therefore, I care.

The invested team member enrolls. They sign up. They’re motivated beyond the paycheck. They see value in the work they do, and we do, and connect it to a greater purpose. This connection breeds their best effort, elevating their work’s quality, commitment to the team, and ability to innovate.

Invested team members display resilience in facing challenges, viewing obstacles as temporary, and spurring innovative solutions. Their commitment unites individuals into a cohesive, collaborative team, fostering a positive work culture centered around a shared goal.

Sometimes they’re ornery, but that’s their investment talking. You should listen to the ornery people who care.

You want people who care. You need people who invest.

You’re not hiring somebody for what they’ve done. You’re hiring them for what they’re going to do.

The number one indicator of future performance is curiosity and excitement about the work. Those who are curious and excited engage with the work. Engagement breeds investment, immersion, and exploration.

People brimming with excitement see their tasks as interesting puzzles waiting to be decoded. They care, wanting to dissect the “why” and “how” behind their tasks. They become craftsmen. Such immersion amplifies their dedication and the quality of their work.

Curiosity is the spark that ignites innovation. It compels individuals to scrutinize the status quo, traverse uncharted territories, and table unconventional solutions. Their distinctive viewpoints keep the organization on its toes, promoting a culture of dynamism and competitiveness.

With the ever-changing professional landscape sprouting new technologies and strategies, curious minds stay ahead of the curve and discover new and changing paths. They help the team adapt to these changes, turning them into a strategic advantage.

Curiosity and excitement are the dynamic forces that drive future performance. When you infuse your team with competent people who are genuinely curious and excited about the work, the rising tide lifts all the boats.

Never hire a clown to perform brain surgery.

My daughter was a Division 1 college gymnast. When she got to college, she and all of her teammates were already highly skilled. Yet, each season, the first week of formal practice focused on the most basic gymnastics skills — tumbling. Here is a team full of elite athletes practicing the same skills that toddlers start on. 

Why? Two reasons:

1. No matter how good you are, you can always get better at the basic skills
2. Being the best at basic skills lays a solid foundation for advanced skills, including learning new skills. 

Step one in understanding that hiring is not dating is to weed out anybody without the basic skill set. You’re building a great team, and a great team needs competent players.

However, competence is not just about advanced skills or an impressive resume. Competence, although required, is the lowest bar to satisfy. We’re not even talking if you don’t have the basic competence.

It’s what comes next that starts to separate the wheat from the chaff. 

Seth Godin’s new book about the future of work is fabulous. 

And coincidently, I happen to be thinking about, experimenting with, and scribbling about this topic right now. Particularly, I’ve been mulling over the art of assembling an exceptional team ready for the work of the future.

In my tenure, I’ve hired great people and missed wildly on others. I’ve successfully built great teams from the ground up and reshaped underperforming teams into great teams. You might be surprised at what I have found to be the best strategy and method for building great teams. 

Key to assessing potential team members is understanding their qualities — what unique flavor they’re adding to the mix. Seth has a great little quotable anecdote:

“Hiring is not dating.”

– Seth Godin

What he means, and I agree with, is that the people you select to work on your collective mission do not have to be someone you want to spend social time together. You’re not looking for a lunch partner. You’re looking for someone who will make the team better and push it farther.

People that make the team better have these characteristics:

• Competence
• Curiosity and Excitement
• Investment
• Adultiness
• Growth

In the coming posts, we’ll take a deeper dive into each of these characteristics.

Stay tuned…

Any work can be work that matters.

If the rent is due, the fridge is empty, or the car is broke, and the bank account reads $0, any work that pays becomes work that matters.

If layoffs are coming, the contract is over, or the leads have dried up, any work that brings some stability or promises work for a little while longer becomes work that matters.

If you’re isolated, wandering, or stuck, any work that builds community, defines a collective mission, or provides new opportunities becomes work that matters.

If you feel undervalued, unrecognized, or overlooked, any work (or leader) that values contributions, capabilities, and celebrates accomplishments becomes work that matters (or a leader worth following).

If you feel unfulfilled, underutilized, or that your potential is unexplored, any work that provides purpose, growth, or aligns with your passions becomes work that matters.

It’s all about what you bring with you to the work.

Where does the soul of your work reside?

Is it within the office walls? Connections with colleagues? Is it within the words you type or the impact you try to make? The pursuit of a goal? Is it within the collective mission?

The answer is none.

The soul of your work is within you.

Whether you work in an office, a bus, the great outdoors, or your home, you always bring your soul with you.

Be kind to it.

The old work paradigm required your compliance.

Park here. Sit there. Show up at this time and work until this time. Do it this way. Use this tool. Get good at our process. Ask the boss. Keep your head down. Do your job. Don’t do my job. Don’t put yourself at risk. Don’t put us at risk. And for the love of all things good, fit in.

We agreed to pay you for your compliance.

The new work paradigm requires responsibility.

You don’t get paid to work hours. You get paid to make a difference.
You don’t get paid to do your job. You get paid to enroll in the mission.
You don’t get paid to do what you’re told. You get paid to bring new ideas.
You don’t get paid to be available. You get paid to contribute.
You don’t get paid to push it down the line. You get paid to take it on.
You don’t get paid to minimize risk. You get paid to try new things that might not work.
You don’t get paid to fit in. You get paid to stand out.

In the new paradigm, you get paid for your humanity.

“This is how we’ve always done it” may sink you.

We love to lock in our processes and methodologies once we’ve had some success with them. That’s just human nature. Familiar patterns, especially ones that have produced success in the past, help us execute with predictability.

We do it for very good reasons.

Constantly rehashing and re-evaluating the way we do things is exhausting.
I need to spend my limited brain cycles elsewhere.
If we’ve had success before, why wouldn’t we again?

But culture changes, a competitor invents new and improved, and the never-ending march of technology transforms our tools and capabilities.

Fancy offices, in-person perks, prime and expensive real estate, and hours worked are the way we’ve always done it. And the big guys, even the big guys at the forefront of the tech sector, don’t want to let it go.

Which offers an opportunity to the upstarts, the rebels, and the troublemakers. Now is the time to be a square peg in a market full of round holes.

In the vast savannah, a pride of lions and an ant colony lived side-by-side.

The male lion, majestic and commanding, lorded over its pride and insisted everyone gather around it at the watering hole. Here, in close proximity to one another, the lion handed out assignments and ensured he could keep tabs on each pride member.

Meanwhile, the ant colony embodied a complex network based on distributed communication, autonomy, and flexibility.

The lion roared with laughter at the ants scattered across the savannah, working without needing to gather in a single place.

“How can they get anything done? Who will protect them? Who will tell them what do to?”

The lion believed in the power of physical unity and took pride in its structured meetings.

One day, a massive sandstorm hit the savannah. The lion found itself lost in the swirling sands. The pride members scattered, not knowing where one another or their leader was. Many perished, their pride smashed beyond usefulness.

The ant colony adapted quickly. Their decentralized operation and robust communication lines ensured their work continued seamlessly. They shifted bases when required, communicating through their resilient network. Yes, they also lost members, but although sad, the colony strived forth undeterred.

Nobody brags about their short game.

When guys sit around over a beer and talk about their golf games, we always talk about the length of our drives. And 300 yards is the measuring stick.

“I’m usually around 300.”
“When I get it on the screws, I’m 320.”
“Ah, crap. Hit it a little thin. Looks like only 260.”

Even if the drive is a spectacular failure, slicing into oblivion or hooking onto an adjacent fairway, it’s the distance that dazzles us.

And we love to talk about our driver. We never talk about our 7-iron or pitching wedge. We brag about and debate companies, models, shafts, grips, and loft angles. Clever club manufacturers know this, so they design and market drivers with as much character and charisma as a classic Hollywood star.

However, how far one hits their drive rarely determines their score.

Consistency, precision, and control are what chip away at your strokes. Subtlety and nuance matter. Knowledge matters. A good short game trumps long drives every time. But the short game ain’t sexy. Laying up ain’t sexy.

If you want to improve your golf game or anything else in your life, ignore the sexy and focus on what really matters.

Say it with me:

“We don’t need the office. I trust my people. We can build amazing remote teams.” 
“We don’t need the office. I trust my people. We can build amazing remote teams.”
“We don’t need the office. I trust my people. We can build amazing remote teams.”

The industrial machine begs to differ because the industrial machine demands adherence. It demands conformity. It demands easily measurable productivity.

But the industrial machine is in its death throws.

What if, instead, the new paradigm demands questions, humanity, and the hard work of new types of measurements?

Companies resisting this shift risk being left behind, just as those who scoffed at the assembly line fell into oblivion. Modern tools, responsibility, empowerment, and trust render the office factory obsolete.

Don’t be confused, though. Remote work isn’t just about saving on commuting or office space costs. It’s a revolution in work culture. 

History shows us that those who fail to adapt to major shifts risk obsolescence. 

Embrace the future. The new paradigm is remote.

We software developers use a tool every day called “git.” Yup, that’s a funny name. You can blame Linus for it.

Git is like a farming co-op; each farmer (developer) can tend to their own plot (branch), experiment with different crops (code changes), and when the harvest is bountiful (the changes are beneficial), they can contribute it back to the main field (master branch) for everyone to enjoy.

Git has a function known as ‘git blame.’ Its name suggests a tool designed to point fingers, to scapegoat, to assign fault. 

It looks like this:

0d4f6aee (John Macdonald 2023-05-04 15:04:39 -0400 137) 'asvt': ['ASVT', 'ASVT-Development'],

It tells me who contributed that line of code (in this case, me) and when.

But ‘blame’ is a bad name for this function. Because it’s really about understanding. It’s a detective tool, a guide that leads us through the tangled forest of code revisions to the genesis of a line, a change, a function. Its aim isn’t to identify culprits, but to provide insights into the ‘why’ behind each alteration.

Today’s social and communicative technologies have turned people into public blamers. When problems arise, it’s tempting to locate a target for our frustrations, to find someone to blame. We blame to assign fault, boost ourselves, and diminish our enemies. 

Someone is to blame. And if it’s someone else, it’s not me. 

Yet, much like ‘git blame’, our real aim should be understanding. To seek the ‘why’ instead of the ‘who,’ because ‘why’ grants us the tools for long-lasting resolution and growth. 

Rather than blame, let’s find empathy. 

It’s easy to become a mimetic robot. 

We have an inherent tendency to imitate, fit in, and adhere to the norms of our tribe. It’s a survival instinct, after all. 

But we exist in an era that has evolved beyond mere survival – most of us spend our time swimming around the top of Maslow’s Pyramid. Hence, we’re in constant tension between fitting in and standing out.

Mimesis is the bedrock of the AI world. We trained AI systems to imitate, learn from existing data, and then regurgitate it back to us. They excel at blending into the machine-like processes they’re a part of. They embody mimesis. 

Your capacity to transcend the expected, to question the norm, to envision and bring forth the unheard of – that’s the power of standing out. It’s the audacity to choose not to fit in, but to break free from the mold, that makes us human.

So here’s to standing out, to embracing our uniqueness in a world that often urges us to fit in. Here’s to harnessing the power of our humanity and using it to create, inspire, and transform. 

AI can take care of the rest. It can fit in where needed. The race to the bottom. 

But you, the human, you’re here to stand out.

The passionate craftsman cares about context.

The passionate cabinet maker cares about how the cabinet looks when it leaves his shop. But he also cares a great deal about how it looks after installation.

Is it level?
Is it placed at the proper height?
Was it cleaned after installation?
Do the colors work in the room?

He would love to show you the cabinets in someone’s home when installed up to his specifications. In fact, if you ask to see them, he knows you care about him.

The passionate craftsman cares about tools.

When a passionate chef shows up at the restaurant, she brings her own knives, and she likely won’t let you use them.

She cares about her knives and who uses them because they are an extension of her. They feel familiar and sound in her hands. They give her confidence in her ability because of this familiarity. They never distract her.

In reward for their service, she carefully cleans, sharpens, and stores them.

You should ask her about her knives because although she may not let you use them, she’d love to tell you about them. In fact, this is how she knows you care about her.

You want a craftsman on your team. To find one, start by asking about context and tools.

At 22, I dove headfirst into corporate life at a large defense contractor making satellites. Guided by Jim, a veteran colleague, I worked on a team that tackled satellite nuclear survivability — a highly specialized and novel expertise in the industry. 

However, three months in, my first test arrived. Charlie, my manager, asked me to learn some specialized modeling techniques from Bill. So I bounded over like an eager puppy dog.

“Charlie wants you to teach me how you do your modeling so I can help.”

[OK, in hindsight, I can see the error in my approach]

Bill paused, turned around slowly, peered over his reading glasses and said, “Get the hell out of here.” 

Smacked right in the face. At first, I wasn’t sure he was serious.

“Um…um….what?” 

“Get out of here. This is what I do. It’s my job. If I teach you what I do, then they’ll just lay me off. Tell Charlie, ‘no way.'”

Confused and dejected, I turned to Jim. He consoled me, saying we could master the task ourselves. Sure enough, with Jim’s help, I quickly picked up the guarded techniques.

A year later, I was flourishing, Jim had been promoted, and Bill was laid off. His fear had turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Bill’s refusal stung, but Jim’s willingness to guide me ignited my passion. I can still feel that terrible feeling as Bill refused me. 

The incident underscored the importance of adaptability, mentorship, collaboration, and continuous learning. It taught me that being a valuable team member isn’t only about expertise—it’s also about caring for your colleagues.

The Human Resources department should be fired.

Not the people in the department. Let’s keep the people, but let’s fire the department.

Let’s fire the HR department and hire a Human Being department.

Because our people are not resources. They’re the reason for the work we do, the vision we hold, and the impact we strive to make. They are the dreams, ideas, and potentialities that propel us forward.

With a Human Being department, we recognize that our organization is a living, breathing entity that thrives on the interplay of human creativity, empathy, and ambition. Once we recognize it, we can start living it.

Let’s let the AI and the machines be the resources. They’re better at being resources anyway.

Our humans aren’t a resource. They are the point.

Embrace the grey.

The nuances, the grey areas, the uncertainties – that’s where the magic happens. That’s where you, as a human, shine the brightest.

While machines excel in efficiency, precision, and endurance, they lack the ability to navigate ambiguity. They crave structure, they demand definitions. But you, you thrive in uncertainty.

AI is the just latest tool moving the industrial machine towards mechanization and automation. But your greatest strength lies in your humanity. Your ability to adapt, to think creatively, to handle ambiguity. You’re not a machine. Dont’ compete with the machines.

Embrace the ambiguity. It’s not a weakness; it’s a strength.

Step into the grey and let your uniquely human skills guide you.

There are no wrong questions. Or sometimes we say there are no dumb questions.

You know this isn’t true. That’s just something we say, albeit with good intentions.

Ever been frustrated getting answers from your toddler? What about your spouse? How about getting what you want from Google?

Last week, I needed Google to help me solve a problem. I needed to verify (or refute) the validity of an inspection sticker on a truck we just bought (because I got taken). I had an ID number from the sticker, but I didn’t know the terminology or the right question to ask. I needed to do some prompt engineering. Here’s what I tried:

“pa state inspection licenses” — no
“pa state inspection licensees” — no
“find pa state inspection by knowing the ID” — aha!

That gave me something that looked interesting: Safety Station List by County for the Web

That was the right question.

When you ask the right question, you get what you want. Sometimes that’s information back to you (aside: as I suspected, the ID from the sticker was not on the list — the sticker is fraudulent). Sometimes the question passes the information in the other direction. And sometimes, the right question inspires, motivates our caring engine, and sets us on the journey.

Prompt engineering has been around since a human asked the first question. We invented the name recently, but we’ve been engineering prompts since we opened our mouths.

Who is a good prompt engineer? Someone who asks the right question.

It can’t go down any further.
It’s always cheaper to fix it rather than buy new.
But if I quit, I lose all of my vacation.
I’m full, but I spent good money on this meal.
I’ve already got 3 years into this degree.
Quitters never win.

I worked at Lucent Technologies during its heyday.

As an employee, I benefitted through an employee stock purchase program which allowed me to purchase shares at a 15% discount.

This was great because the stock just kept going up and up and up. So I kept buying and watched the value of my account go up and up and up right along with the stock price. I did this for several years.

And then the news came out — Lucent was cooking the books.

Crash. Overnight, the stock price and the value of my account cut in half.

I remember when that happened, my colleagues and I said to each other, “Should we sell today? It can’t go down any further, right? We should just sit tight.”

But it did go down. And down and down and down. I rode it right into the ground. By the time I sold it, I had lost $27000 real dollars. Not a paper loss, or a missed gain. I had spent $27000 that no longer existed.

Why? Emotions. Sunk cost emotions.

Sometimes the smartest ones simply know when to quit.

Today is more about questions than observations and answers.

How can I connect with God today?
Is it even possible?
Is universal connective energy real?
If so, can I shape it?
What does “real” mean?
What is the relationship between God and universal connective energy?
How can I be more generous?
Is it going to be ok?
Am I paying enough attention?
Am I good enough?
How can I fix my foot?
What is my purpose with this writing?
What should I do today that my tomorrow self will thank me for?
When is the right time to get the legal system involved?
What do I need to care more about?
Who do I need to care more about?
How can I be someone that makes others feel good about themselves?
What should I be open to?

Who do you think you are?
How dare you?
Why would you do that?

These are trigger phrases. Either they trigger you to hit the brakes or step on the gas. What you do depends on how you see yourself. 

If you see yourself as someone who isn’t worthy, you hit the brakes. If you see yourself as someone who just might be the right person, you hit the gas.

Of course, how you see yourself is really “how you perceive yourself.” And perception is reality. 

Change your perception. Change your reality.

Dee Snider was my hero for a minute.

I was a child of the ’80s. Although I grew up in a conservative Christian home, my parents allowed me to listen to and play the music I liked. And I liked the hard stuff. They endured my garage bands creating horrible, wonderful, overdriven Marshall stack sounds from the basement of our three-bedroom ranch house in the country. They also endured my typical ’80s oversized boombox blasting metal from my bedroom at the end of the hall. 

They got it. They respected my choices and empathized with what moved me. 

But what my parents allowed was threatened by the “my morality is the correct morality” crowd. The PMRC, with its talons into the government, wagged its manicured finger and insisted that our music was sure to harm us.

And then, in September of 1985, Dee Snider took the stand. Edgy, yes. Blustery, sure. Disrespectful? Damn straight. But also eloquent, knowledgeable, and right on — keep the government out of the censorship business. 

A group of three easily decides what it will and won’t censor. But with a group size of 330 million, using the big stick of the government gets awfully attractive. 

Various political, religious, and social groups pass the censorship baton back and forth as each loses or regains power. When our team gets the baton, we use the government to ban books, censor art, and influence media platforms that run against our ideology. 

But it doesn’t help because, fundamentally, it comes across as “you’re bad.” 

Instead, let’s resist the baton and instead lean into respect and empathy. Respecting choices. Empathizing with personal journeys and worldviews.

When we care enough to do the hard work, there’s room for all of us.  

I work in the detection tools industry. 

My company invents, designs, and builds biometrics identification sensors. Specifically, we make fingerprint sensors for low-to-no-power applications such as credit cards, crypto wallets, and access cards. In theory, if you’re not you, you can’t gain access. And we spend an awful lot of time, resources, physics, and brain power making sure you’re you. 

We only exist, as does the entire industry of detection tools, because somebody somewhere cheats the system. If nobody cheats, we don’t need to detect it. 

Bank vaults, door locks, passwords, the blockchain, militaries, police, jails, and defense lawyers. All part of the detection tools industries. All exist only because somebody somewhere cheats the system. 

Along comes ChatGPT, and with it, a whole new avenue to cheat the system. The education industry is up in arms. So we create detection tools like GPTZero and AI Text Classifier. 

It’s a weird zero-sum game. First, create the method for cheating, then create the method for detecting the cheating.

Or maybe it’s not zero-sum. Just like the fingerprint sensors that my company makes don’t always detect the cheater. Sometimes somebody gets away with it. 

As humans, we, unfortunately, cheat each other all the time. Sometimes unintentionally, but not always. How do we detect it? What tools do we use? 

We use our feelings. We feel cheated. Our detector is rock solid. 

Remember, the next time you intentionally cheat someone else, they’re gonna feel it. 

* Results of feeding this text into GPTZero: “Your text is likely to be written entirely by a human”
** Results of feeding this text into AI Text Classifier: “The classifier considers the text to be very unlikely AI-generated.”

You and I have walked through the one-way gate.

Twenty-five years ago, I’d get dressed, have breakfast with the morning paper, kiss the kids on the forehead, grab my coat, and commute to the office with the morning sports radio guys. When the whistle blew, I’d turn off the machine, grab my coat, commute home with the afternoon sports radio guys, and kiss the kids on the forehead on my way back through the front door.

Your workday probably looked similar.

That daily procedure transformed us from our family identity into our work identity and back again. Two different identities split by time and space but linked by a commute.

But we didn’t stop there. On Tuesdays we’d grab our whistle and transform into coach. On Wednesday nights, we’d grab our notebook and transform into committee member. On Sunday mornings, we’d grab our shirt and tie and transform into pew-sitter. On the first Saturday in August, we’d stuff the car and head to the beach for a week.

All of these separate me’s were me, of course, but somehow compartmentalized. We sought and gained balance through the separation of time and space.

The internet, smartphones, and remote work blurred the lines. Now we check on work between innings. A quick email reply to the committee from the beach. The Sunday service from our couch.

The gate’s shut. Wishing won’t help.

We’re no longer looking for healthy balance. Now we need healthy integration.

To find it, look ahead, not behind.

A billion seconds feels like a lot. It’s about 31 years.

I’m in the middle of my 53rd year, which means that I might no longer be a time billionaire.

Let’s assume that my healthspan is 70 (aggressive, but I work on it daily), and my lifespan is 80 (statistically, also a little aggressive). That gives me half a billion seconds of healthy living left and 0.85 billion seconds of total life. 

One way to look at this is, “Damn, I used to be a multi-time billionaire and now I’m not. What have I done so far?”

Another is, “Damn, half a billion seconds is a lot of time left. What can I do?”

Still, a third is, “Damn, I’m grateful for the time I’ve had and the time left to come.”

All three are valid. 

Either you are or were a time billionaire. The time is yours. 

It’s not exactly your fault.

The System coerced you into misunderstanding the hiring process.
Don’t feel too bad. The System is a master marketer.

The System tells you that the hiring process is about finding the best candidate. The best candidate presents the best System-certified credentials. And that the best evidence for qualifying the best System-certified candidates is through past performance.

But what if…

The hiring process isn’t about finding the best candidate but eliminating the worst.
The worst candidates are just as likely to have System-certified credentials.
The worst candidates are just as likely to have outstanding past performance with relevant experience.

Eating your fill is easy if you’re the big fish with big teeth in an ocean full of small fish. You have your pick of candidates to fill your belly. If one isn’t filling enough, you just eat another.

But if you’re one of the small fish, you gotta think and act differently to keep yourself fed and healthy. If you miss one, you may go hungry for a while. You must make each one count.

Start by thinking differently about the hiring process.

I hate complainers, but I love complaints.

Complaints don’t necessarily come from complainers, and complainers don’t necessarily generate (the right kind of) complaints.

Complaints from the right people, though, are magic bullets. It’s all about proper context.

When you’ve made something new — something that might not work — and someone complains about it, you’ve just had the eureka moment. They care enough to take time and effort to make the complaint. They care enough to say, “I want, no I need this to be better.”

They care because they can see themselves using it, and once they see that, you’ve won the war’s first battle. It means you’re on the right track. Your thing strikes a nerve. That’s all you want and all you can know for version 1.0.

Now your job is to listen and determine how you can make it better. Not necessarily to “do what they say,” but to take in what they say, align it with where you’re trying to go, and do the work.

Go out and seek complaints because most of your competitors are looking for compliments.

This is how you win.

This is the advantage of you, the human worker.

Asymptotic industrialism seeks efficiency and productivity, which requires precision and tirelessness. It likes machines because machines deliver on this promise.

But the machines don’t do well with ambiguity. Even the smart ones all have expectations. They require definitions. They require some physical foundation of bedrock from which to start.

Which is why and how you matter.

You, a human, excel in the ambiguity. You excel at being the adult in a room full of mechanistic children.

I’ve been greasing the industrial machinery for the last ten years through the use of automation and AI. Given our capabilities, it makes me wonder why anybody would sign up for, let alone lobby the government for, an assembly line job. You can’t win at speed. You can’t win at precision. You can’t win at tirelessness. Why would you want to?

But you can win with your humanity.

Worried about your job? Start embracing ambiguity.

“Have faith in God,” Jesus said to them. “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” 

– Mark 11:22-24

Maybe you think Jesus is bunk. OK, what about Joe Dispenza and Bruce Lipton? Deepak Chopra and Louise Hay? Or perhaps Oprah and Tony Robbins? Napolean Hill and Zig Ziglar? Heck, even Lance Armstrong. 

It’s finally starting to sink in. 

Belief. Faith. Disbelief. Doubt.

Thinking and acting as if. Believing it is before it is. Faith creating. Mind over matter. Ask, and ye shall receive. 

I’ve read that passage from Mark a thousand times. I’ve read the books, listened to the podcasts, and watched the YouTube channels of the other names above a thousand times. 

The light bulb is starting to glow. Dim, but the filament is warming.

Knowing that it comes from God, the universal energy, through you, into existence. 

So simple yet so difficult for this engineer to…believe. 

(If you have any personal stories or connections to stories of mind over matter or faith, please share them with me. The more we share, the quicker the compound interest kicks in.)

My youngest son, a budding entrepreneur much smarter than me, recently asked me what was the best financial decision I’ve made.

Well, in a career filled with questionable, hazardous, and just plain dumb financial decisions, it wasn’t that hard.

“Started putting the maximum allowed in my 401k from the moment I started working.”

OK, I cringed a bit when I said it because that’s not a sexy answer. A part of me knew he’d be disappointed in stodgy old dad because he’s got friends whose parents did this smart thing or made out on that opportunity over there.

And in this day of YOLO, instant access, and systemic distrust, good ol’ fashioned long-term savings is out of favor. I get it.

But for me, it’s still my best financial decision.

Why?

Compounding interest.

Compounding interest is a snowball rolling downhill. It starts small, but if you keep feeding it, the longer you give it, the more it picks up and the faster it grows. Bigger and bigger as it takes on a life of its own.

And compounding interest applies to many things in your life besides finances.

Your relationships. Your health and fitness. Your knowledge. Your career or business. Your worldview.

You always have a choice, and you should always be on the lookout for opportunities. But even though it ain’t sexy, taking the long view is sometimes the best decision you can make.

My wife and I are coming up on our 30-year anniversary. 

Thirty years ago, for our first anniversary, we decided to explore the finger lakes region of upstate New York.

We mapped out, via AAA paper trip-tick, a route around Cayuga and Seneca Lakes, with stops in Ithaca, Seneca Falls, Watkins Glen, and many of the little wineries along the way. A week or so of sightseeing, hiking, tasting, and generally just being together. 

We also had very little money.

I grew up in a camping family, but I describe myself as camping agnostic. Our vacations weren’t exclusively camping, but many of the 15-20 vacations I took as a kid were camping. 

For example, we camped at Disneyworld…in August. I’m still not over it. Even as a kid in the magical land of Disney, I was miserable. I remember the constant steam bath interrupted by quick ducks into the gloriously air-conditioned bathroom or trinket shop in the park, but unfortunately, nowhere to hide at the campsite. 

So here we are, planning our first little vacation together, and given what we’re doing, where we’re going, and the lack of funds, I suggest, 

“Hey, babe, you know if we camped, we could save some money and we’d be more on our own time schedule.”

And she turned to me and said quite earnestly, 

“Let me be clear. If you wanna go camping, that’s fine. But never confuse camping with vacation, and this is vacation.”

We’ve never been camping in our 30 years.

You have nothing to fear. 

Yes, keep your eyes open, but don’t be afraid. 

If you’ve been following along here, you know we’ve been exploring AI, its current and future capabilities, and whether we should fear the flapping jaws spouting doomsday scenarios.

Will AI become sentient? Will it matter?
Will AI destroy the human race?
Will AI become better than us?
Will AI take our jobs?
Will AI render us useless?

At this point, I’m not afraid of Player Piano, and I’m not afraid of Skynet.

Player Piano posits a future where humans no longer have utility and, by extension, purpose. We’ll just trudge through our lives without purpose while the machines do the work. That’s a very low view of humanity. History tells me that this couldn’t be further from the truth. History says that humans rise up. We no longer need to carry water from the stream three hours a day, yet we’ve filled those three hours with more utility and purpose. 

Will some people feel useless or lack purpose? Yes, of course. Just like today. But not everyone. Humans will rise up and find their place in the order of things. 

I’m not afraid of Skynet because, well, I just don’t see it. What I mean is I don’t understand what would drive the sentient AI to destroy us. Destroying the human race doesn’t seem like a data-driven outcome. That seems like an emotionally driven outcome. AI, even “sentient” AI, won’t be driven by emotions. 

Remember, the way AI works (could change in the future, and then we’ll have to reassess) is not like a human. Similar to how humans can use an airplane to fly, but we still can’t fly — not really. Not like a bird can fly. Our current computing AI systems will scale up, become faster and more capable, but not in the way a human mind is capable. 

Neural nets are interesting. More power and faster are interesting. Quantum computing is even more interesting. But these are still airplanes, not birds. 

I’m deep in the throws of evaluating and using some of the various AI tools in my professional setting as the leader of a software development and DevOps team. I’m using ChatGPT and Bard in earnest. Can it help me? Is it scary? Am I part of the problem?

I’ve read, watched, and listened to many AI evangelists talking about how much it’s helping them in their day-to-day work. Here’s my evaluation of ChatGPT (GPT-4) and Bard’s current ability to make useful contributions in the software engineering world:

There’s something there, but it’s like a crappy intern at best. 

It can do some things, but it needs constant attention, is always asking questions it shouldn’t have to, misunderstands very clear instructions, has a myopic view, and generally makes me want to give it to someone else to mentor. 

This is why a new field of “prompt engineering” has popped up. But if I gotta be a prompt engineer to make it do what I want, how is that helping the general population? 

But at some point, it’s definitely gonna take some jobs. 

If you’ve experienced job replacement or been negatively affected by outsourcing and automation, then you understand one of the existential threats of AI. AI will take jobs, or rather, shift jobs and rearchitect the scale of the workforce in some areas. But technology has been doing this throughout the history of human work. One could argue that we haven’t seen a technology like AI to date, but neither did we see electricity, the internet, and airplanes. 

Some will rise above, and unfortunately, some will not. 

You can ignore the doomsayers. At least the dystopian predictors. Keep your eyes open for opportunities. Keep your eyes open for ways you can add value and make an impact. Engage your humanity. 

But that advice isn’t novel or revelatory in any way. That has always been true. 

This world was built for humans, at least the current version is. You and I are humans. Don’t ever forget that. Lean into it. 

Intentional gratitude.

It’s simple. It’s powerful. It requires (the illusion of) free will. 

If I had to pick one singular practice that has made the most significant positive impact on me, it’s the practice of intentional gratitude. I know this not because I walk around in some enlightened state. I know it because I rarely walk around in that enlightened state.

Until I start practicing again, and then I taste it again. 

I fall off the wagon, and the spiral starts. I kick against it. I lay my head on the soft pillow of victimhood. I think, “why?”

But deep down, I know. I fight against it for a while with excuses like time, difficulty, and “It won’t keep working.” Then I sit down in the quiet morning before I start the work day and get started. I make the list. I think about the list.

And slowly, if I commit, my mood lightens over the next few days or weeks. I feel less burdened. Therefore, I am less of a burden.

I know it because I observe those around me, and I see the spectrum. Light resonating off like a main sequence star or getting sucked in like a black hole. 

The real magic of practicing intentional gratitude is that you can change everything without changing anything. 

I don’t know if biochemistry precedes the thought or if the thought proceeds from biochemistry.

But would an AI ever think to itself, “I’m blessed.”

I suck at negotiation. Always have.

Winning a negotiation is about gaining leverage. Gaining leverage is the art of knowing what the other side cares about. I suck at that art. 

Luckily, here come the hagglebots.

Procurement departments rejoice! Bots with all of the info, including what makes the other side tick, will soon be on a tear. Hagglebots will be putting the squeeze on the supply chain. 

I’ve paid almost full price for my cars. I’ve rarely made headway on salary or benefits moving into a new job. I can’t remember a touchy situation when I successfully extracted what I wanted. 

But that doesn’t mean I’ve always come out of negotiations feeling like a loser. 

There’s more to winning a negotiation than any objective measure because winning is a feeling. You’ve won if you felt like you got a good deal. The best negotiators know this. If you can make the other side feel like they’re getting a good deal, i.e., the proverbial win-win, then you’ve actually won. 

Would an AI ever think to itself, “I feel like I got a good deal.”

We can’t (yet) control the weather. Neither can AI.

If the surf’s up, the powder is fresh, or the breeze is strong and steady, you gotta jump on it. Cancel your chores and grab your board.

Neither we nor AI can control when the mood hits us just right.

If a serendipitous opportunity pops up to dance with your partner, play catch with your son, or have lunch with your daughter, you gotta jump on it. Cancel your chores and grab a hand.

AI has no idea. No amount of programming, training, and machine learning could ever give it a clue.

So let it do its thing. Let it do the chores. Maybe give it more of your chores.

Don’t waste the moment.

AI should be the CEO of the Effective Altruism movement. 

In fact, it’s inevitable. Which is kinda ironic because the Effective Altruists are also “helping to create the field of AI alignment research.”

Effective Altruism’s principles:

• Prioritization — because human intuition isn’t good enough
• Impartiality — because human connection isn’t good enough
• Truthseeking — because human belief isn’t good enough
• Collaboration — because a single human helping another human isn’t good enough

Effective Altruism seeks qualification of need through computation. “Look at the numbers (that we’ve decided are the important ones).” AI runs circles around humans at numbers. Therefore, AI will get us to the objectively correct vision of the world faster and better than any human could. 

There’s just one problem. 

There is no objectively correct vision of the world. Therefore, there is no objectively correct way to get there. Therefore, there is no objectively correct way to use our individual and collective resources to help others.

True effective altruism is, always was, and always will be about personal connection to those whom you want to help. Giving freely from your sense of humanity. 

For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in;

Matthew 25:35

Would an AI ever think to itself, “I’d like to invite him in.”

Time is everything. 

Time is the one resource that we can never recover. A wish for one more year, one more day, one more minute. Regrets of missed opportunities, wasted time, and wrong place at the wrong time. 

Chronos is time as you and I experience it. The ticking of the second hand. The serial march of one thing after another. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Objectively quantified and measured. 

Productivity is the quest for expanding chronos. Get more done in the same period of time. AI is the just latest tool that promises to expand chronos. 

Kairos is also time, but ontologically very different. A theologian might describe it as God’s time. A secular philosopher might describe it as the right time or the opportune moment. 

Kairos is time you remember. Kairos left you yearning for just a little while longer. 

As a kid, I remember skimming through my great-grandfather’s journals. Volumes of dry, daily entries about the weather, visitors, and current events. But every once in a while, I came across some extended entries providing a glimpse into thoughts and feeling about the otherwise dry course of events. 

Today’s smartphone camera roll serves as your journal. Scroll back, and you’ll find grocery lists, road signs, notes, and a million other everyday objects scattered through the faces and places. 

Chronos turned kairos.

AI knows nothing about kairos. At least not now. 

Would an AI ever think to itself, “I just wish I had one more day.”

AI should do your work chores. 

You know the Eisenhower Matrix? Urgent versus important, etc. A method like this helps us because we tend to put off the hard stuff. The human stuff. We use excuses of urgency or money or whatever else we can grab onto to justify prioritizing the wrong tasks. 

Chores are one of those categories of tasks that we use as an excuse. Here’s what the brilliant Seth Godin has to say about chores:

“Entrepreneurs, artists and freelancers [my input: and all workers] often spend a lot of time on chores. We justify this because outsourcing chores to others costs money, and in this moment, money is tight.

But that’s not the real story. 

The truth is that if we stop doing chores, we have to do real work instead. The things that aren’t repeatable or proven. The things that are emotionally difficult, creatively challenging or simply requiring exploration and guts to pursue.”

Seth Godin — Chores

Chores in non-work life do provide value. They help connect us to the physical requirements of life. The bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and whatnot. 

But in our work, we often justify doing chores because of our emotional resistance to doing the real work. The work that matters. 

AI doesn’t care. It’s happy to do the chores. It would never think, “I don’t want to do this menial task.” So let it. 

Because if AI does your chores, you can be the free-thinking human. We need you to be.

Faster, cheaper, better. 

I’ve been on the front lines of outsourcing almost my entire career. I’ve hired, led, and worked with off-shore software teams and contracting firms for over 20 years. I help my current company work and scale better through automation. And yes, now I’m exploring how AI systems like ChatGPT can accelerate and improve our work. 

Maybe that makes me one of the evil ones. Anti-American or anti-human even. Contributing to the downfall of our culture and spiraling into a Player Piano dystopian world. 

Spoiler alert: I don’t see it that way. My motto has always been, “If a different person or machine can do my job faster, cheaper, and better, then let’s do that. I’ll find some other way to add value.”

I have always seen it that way because I truly believe that each human has value and purpose. My job is to find purpose and add value where I can. In the case of outsourcing, automation, and AI, it’s being the adult in the room. 

For me, using outsourcing, machines, and AI to do work isn’t about replacement. It’s about enhancement. Allowing each of us to contribute more of the things that the humans need to contribute. 

New technology has always replaced or removed jobs, but we humans have always found new purpose and better ways to add value. 

For example, should “faster, cheaper, better” be the goal? 

I guess it depends. 

Would an AI ever think to itself, “It depends.”

AI doesn’t have a mother.

Plenty of people don’t have, and never had, a mother in practice. But they did ultimately have a mother. That’s how human life works.

What does AI have? Theorists, programmers, trainers, feedback providers, tweakers, and users.

Maybe in the future when AI is running this place, we will no longer have holidays such as Mother’s Day. Maybe the supreme AI world leader will designate “Progammer’s Day,” “User Appreciation Day,” and “Non-biological Life Day.” Maybe we’ll celebrate a new kind of Christmas that remembers the birth of the first sentient AI.

Whatever.

Those days are still about the humans.

Thank you, mothers. Thank you for being.

I sure would love to outsource my hard conversations to AI.

I’m non-confrontational. My nature is to shy away and deflect. But I’m also adult enough to have them when needed. I’m currently in the middle of a couple of them, both professionally and personally.

How can AI help me here?

“Handling challenging conversations with colleagues can be difficult but important for maintaining effective working relationships. Here are some steps you can take to navigate this situation:

1. Stay calm and composed: It’s natural to feel defensive or upset…“

– ChatGPT

And on for another seven bullet points.

As I suspected. It can’t. And it won’t ever. 

AI can’t help because it’s never had a hard conversation. Or rather, it’s never felt a hard conversation. It doesn’t know when it’s having a hard conversation. It doesn’t know when to engage or walk away.  

Future AI may be trained on counseling and hard conversations and possibly give the impression of engaging, but it still doesn’t know. Not really. 

Would AI ever think to itself, “I think I’ll walk away from this.”

What is creativity?

Like art, it’s hard to define, but you know it when you see it. We use creativity to describe the generation of something new — ideas, art, technologies, and problem solutions. When we see something creative, it strikes us emotionally. 

We can plot creativity along a spectrum from discovery to invention:

• Fire is a discovery. Gas stoves are an invention.
• Thought is a discovery. Language is an invention. 
• Electricity is a discovery. The internet is an invention.
• Color is a discovery. The idea of using color paint on a canvas is an invention. 

Inventions rely on discoveries (and other inventions). Discoveries are like the Lego bricks dumped all over the floor just waiting to be stepped on, I mean, assembled into something meaningful — an invention.

Every human is creative. You may not be an accomplished artist, but you are creative in the sense that you learn, do, and then assemble the discoveries and inventions of your world into new inventions. That invention may be something as simple as how you organize your day. 

You see? You are creative. How does that feel? 

And when you see somebody else’s creativity that resonates with you, how do you feel? You probably say something to yourself like, “That’s cool.” Because you can appreciate your own and others’ creativity. 

AI can learn, do, and assemble. AI can find solutions to problems that we can’t. 

But would an AI ever contemplate something new and think, “That’s cool.”

Ex Machina, Her, Westworld, Blade Runner (original and 2049), and the Terminator series.

These are some of my favorite movies and shows. All explore some form of human-AI love relationships. Is this our future?

If so, will AI possess real emotional love toward a human, or will it be mimicry? Play acting expressed through programming, data set training, and ulterior motives, whether good or nefarious. 

Will it matter?

What does it mean to be in a love relationship? Is reciprocity required? If it’s romantic love, is sex required? Most of the movies and shows I mention above explore this one. 

I can’t help but think about love relationships built and fostered across long distances. Whether romantic or familial, we’ve all seen stories about pen pals, prisoners, and long-lost siblings finding their love for each other without ever meeting physically (at least initially). Love built upon reciprocal communication only. And if there’s one thing AI is good at, its reciprocal communication. In fact, at this time, reciprocal communication is the main purpose of Large Language Model (LLM) AIs like ChatGPT. I suspect the humanoids are on their way also. Boston Dynamics meets ChatGPT. 

But is love, like all emotions, just a biochemical, deterministic response, or does it require something other? Something like free will. Something like a soul. Does love require the ability to choose and the self-awareness to make a choice? 

Would an AI ever think to itself, “I love him.”

Think of a moment you were proud of yourself.

I did my first triathlon in my mid-40’s. It was a short (800m swim, 10-ish mile bike, 5k run) XTERRA race. This distance is child’s play in the triathlon world. It’s a wednesday night training session. XTERRA races are off-road, so in addition to swimming, the bike leg is mountain biking, and the run leg is trail running — up and down the Bear Creek Mountain ski resort. 

I wasn’t a swimmer. Prior to this race, I had practiced for about four weeks, in a nice, clean, and clear pool. And I sucked (still do). But 800m. Come on, anybody can finish 800m.

For the race, we waded into a retention pond to begin the two laps around. Here’s what my nice, clean, and clear pool didn’t have and couldn’t prepare me for: weeds; murk; mud; and the elbows, feet, and assess of a couple hundred other swimmers all vying for the same piece of marine real estate.

I melted down 100m into the race. A panic attack as I’ve never before, or since, experienced. My brain froze, and then so did my limbs. I just pulled up and tread water. It was all I could do. I was toast less than 2 minutes into the race. 

But once nobody else was around, I calmed my mind and willed myself to continue. I was the last one out of the water. Not the last male or the last of my age group, or even the last adult. The very last human. 

Then I hopped on my mountain bike and kicked ass the rest of the way. 

I was proud of myself. Not for the result but for how I’d gotten there — the journey. What I overcame mentally, emotionally, and physically. I was proud that I had risen to the challenge. 

There’s something to a challenge. Something uniquely human. Something requiring at least the illusion of free will because a challenge presents a choice, or choices. You choose how you will handle that challenge. There are no objectively right or wrong choices or outcomes.

Would an AI ever think to itself, “I’m proud.”

AI will most definitely be more intelligent than any human.

Here’s what ChatGPT says about intelligence versus smart:

“Intelligence,” is a broad and complex concept. It can refer to a range of mental abilities, including problem-solving, critical thinking, logical reasoning, and abstract thinking. Intelligence is often associated with academic achievement, IQ scores, and cognitive abilities.

“Smart” usually refers to quick thinking, cleverness, or practical knowledge. It often implies the ability to think on one’s feet, come up with creative solutions to problems, or acquire practical skills that are useful in everyday life.

When I was in high school, we knew who the intelligent kids were. They aced the tests, remembered the formulas, and were the ones we asked to help us understand the homework. 

Although by no means at the top of the heap, I was pretty intelligent and did well in high school without much effort. 

College, though, separated the intelligent kids from the smart ones, and I learned right away that I wasn’t very smart. After my third semester, I barely scratched it into my major (EE) and then barely hung on for the rest of the ride. The high watermark for my cumulative grade point average was 2.99. I never cracked a 3.0. 

I learned that the smart kids weren’t just intelligent. They also had a genuine curiosity about their line of study. 

Luckily, I’ve gotten smarter. Following my various curiosities has made me smarter.  

Would AI ever think to itself, “I’m curious.”

Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. 

I worked on the road crew for my local township for two summers while in college. I learned a lot of skills during those two summers — driving a 12-speed dump truck, laying asphalt, operating all kinds of machinery, and making road signs. These were fun and interesting skills to learn, but I haven’t used most of them since. 

I did, however, gain a bunch of wisdom that I apply every day — maintain your machines, find a rhythm of work and rest, the benefit of shooting the crap together, and your job doesn’t have to be your purpose in life. 

But the big one was, “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”

“You can claim ‘not my job,’ but should you?”
“You can lean on your shovel while others work, but should you?”
“You can cut corners, but should you?”

ChatGPT defines wisdom as follows:

Wisdom is a combination of knowledge, experience, and good judgment. It is the ability to make sound decisions and give advice based on a deep understanding of the world and people. A wise person is someone who has gained insight and understanding through experience and reflection, and can apply that knowledge to navigate difficult situations, solve problems, and help others.

ChatGPT

No doubt AI will acquire the knowledge and skills to do just about anything we can do and do it better. 

But would an AI ever think to itself, “I can, but should I?”

What gives you purpose?

I hope that’s a complex and nuanced topic, but you likely find purpose in one or more of the following aspects of your life:

• work or contribution
• family, friends, connection or service to others
• philosophy or religion

I also suspect that you’ve struggled at times in your life with purpose. I’m going through it a bit right now.

As we slog through life transitions, we sometimes feel like we’ve lost our purpose. If we work at it, and if we’re lucky, we find some new purpose. 

This struggle is uniquely human. It follows from our (illusion of) free will. We can choose. We can choose our work, what we spend time on, who interact with, and how we see the world. 

Would an AI ever struggle with its purpose?

AI is coming for your work. 

Much of our work is utility. The things we do to keep life on this planet moving forward. 

Work is tilling the ground, fixing the roof, and hauling goods. It’s also filing taxes, developing software, and diagnosing diseases. And it’s also defending in court, proposing a merger of companies, and mental health counseling. 

Since the dawn of our species, we’ve found purpose in our work. We take pride in our utility. Some have even defined themselves as humans by the work they did. 

We choose our work (if we have free will and the ability to choose) based on preferences, worldviews, and circumstances. You may love your work, or you may hate it. Regardless we understand our work’s importance, or at least necessity in our life.

But let’s face it; AI can do just about anything you or I can do. Maybe not today or in our lifetimes, but it’s coming. Eventually, anything we do that provides utility, AI will probably do. 

We might be in for a reckoning when it comes to work as we know it today. 

But would an AI ever think to itself, “I’d like to help this other AI.”

I love the discussion about whether art is creation or discovery.

Artists use both mechanisms to describe their process, how a particular piece came together, or how the arc of a character’s story played out. They’ll use words like find, seek, imagination, journey, intuition, inspiration, and experiment. 

What do you think?

Have you ever been listening to a song for the first time, yet you somehow knew the next lyric, note, or sound? It just made sense.

Have you ever been reading a novel and intuitively knew what a character said next? Of course, she would say that.

We can sometimes attribute that intuition to our shared experiences in the world — learned experiences. We’ve seen similar people, heard similar patterns, and observed similar actions. We know how this goes because we’ve seen it before. The artist plays along.

But not always. Sometimes we’re surprised. 

AI is already creating art. ChatGPT writes (and codes), DALL-E creates images, Imagen creates video, and Jukebox generates music. You’ve already read, seen, and heard creations from these platforms. 

Because AI can learn anything that we can from history. Shared experiences, discovery, and even novel applications of interconnection are all learned. 

Although art is hard to define, we know it comes together through both creation and discovery. We also know art has intention. It has a voice and point of view.

Would an AI ever think to itself, “I have something to say.”

Will AI machines think freely?

Well, do humans think freely?

If someone asks you to describe a chair, how would you do it? You and I might describe it differently, but we’d know what each was talking about. 

AI can also describe a chair, and it does a great job. Here is the beginning of how Google’s Bard describes a chair:

“A chair is a type of furniture with a raised surface supported by one or more legs, typically used to seat a single person.”

Google Bard

(Then it goes on to describe different types of chairs, uses, materials, settings, etc.)

But would AI know a chair if it saw one? 

You and I would even if the chair wasn’t typical. We might come across a ledge, a tree stump, or a car bumper shaped and sized just right for us to park our butts on. A chair, if not in the traditional sense.

Because we understand “chairness.” 

If we want to sit, we scan all of the objects and formations around us, looking for something to serve as a chair, if not a specific-built chair. If we don’t see a human-made chair, we think about what we could use as chair. Our thoughts are guided by our intention.

If an AI wanted to sit, could it recognize chairness in the objects and formations around it? Could it think about what could be used as a chair?

Would an AI ever think to itself, “I’d really like to sit down.”

Your dishwasher doesn’t know how to wash dishes.

Even if you have a smart dishwasher, it still knows nothing about washing dishes. All your dishwasher knows how to do is blast heated water and soap around the inside of its box and then drain it at all out at the end. 

We, the humans, have found that if we design a specific type of blasting water pattern, combine the water with a special chemical compound, and then (and this is so critical) arrange the dishes inside that box in just the right way, the “dishwasher” will wash our dishes. 

Now we make smart dishwashers that connect to the cloud for pseudo-autonomy and have some rudimentary sensing capabilities. Maybe, just maybe, if the human still does the things that the human needs to do, you’ll get more thoroughly clean dishes with less energy, water, etc. 

Or not.

You have found still-dirty dishes in your dishwasher a million times. In fact, your dishwasher doesn’t even know what a dish is. You could put anything in its box. 

Because your dishwasher still doesn’t know how to wash dishes. 

In theory, with AI, a future exists where your dishwasher does know how to wash your dishes. You just hand your dirty dishes to it, and sometime later, they all get clean. Every time. No more reliance on you to do your job correctly.

True dishwasher autonomy. 

But the question remains:

Would your dishwasher ever decide that it just doesn’t want to?

Does or will AI have free will?

Your level of fear about AI likely corresponds with your belief in free will.  

I don’t mean the fear of AI supplanting humans in jobs, or creating deep fakes, or being used to manipulate and influence us. Those are child’s play (and absolutely true). 

I mean the fear that AI becomes cognizant and sentient — a free-thinking, new species of life. 

Does the drone take off because it has learned through training data and experience that now is the right time? Or does it take off because it wants to fly?

Does the social media platform feed you what you want to see because it has learned what keeps you engaged (or some other objective)? Or does it show you what it wants you to see?

Does the health detection system give you a diagnosis because it has learned that your symptoms, blood markers, genetics, and epigenetics indicate a particular condition? Or does it give you a diagnosis because it cares about you?

The outcomes are the same, but the intentions are completely different. That is the subtle yet significant difference. 

With AI, as is true with humans, intention matters. 

Smart people have been debating whether we have free will for a long time.

And make no mistake, this is a debate among the smartest of people. This is not the smart people versus the dumb people. Nor is it a debate strictly among the religious and the anti-religious.

One view is that we are just biochemical machines.

Which means that we don’t have free will. Our biochemistry determines the outcome. Given the same input and conditions, we’d make the same choice every time. We’re deterministic, like the software applications that I work on every day.

Another view is we have something beyond our biochemistry that aids the decision process.

For the sake of terminology, let’s call that a soul. The soul provides a random factor. Given the same input and conditions, we might not make the same choice every time.

Regardless, we must live as if we have free will.

What choice do we have?

An exercise in perspective.

Picture a field.

Place a farm building in that field. It’s a familiar setting. You know this field and this building. A fence meanders around. You see a bird.

Pause for 30 seconds. See the details in your mind’s eye.

Here’s what the AI image generator created when I fed it that description:

Is that what you pictured?

It doesn’t look at all like what I pictured. I live in the rural northeast, so my field is green, and although I do have hills in the background, they are east coast green rolling hills. I pictured a red and white barn with a cow fence similar to the one in the left-most picture (though not exactly).

My bird is sitting on a fence post. It’s a red-tailed hawk.

Maybe yours looks like one from the AI-generated set, or maybe it looks more like mine. Maybe it’s completely different.

My image could only have come from me. Likewise, your image could only have come from you.

My personal history created mine. Your personal history created yours. Whether similar or completely different, each is perfectly valid.

“Mindfully practicing authenticity during our most soul-searching struggles is how we invite grace, joy, and gratitude into our lives.”

Brene Brown, “The Gifts of Imperfection”

There’s a famous adage in the marketing and sales world:

“The customer doesn’t need a drill. They need a hole.”

The purpose behind this statement is explanatory. First, understand your customer’s true desire or need. And then, focus your message on meeting that desire or need. Your message should hook into your customer’s emotional state about that desire.

If you’re selling a drill, talk about the hole, not the drill. 

Why do we even care about authenticity? Why are we searching for our authentic selves? Why does it matter?

Because our ultimate desire, the hole we’re trying to create (fill, maybe?), is to invite grace, joy, and gratitude into our lives. No matter who you are and your personal history, you’ve experienced these emotions. Even those who might not use those exact terms or deep down don’t feel worthy (you are, though, you are). We all have at least some experience and are on a journey to reclaim. 

Authenticity is the method and the path.

Authenticity isn’t an excuse for knee-jerk reactions, or blind tribe loyalty, or status claiming. Nor is it a destination. The authentic you doesn’t exist as an endpoint but as an asymptote. 

And convergence toward that asymptote requires practice. 

Authenticity demands Wholehearted living and loving – even when it’s hard, even when we’re wrestling with the shame and fear of not being good enough, and especially when the joy is so intense that we’re afraid to let ourselves feel it.

– Brene Brown, “The Gifts of Imperfection”

Cynical. Jaded. Guarded. “That’s how they get ya.”

These are protection mechanisms. Walls we learn — I’ve learned — to build so that we can handle the emotional roller coaster of life.

I’ve been building up these walls since childhood. Starting with the Locker Incident on my first day of 6th grade, continuing through my teenage years, and well into my mid-40’s, I felt an intense shame of not being good enough. Rejection. Layoffs. Cancellations. Failures. 

My reaction had always been to build more armor. To throw up more guards, lean into cynicism. Always be wary about getting got.

And all that did was pull me farther away from wholehearted living and loving. Always running in the opposite direction of the fear.

I’m now on a different path. A tough path. An uncomfortable path. A path I sometimes lose. But a path that feels better in my core. 

It’s a path of leaning into and airing the shame. A path of walking towards fear while recognizing that eliminating fear is impossible, but operating in the face of it is not. A path of allowing intense joy to overwhelm me. 

A path towards authenticity. 

Choosing authenticity means:

• nurturing the connection and sense of belonging that can only happen when we believe we are strong enough.

– Brene Brown, “The Gifts of Imperfection”

I describe myself as an extreme introvert. 

Some people, especially in my professional life, are surprised when I say that because I’m good at playing an extrovert on TV. “Extreme introvert” invokes images of social anxiety, solitary life in the wilderness, and an outsider — an aversion to connection and belonging.  

I certainly have felt that way at times. I’ve caught myself romanticizing about a simple life in the wilderness. Off the grid. Outside of the culture. I resonate on some level with the stories of people like Chris McCandless, Henry Thoreau, and even Ted Kaczynski.

But I’ve also found that my connections with others are the most significant and satisfying aspects of my life. My wife, kids, family, friends, church, and professional connections provide a fulfillment that could only come from a healthy sense of belonging.

In some very concrete ways, these connections describe my authentic self. They exist because I’ve nurtured them, and I nurture them because they form the foundation of how I see myself. 

And when those connections shake, even if just a little bit, my ship starts to list. My belief wavers. My sense of who I am becomes foggy. 

In those moments, the only thing that can right the ship is the recommitment to those to whom I belong. To once again recognize that I’ll find authenticity through nurturing connections. 

Choosing authenticity means:

• exercising the compassion that comes from knowing that we are all made of strength and struggle; and

– Brene Brown, “The Gifts of Imperfection”

I live in one of those little communities that exist all over America. The kind of place where a measurable portion of the 110 kids in the graduating class marry their high school sweetheart and buy a house just over the hill from their parents. The High School yearbooks serve as a public display of their family tree. They’re the fire company, run the Fair, and serve passionately on the school board. 

A friend from one of these families said to me once, “Sometimes I wish I’d moved away because everybody still thinks of me as the 17-year-old me. I don’t like the 17-year-old me. I never did. Here I am in my mid-40’s, but I can’t escape that idiot.”

I hear that. It’s exactly why I moved away.

Labeling. We all do it, and we all suffer from it. 

“Oh, you’re one of those…”

When we label, we miss the reason. And the reason is everything. The reason is the strength and struggle. Those strengths and struggles follow directly from our personal history — what we have experienced, who we have experienced, and where we have experienced. 

If there’s one aspect of authenticity that will fix the ills of our society, it’s this one. Empathy.

Choosing authenticity means:

• cultivating the courage to be imperfect, to set boundaries, and to allow ourselves to be vulnerable

– Brene Brown, “The Gifts of Imperfection“

Imperfect and vulnerable.

Which sixth grader wants to be seen as childish, awkward, or uncool?
Which husband wants to be seen as untrustworthy or not desirable?
Which father wants to be seen as incompetent?
Which employee wants to be seen as useless or part of the problem?
Which leader wants to be seen unsure?
Which middle-aged man wants to be seen as past their prime?

Imperfect and vulnerable.

Two things I’ve been fighting against across the arc of my life because I feel the gap between who I am and who I desire to be. And who in their right mind desires to be imperfect or vulnerable? Why would I even seek out the courage to be either?

But could it be that imperfect and vulnerable aren’t the targets of that gap, but the process by which I close it? Could I scratch and claw closer to authenticity through imperfection and vulnerability? 

Once we understand the difference between results and process, we can begin to see a glimpse of our authentic selves. 

And that process of publicly airing my imperfection and vulnerability will indeed require the cultivation of courage. 

“Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are.”

– Brent Brown, “The Gifts of Imperfection”

About ten years into my career, I started working with an old test engineer named Tom. Tom confused the shit out of me.

My confusion stemmed from my perception of status in the engineering world. Test engineers were the lowest rung on the status ladder and usually grumpy.

But Tom loved it. He thrived. He smiled. He enjoyed the day.

As I sat next to him in the lab while he showed me exactly how my latest release was broken, I asked him about his buoyant attitude.

“I discovered a long time ago that in my heart, I’m a test engineer, not a design engineer. I like the minutiae and process of testing. I like dreaming up ways to break the system. I like designing tests, and quite frankly, I like sticking it to the developers. So I let it (design) go and embraced testing.”

We’re a society that longs for who we think we’re supposed to be. 

And how do we set our targets for that? Through mimetic desires, of course. We look outside of ourselves to find a model. Most times, we pick our models based on some metaphysical perception of status. 

I’m no different, and I’m deep in the throws of it right now — finding authenticity. 

True authenticity demands The Letting Go. 

True self. Real self. Authentic self. 

Is blurting out an emotional reaction authentic?
Is saying “no” to giving the speech authentic?
Does a Harley Davidson tattoo show authenticity?
Is refusing to be a guest on a particular someone’s show authentic?
Was the “pile-on” post the authentic you?

I think sometimes we conflate authenticity with:

• Lack of empathy
• Lack of self-control
• Comfort
• Tribe loyalty
• Virtue signaling
• Status

The best definition of authenticity that I found comes from Brene Brown:

“Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are.

Choosing authenticity means:

• cultivating the courage to be imperfect, to set boundaries, and to allow ourselves to be vulnerable;
• exercising the compassion that comes from knowing that we are all made of strength and struggle; and
• nurturing the connection and sense of belonging that can only happen when we believe we are strong enough.

Authenticity demands Wholehearted living and loving – even when it’s hard, even when we’re wrestling with the shame and fear of not being good enough, and especially when the joy is so intense that we’re afraid to let ourselves feel it.

Mindfully practicing authenticity during our most soul-searching struggles is how we invite grace, joy, and gratitude into our lives.”

– Brent Brown, “The Gifts of Imperfection”

All fathers and husbands know the expression that was on my wife’s face. 

It’s the expression that indicates the gig is up. It’s a hint of anger, colored by equal parts disappointment and shame. It’s the expression that says, “What the hell did you do?! Two minutes! I was gone for two minutes!”

Honestly, a part of me thought she might just deny us like Peter in the high priest’s courtyard and walk away like, “No, I do not know the man.” I know it crossed her mind. 

But she didn’t. She snapped right into action because, at this point, I was a broken and useless bystander. Somebody had to be a competent parent. So she slipped right in next to Joe to right the ship.

Her action rubbed off on me and snapped me back to the moment. I tended to Maddie as best I could, and within a minute or so, they both calmed down. The noise level finally backed off to a sniffling whimper. 

All that was left was the shame of my incompetence hanging in the air and displayed for all to see as partially digested chicken nuggets and ice cream. 

As parents, we pride ourselves on being respectful and responsible in public settings. At a restaurant, we ensured that we respected those around us, including the waitstaff. If we made a mess, we cleaned it up. 

But these were special times, and this was a special mess. 

As we tried hopelessly to clean it up, doing our best to salvage any shred of dignity that we could, one of the waitstaff said to us in the most loving yet earnest of ways, “Why don’t you guys go ahead and get out of here. We’ll take care of this.”

Chris and I looked at each, each grabbed a kid, and we walked right out. The one time in our parenting life that we took the opportunity to get the hell out of Dodge.

As we walked out, Chris shook her head like this was all a bad dream. She wouldn’t look at me. That’s probably better. 

Because I walked into the Old Country Buffet a competent and in-control father, and I walked out someone who couldn’t be trusted with a stuffed Barney doll, let alone a human child. 

My biggest insecurity as a new father was about to become a reality.

I doubt I’m alone when I admit that my biggest insecurity as a new father of toddler-age kids was competence. Especially in front of my wife. I don’t mean competence in a macho, chest-puffing way but a relaxing, calm, and in-control way. I wanted to be seen as a father in control who could handle things.

The four of us sat in a booth, and Chris and I were in man-to-man defense. Our 1-year-old daughter (Maddie) in a booster on the inside next to me, and our 2 1/2-year-old son (Joe) across the table from his sister next to my wife. Chris got up to hit the buffet, and that left Joe uncovered.

Just after she leaves, a fly starts buzzing around Joe, and he freaks out. He went through a phase with flying bugs — PTSD from a bee sting. Now he’s waving his arms at it and screaming.

So like the competent father I am, I adeptly spin around the table next to him to calm him down. That leaves Maddie uncovered.

She takes this moment of freedom to grab the red-clear plastic tumbler in front of her. I guess now was the time to drink like a “big girl.” She promptly pours the entire 16 ounces of ice-filled water down her face and over her entire body. And then she starts screaming and squirming. 

Uh, oh. I now have a competence problem. One I can handle, but two? On opposite sides of the table?

I quickly decide to spin back around the table to handle Maddie and keep her from falling out of the booster seat. That leaves Joe uncovered again. As soon as I leave, he takes his crying and screaming game to the next level.

And then he projectile vomits. All over everything — the table, himself, the booth. Puke everywhere. How could a two-year-old stomach hold so much? 

Now what do I do? I didn’t do anything, at least for a few seconds. Some part of me had given up. I just sat there and took it all in. Maddie soaking wet and screaming. Joe soaking wet, with puke all over him and everything else, and screaming. 

And then I looked up and saw Chris standing about 10 feet from our table, plate in hand, with that expression on her face. 

This entire sequence of events took less than 60 seconds. It only took 60 seconds to completely and methodically dismantle my faux air of fatherly and maybe manly competence.

I had been found out and publicly shamed. 

The evening started on such a high.

Joe was two and a half, and Maddie had just turned one. They were oblivious to the reason for our travel, but they sure were excited about our stop for dinner.

We had just completed the purchase of what would become the focal point of family recreation for the next 20 years — waverunners (the best family recreational purchase we ever made). We left the notary with our new boats in tow and excitement in our hearts.

We had an hour’s ride home, it was early evening, and the kids were hungry.

“You guys wanna stop for some dinner?”

“Yayyyyy!!!”

Why not? We were still abuzz with the high from the big purchase. Nothing puts parents in the mood to indulge their kids like exciting times. And these were definitely exciting times.

Luckily we spotted the oasis just a few minutes down the road — The Old Country Buffet. Barely edible food but ideal for the parents of small, hungry, and soon-to-be cranky children. Plus, and equally important for a novice boat-trailer puller like myself, the parking lot had plenty of open and navigable space.

No waiting. A plethora of bullshit, kid-craving, highly-processed food sludge to choose from. Easy in. Easy out.

This is our place.

We sit down, order the drinks, and within two minutes, we’re taking turns ferrying the kids up to the buffet. Chicken nuggets? Yup. Fries? Of course. Oh, now, ice cream? Sure. In between trips, we’re throwing down whatever it was we considered edible by adults.

We’re just about done, and Chris says, “I’m going up for some desert.” No problem, we’re doing good here. I’ve got this.

And then a sequence of events took place that a “Three’s Company” writer couldn’t have dreamed up.

We often get confused between professional and famous.

When a homeowner hires a pro house painter, she expects that person to show up on time, respect her property, clean up after themself, and finish the work according to the agreed-upon schedule. The painter doesn’t need to be a galleried artist.

When a manager hires a pro software developer, he expects that person to follow the team’s methodology, work to the schedule, respect (but not always agree with) the other team members, and know how to use the tools. The developer doesn’t need to have worked at Google, built their own successful social media app, or have a Ph.D. in computer science.

When a small business owner hires a pro accountant to file the tax return, she expects that person to ask her the right questions, know the applicable tax codes, know how to use the tools, and file on time. The accountant doesn’t need to have graduated from a famous school with a 4.0 in accounting.

We shouldn’t expect all the pros we hire to be famous or credentialed by the famous. But we all know a pro when we see one.

The pro brings a system and knowledge. The pro respects the people, the work, and time. The pro leaves it better than they found it.

You may not be famous or world-class (if such a thing could be measured), but you can certainly be a pro.

Go be a pro. You can’t control famous.

I grew up in the ’80s, and in the ’80s, we knew who was smart.

They were the guys and girls who knew the answers, remembered the details, and could recite the formulas. They studied, asked questions in class, and stayed late to talk with the teacher.

If I wanted to get a better grade, I’d step into the halo of the smart ones. I’d do my work and then compare. Maybe I’d sneak a peek at their paper, or drop a casual, “Hey, what do you have #2?”

Post-internet, we’re all smarter.

We’ve outsourced our memory to the cloud. Why remember what you can look up? Ask Google, Wikipedia, Wolfram-Alpha, or ChatGPT.

We’ve outsourced our decision-making to media. Why risk being an outsider? Let’s make sure we think the same as our tribe.

We’ve outsourced attention to detail to our devices. Why not be more efficient? Just ask Alexa with our smartphones, smart TVs, and smart homes.

In hindsight, I’m not so sure we’re any smarter.

Each of these will serve you when applied correctly. Each of these will destroy you when applied incorrectly.

If you’re debating right and wrong, assume your counterpart is brilliant.
If you’re trying to solve a problem, assume your team is brilliant.
If you’re figuring out how to live together, assume your partner is brilliant.

And,

If you’re building a smartphone app, assume your users are stupid.
If you’re teaching a complex physics problem, assume your students are stupid.
If you’re driving on the belt parkway at rush hour, assume your fellow commuters are stupid.

Each of us is both brilliant and stupid. Success comes when you recognize when.

Live as if God exists.
Live as if you matter.
Live as if you are creative.
Live as if you have free will.
Live as if someone loves you.
Live as if someone depends on you.
Live as if you can make a difference.

On the one hand, it’s all we got.
On the other, it’s absolutely everything.

Visibile.
Looking outward.
Assuming objectivity.
Letting others define.

Rather…

Invisible.
Look inward.
Assume subjectivity.
Define for yourself.

I used to believe every situation had an objective right and a wrong. Our job was to find the right side.
I used to believe there were good guys and bad guys. Our job was to be the good guy.
I used to believe that we found success by walking a linear path built specially for each of us. Our job was to discover it.

Now I believe that rightness and wrongness require context. Our job is to try to understand everyone’s context.
Now I believe that everybody is neither good nor bad, yet both good and bad, and those terms exist across a spectrum with multiple axes. Our job is to lean into empathy.
Now I believe that our path unfolds before us and that success is found in our perspective. Our job is to walk whatever path is before us and to find our perspective.

We waved at Dave as he soared back towards us and yelled down from above, “Thanks!”

To complete the adventure, we had to do our best to get their car to the landing zone, a winding journey about 15 miles away. Since it may run out of gas, I was to take a particular set of roads and just leave it where it quit. That way, if the car wasn’t at the landing zone when they got there, they could backtrack and eventually find it. 

Or I could just take it anywhere. Nothing but my conscience was stopping me. 

I climbed into the beat-up, yellow clunker that may or may not have enough gas, and Chris climbed into the rental car. It started (a good first sign), and I rolled toward the entrance of the mountain road.

Well accustomed to driving a car on fumes, I coasted the stick shift down the mountain as best I could. Once at the bottom, however, I had no choice but to just go for it.

Through the neighborhood, out to the main road, and then around The Point and past the parking lot where this whole adventure began. I babied the accelerator, turned the engine off when stopped, and drove as slowly as possible.

We made it.

I stashed the keys on top of the left front tire, as we agreed upon, and looked up in the sky. 

There they were. Far away and high in the sky. Soaring. Gliding. 

Humans flying.

As Dave circled us, riding higher and higher on the thermal drafts, we could hear him giggling like a schoolgirl. 

Now his buddy was itching to get up there too.

“So…you wanna launch me?”

“Um…hmmm…um…”

“Ha! No problem. It’s not very windy. Can you at least help me get strapped in and over to the platform?”

“Sure!”

Chris and I held the wingtips as he clipped in, and then the three of us walked the awkward contraption over to the platform. After a quick pre-flight check on the cables and mount points, he breathed deeply and kicked off into the nothing. Like Dave, the kite immediately rose into the warm, blue sky, circled back, and he yelled down a big “thank you!” from above.

And then they were off — over the great, green plain below and out towards the blue coast in the distance. Soaring and gliding along the thermal updrafts that took them 100s, if not a thousand feet higher. Then a swoop down only to start the slow, circular rise once more. Rising above the mountain top and then dipping down below. 

We stood and watched for a good 20 minutes. This was real human flight. In that moment, I felt immense gratitude for catching a fleeting glimpse of why they were so hell-bent on getting into the air, no matter the cost. 

I was mesmerized. The feeling was profound. 

And then I saw the car, which yanked me back to reality. Would we make it?

I couldn’t do it.

Ain’t no way I could stand on that tiny platform, with only that thread-bare “safety” strap keeping me from tumbling into the great beyond. 

“Um…dude…umm…”

He could read the room. 

“Hey, no worries. I’ll launch Dave, and you can watch. If you change your mind, you can help me.”

I held one wing tip, and Dave’s buddy held the other as Dave clipped into his glider. The three of us walked Dave and his contraption over to the platform. I helped hold it steady as Dave’s buddy climbed down onto the second level and clipped the strap around him. 

I let go and stepped back. Dave inched towards his friend and the edge of the platform. Dave’s friend stretched forward and grabbed the control arm as Dave put one leg back and squatted slightly. Dave’s fighting the gentle warm breeze to keep the glider still and pointed in the right direction. 

“Pilot ready?”

“Ready!”

“3…2…1…Launch!”

And with that, Dave jumps, and his friend passes the glider over his head.

When a plane takes off, it’s a technological marvel. You know the plane contains people, but you can’t see them. All you see is the aluminum cylinder hurdling down a giant concrete runway 100’s of yards away in a whirlwind of mechanized sound and fury. It leaves the ground and immediately disappears into the distance.

A hang glider launch is a deeply human experience. 

Dave — the person — jumped off the cliff. Not the machine. Dave and his giant kite immediately gained altitude. Never once dropping below the height of our mountain top. But fifty yards out and already 40 or 50 feet above us, Dave circles back towards us and starts yelling.

“Dude, it’s awesome! Get up here!”

Here was a man, and he was flying. Yes, he had a contraption strapped to his back, but it was the man that was flying. Seeing him lazily and soundlessly glide 50 feet directly above and just talking to us was crazy. 

I became overwhelmed. It was truly beautiful. 

We made it to the top of the mountain. The launch point.

And then the fun began. What started out as a haphazard pile of aluminum poles, cables, and nylon sheeting, transformed into two fully functional hang-gliders. An engineering marvel, for sure, and a bit of a miracle. 

There was stuff everywhere, but they were meticulous with the assembly procedure. The discarded shrapnel of the build process left a small pile of bags and parts that Dave tossed into the trunk of their car.

The moment came. 

The launch pad is a two-level, wooden platform perched on the edge of a 1500-foot cliff overlooking a flat, green plain dotted with houses and farms extending to the navy blue coastline a couple miles away. Strapped into his giant kite, the glider pilot stands facing the void on the upper platform. The launch helper stands facing him on the lower platform with his back to that void like a rock climber one final move away from sending the route. The upper platform hits him in the chest, giving him just enough length to reach up and grab the glider’s control bar — the lower leg of the glider’s triangular frame. He’s got nothing behind him except a marginal safety strap and the birds. On command, the pilot kicks off into the nothing as the launch helper passes the glider back over his head like a reverse soccer throw while leaning back into the strap (and praying it holds). 

I stand on the upper platform with Dave’s buddy, surveying the beautiful landscape below as he explains this procedure. My hands sweating and my knees wobbling. 

So you’re just gonna jump off the cliff? I guess I don’t know what I was expecting, but I’m sure it was something not quite as dramatic. 

“Hey, look down there. To the left of that big field is where we’ll be landing. You can leave the car there on the side of the road. We’ll find it. And you see that big house to the right of the landing zone? That’s where they filmed Magnum P.I”. 

And then he says it.

“You wanna be the launch helper?”

“Um…hmmmm…ummmm…”

I’m both exhilarated and worried.

I hop in the driver’s side as they climb in through the other doors, and Chris gets in our rental car to follow us. I’m a little nervous about these ragged guys I’ve just met. But as we’re winding our way up the dirt mountain road, they bubble with excitement. I can’t help but catch their energy. It’s happening.  

And then, I take a peak at the gas gauge. It’s pegged on “E.” Not near “E,” or bouncing around. Pegged. 

“Hey guys, is the gas gauge broke?”

“Uh, no. We’re probably outta gas.”

Probably?

“So…”

“Don’t worry, man. All we care about right now is getting into the air. Today is f’n perfect. We just need enough gas to get us up the hill.”

“But what about driving it to the landing zone? What if I don’t make it?”

“No worries, just abandon it where it quits. We’ll find it later.”

Abandon it where it quits? We’ll find it later? The landing zone is at least 15 miles away. I can’t wrap my engineer and conservative brain around it. It doesn’t compute.

“Is there a gas station…”

“No man. Seriously, don’t worry. Leave it. All we care about is getting in the air.”

And what am I gonna do at this point? I’m just gonna keep driving, savor the good vibes as best I can, and let the cards fall where they may. 

Next stop — the top of the hill. 

Could we?

We figured about three or four hours to drive counterclockwise around Diamond Head, then Koko Head, then up the east coast to Kaneohe. From Kaneohe, we’d zip right over the mountain on the H3 to make our way to the airport near Pearl Harbor. 

A relaxing little ride allowing us to revisit a few favorite spots and arrive in plenty of time to make the flight. 

But then we ran into Dave, who blew it all up with an intriguing adventure opportunity — the hang-gliding experience I’d been trying to coordinate for months. 

“So what do you say? Can you give us a ride?”

My hang-gliding was, unfortunately, off the table. Dave and his buddy had their gliders but not the tandem. 

But support crew?

We’d drive them up the mountain, help them get launched, and then deposit the car by the landing zone. How long would that take? Unknown.  

We huddled to the side, and I started making excuses. Got a flight to catch. 

“I don’t know…” 

This is my nature. To back off. To shrink. To be conservative. I hate missing flights, but also, what was this crazy scenario? Who are these guys? And drive their car down the mountain and just leave it there?

Chris says to me, “You’ve been looking forward to this for months. Here it is. If we have to miss the flight, we’ll figure it out. Why wouldn’t we say yes?”

And with that, Dave thew me the keys.  

These guys are ragged and shaggy. Maybe altered. Stereotypical 90s slackers. 

I saw the paraphernalia on top of the beat-up old car, and I had to ask. 

“What the hell are you guys doing?”

“Man, we’re just trying to get in the air. We need a ride up there…”

Pointing again.

“… so we can jump off with our gliders and land over there in that flat spot. Today is the perfect flying day. It’ll only take 15 minutes of your time.”

Gliders! Flying!

I wonder if they know Dave.

“Hey, you guys don’t by any chance know a guy named Dave, do you? I was trying to hook up with him to…”

“Yeah, man! That’s me!”

Boom.

“You’re Dave? Dude, I’ve been trying to reach you for like a week! We were supposed to hook up so you could take me for a ride.”

“Oh, sorry, man. The conditions on the Big Island were stupid. I had to get over there for a few days.”

I just kinda blinked at him. I was floored by the fact that I was standing in front of Dave, in the flesh. Given what I had gone through to try to meet with him, this was just nuts. With today’s technology, sure, no big deal, but in the mid-90s? This was a true coincidence (or divine intervention).

He was crazy. This situation was crazy.

And then I had a crazy idea. 

On the morning of our last day on Oahu, my wife and I decided to take a drive around the island to take a last look at some of our favorite parts (and take a quick peek at the lifeguard’s lost-and-found at Sandy Beach).

We’ve parked at the Makapu’u Lookout, hoping to spot a whale in the bay. Walking back to the car, I see two ragged, agitated-looking guys standing by the railing. Not angry-agitated, but clearly worked up about something. They grab each person walking near them, ask a question, and then I see the head shake “no.” 

Now it’s our turn.

“Hey, man! Can you help us? We’re looking for someone to give us a ride and then park our car.”

“Ummm…”

“We’re just trying to get to the top of that mountain right there. We need someone to drive us up, and then take our car to the bottom of the hill over there.”

He points up to the top of the mountain behind us, then to a flat spot at ground level a mile or so up the coastline, and then to the car we’re all standing next to. 

I’m sort of stammering, internally and externally. What the hell is going on here?

As my head bobs around on my neck following his pointing, I finally notice the car. It’s got a bunch of stuff, like long poles strapped to the roof. 

Wait, it can’t be. 

I was obsessed with hang-gliding in the mid-90s. 

This was early internet and pre-ubiquitous mobile phone days — the days of internet forums and message boards. I’d found a dedicated hang-gliding message board and stalked it daily. I had even started a conversation with the local (eastern PA) hang-gliding club leader. 

But I still hadn’t built up the courage to show up at the hill, let alone try it for myself. I was scared. 

When my wife and I booked a trip to Hawaii, though, I thought, “Why not Hawaii? Maybe this is the kick I need.” I found the contact information for a guy on Oahu with a tandem glider. The perfect exposure to a hang-gliding-curious but ultimately scared newbie like myself. 

I sent him a message, told him when I’d be there, and he agreed. He’s one of those perpetually excited dudes. Just give him a call when I get to the island, and we’ll schedule it.

So we got to Hawaii, and I started calling. No answer for two days. On day three, a woman answers. 

“Um, Hi. My name is John. Dave asked me to call about hang-gliding…”

“Oh? Really? I’m sorry, but Dave’s not here.”

“When will he be back?”

“No, I mean he’s gone. He’s over on the Big Island, and I don’t know when he’ll be back.”

And that was that. On some level, I was relieved. 

But as it turns out, this wasn’t the end of the story. 

I’ve noticed a curious mind-body confusion. 

For me, it’s my thumb. My thumb checks regularly. If it finds it, no big deal. I don’t even think about it. But when it doesn’t, my thumb throws up the red flags that I can’t ignore it. I can’t stop noticing the absence of it. 

I’m talking about my wedding ring. My thumb has been through this before, so it knows the drill. 

I lost my first wedding ring in the sand at the edge of the Pacific ocean. 

Two years into our marriage, my wife and I traveled to Hawaii. My favorite place was a wicked body-surfing beach just past the Halona blowhole on Koko Head — Sandy Beach. This was the only time in my (admittedly limited) body surfing experience where I purposely sought out the small waves. Balancing right along the edge of exhilarating and terrifying. 

After one particularly turbulent ride, I extracted myself from the sand, and my thumb told me immediately. It was gone. I remember constantly thinking about its absence. 

So I got another one quickly, which served me until a few days ago. I lost this second one to rheumatoid arthritis. 

Now my thumb is aggravated again. I can’t not notice its absence. From one perspective, this mind-body confusion makes sense. My ring was a constant physical presence.

I wonder, though, if the real confusion comes from the story I tell myself about the ring. 

If there’s one thing that I excel at — truly top of the heap — it’s being mediocre.

Here are some proverbs that have served me well in my dance to the top of mediocrity.

Never Quit
Take No Risk
Have No Fun
Blame Others
Wait Your Turn
Choose Comfort
Have No Regrets
Follow the Money
Never Be Content
Blame The System
Think Too Far Ahead
See Before You Believe
Worry About Getting Got
Look for the Straight Line
Let Society Define Success
Hope For a Promotion and Raise
Always Be the Smartest in the Room
Always Protect Yourself from Emotional Danger

This is a great system, and I can teach it to you because, as it turns out, I’m also a mediocrity coach. If you’d like to up your mediocre game, hit me up.

I know the exact moment we sealed our destiny. 

And the shame of it was that I had failed to learn the lesson from the Gladys affair. That should have taught me to embrace the opportunities of the future rather than shrinking into the soft pillow of the past. 

The executives at Agere looked at the challenge before them and failed to see the opportunity. All they saw was what had been taken away. They contracted rather than expanded. 

I did exactly the same thing.

The critical moment for our student housing business came when we decided to stay the course and play the hand we already held rather than expand toward possibilities. We had started on the journey of replacing on of our old apartment houses with a brand new, state of the art building. We had the idea, zoning, outline of a design, and the architect on standby. 

And then we backed down. We got cold feet and said no. 

Our reasons were sound. You might recognize them from your past as well. 

I had little experience. 
It would be hard.
What if it doesn’t work?
It was risky.

Therefore, we failed to see where the future was moving — what students wanted, what we should provide, and how we could give it to them. 

Therefore, I played small. I stuck with what I had and what I knew. I hadn’t learned my lesson. 

I had only piled up more regrets.

I’m an engineer.

That’s a description of both my vocation and personality. Knowing that now you know how to motivate me. 

For example, an engineer likes to make stuff. I like to make stuff. In fact, I’ve built my entire career and most hobbies around making stuff. My engineer friends are the same. 

Corporate executive, politician, or church leader — tell me a story that connects what I’m making to how it matters.

Of course, the fact that I’m an engineer is just the story I tell myself. It may be accurate on one plane, but it’s not exhaustive or immutable. But it starts with a story. 

All motivation starts with a story. Our personal stories connect us to our sense of being. Our shared stories connect us to each other and to our place in the world. 

We don’t all tell ourselves the same story, but at our core, each of us is motivated by a story. 

April fools.

To be perfectly clear, I’m all for four-day work weeks. Where do I sign up?

But let’s be real for a minute.

The moon landings, the space shuttle, and the mission to Mars don’t happen on four-day work weeks.

The Macintosh, the iPod, and the iPhone don’t make it to market with four-day work weeks.

Amazon, Google, and Facebook don’t launch on four-day work weeks.

By the way, these things don’t happen with five-day work weeks either. Five versus four is semantics when we’re talking about making great things. It’s arbitrary. 

You wanna make something great or be a part of something historical? There is no work-life balance. It’s work-life integration. 

Four-day work weeks are awesome. I’m all in. But let’s not kid ourselves about what can and should benefit from four-day work weeks. 

In 2006, Gladys knocked on my door once more, and I opened it only to the chain stop. 

My chief engineer friend, living in San Francisco and now firmly helping to drive the bus of worldwide technological culture change, called me with an offer. They were deep in the throws of creating “…an iPod…a phone…an internet device.” He asked me to join the party. 

I flew to Cupertino. Walked the halls again. Signed the NDA’s again. Ate sushi with the team again. Talked housing and relocation with HR. Got the offer, complete with stock options that would eventually be worth…well, let’s just leave it at “a pile.”

My dream job, working for my dream company, and working on my dream project.  

I turned it down.

Another regret for this column here? Certainly — you bet your ass — at least, from one perspective. 

But how does one accurately evaluate and sort out feelings about unwalked paths when you don’t regret the journey you actually took? You can’t, at least not rationally. So all you can do is lay in the grass, watch the clouds drift by, and daydream. 

And in our daydreams, we play an additive game whereby we take the best outcomes from what coulda, woulda, shoulda and add them to the unchanged journey we’ve experienced.

Kinda like, “Let’s take our life as it is and add another couple of zero’s to our bank account. Now how does that feel?”

But, of course, that’s a fool’s errand. Our life, our journey, and the effect on those sharing the road with us is a complex model rooted in chaos. The butterfly effect in full regalia. 

All I know is how my journey has turned out so far, and so far, so good. 

I turned it down for reasons I’ll never regret, and those reasons have proven sound and correct. But yes, I sometimes still daydream about the what-ifs. 

Ultimately, though, I’ve concluded that the entire New Shoes experience is about control, specifically, control over one’s self, life, and direction. Recognizing who has it when you don’t. How to gain it, keep it, and respect it. When you have it, how to wield it properly and empathically. 

That tailspin of an experience taught me that I wanted, and still want, to have control. Even if that control means I fail, take the wrong path, or, yes, have regrets. 

That single decision — one over which I had zero control — profoundly impacted me, my career, and my family. 

Both positively and negatively.

A couple months later, I did find myself on the layoff list (as expected), as did most of my pirate friends. I got “saved” (then), but within a month or so, I had quit Agere on my own.

I just couldn’t do it anymore. 

A colleague asked me why I was leaving without a layoff package, and all I could say, because I felt it deeply, was, “I no longer believe.”

And when your profession intersects with your passion, belief is everything. 

I left Agere to try rekindling an old professional romance (it was as awful as the first time around) but returned six months later wiser and reinvigorated. Some time away, dancing with the train wreck of an ex-girlfriend cleansed my pallet and provided perspective. 

It catapulted me onto the path of focusing on what I can control and working to gain control — tech startups (failures), real estate (semi-successful), other marketing adventures (most failures), personal and professional development, and to a large degree, this writing before you. 

Most importantly, it gave me the courage to volunteer for a layoff in my mid-40s, leading me on a journey of interesting professional adventures, personal growth, and an evolving perspective on the intertwining of personal and professional being. 

What could have been, if even by association, sometimes has a way of turning into what is. 

About a year and a half after our disbandment, the marketing manager from the New Shoes team pulled me into his office.

By now, the iPod models that were supposed to be ours had hit the shelves. They were everywhere. 

“Look at this.”

And he pointed to the spreadsheet on his screen.

At the bottom of the summary column was a number around $4 billion. 

But we knew this would happen. We told you it was gonna happen. That single decision saved them, at the time, a few million bucks, maybe a few 10s of millions. It probably soothed the street and secured some bonus for jaw-flappers.

But it cost them the company. 

Because by now, all of Agere was starting to tailspin, not just the mobile phone division. Revenue was down 10% in 2005 and another ten in 2006, but we were about to fall off the cliff. We were jettisoning people and projects. The death spiral. By the end of 2007, LSI, a company from the servant class compared to our nobility status, had bought us. 

Agere was no more. 

It didn’t have to be this way. Twenty guys — twenty focused and excited pirates — had the power to change it all. Twenty guys would have doubled the entire company’s revenue with a single project. 

And that was just iPod. We later learned that Apple also wanted to commit to us the first generation of, well…

“widescreen iPod with touch controls…revolutionary mobile phone…breakthrough internet communicator…“

For God’s sake, just stay on the train. Ignore the ex-girlfriend. You know she’s no good for you. Stop looking back. Start looking ahead. Not what wasn’t, but what can be.

They would have been heroes, not just inside Agere but in the entire semiconductor industry. 

By the mid-2010s, in a particularly cruel twist of fate, the entrails of the former Agere Systems (by now already moved on from LSI to a company called Avago) would merge with and be consumed by Apple’s iPod rebound girl — Broadcom. 

Not just death, but death with an aggrieved, “It didn’t have to be this way.”

We got no answers. None that made any sense, at least.

And that was that.

We said our piece, but it had no effect. We walked in as a cohesive, highly skilled, and angry band of pirates and walked out a fractured, dilettante, and wilted group of lap dogs.

Tails between our legs.

The official disbandment filtered us individually into the myriad of other engineering teams within the division. I ended up back in a group I had purposely left about five years before. Ugh.

But we all knew what was coming. Quarterly reports with bad news beget canceled projects. Canceled projects beget layoffs. Layoffs beget counteractive good news to the street.

And when layoffs happen, who gets laid off? Well…

The chief engineer wasn’t waiting around. He pulled me aside a few days later to tell me he was switching coasts. Gladys had hired him to fix the heaping pile of shit that Agere left (and would cause ripples throughout the semiconductor industry).

Of course, Gladys’s New Shoes would still happen. That train was rolling and unstoppable. Just not with us. We stepped off at the last stop because the ex-girlfriend said she’d be there. But of course, she jilted us again.

I was happy for him and also a little jealous. Was there a spot for me?

Nope. Not right now, at least. But that would eventually come around.

For now, I was just another lap dog, praying my name wouldn’t show up on the list.

“We are canceling this program for two big reasons…

The first is we believe that Apple is about to lose its market share. Microsoft and Sony have both jumped in the game…blah, blah, blah”

Some hushed murmurs around the room. 

This one was at least plausible. As engineers, we had no insight into the market, executive relationships, or product pipelines. What do we know? Microsoft has killed off Apple in the past. Maybe they’ll do it again.

But it’s also an executive funeral service hack. Invoking the “market share” argument with a room full of engineers is a “get out of jail free” card. What do we know about the market?

So, OK, fair enough. Maybe this one has some merit. 

“And the second is that we think the iPod is a fad and has peaked.”

And the room erupted. 

Not exactly trading floor during a frenzied short squeeze, but twenty normally introverted and reserved engineers all talking loudly over each other.

A voice cuts through.

“A fad?! Peaked?! Have you been to the gym? Have you walked down the street? Do you have eyes?”

Who says that to the executive VP of a $400 million division?

Someone who’s exasperated. Someone who’s spent the last year-plus pouring his sweat and humanity into this project. Somebody who’s sacrificed at home to work the long hours required to make something great.

Somebody who doesn’t know business but knows with all of his being that this is the stupidest business decision in history.

We filed into the funeral parlor, knowing but not yet believing our fate.

Emotions are running hot. This is the morning after the leak, and the execs don’t yet know it, but the leak strategy has backfired. 

The tension manifests itself differently in each of us. I can’t even look at them, but my friend on the silicon design team hasn’t broken eye contact since we passed through the door. He’s shooting lasers. Around the room, grown-ass men can’t sit still in their seats. 

Just waiting their turn.

The beginning went according to the familiar project funeral script — gotta cut costs.

“Blah, blah, blah…synergies…blah, blah, blah…core focus…blah, blah, blah strength alignment…blah, blah, blah…”

“Now, we’d like to open it up to questions.”

I was crazed and hopping mad, but I had little courage at this time in my career (and life). I was never the guy to open his mouth. I was too afraid. But I couldn’t let this go. Could I form the words? Could I find the courage?

Luckily, I didn’t have to. My colleague opened the floodgates.

“Mr. [VP], you told us what was happening but never said why, specifically. Why (on earth) are you cancelling this project?”

I assume these guys are good at reading a room; reading this one wasn’t hard. Mr. VP found a sacrifice.

“Sure, I’ll hand it over to Mr. [Lieutentant], who’s more familiar with the details.“

“Thank you, [VP]. We are canceling this program for two big reasons…” 

Word has gotten out.

It always does in these situations. Barry tells me, I tell Doug, and so on. The executives usually leak it on purpose so that the catharsis can begin before the official word comes down. It’s an executive strategy to soften the blow. 

Unfortunately, me and many of my colleagues in this band of pirates have been to this rodeo before. That’s the tech industry. Most of us have a professional past littered with the carcasses of projects that could have been, should have been, or never had a chance.

We know the feeling. Its resignation tinged with a dash of regret and a sprinkle of mourning. And then we move on. A bit like when your favorite Uncle passed on when you were 12. It hurts; you mourn and will remember him nostalgically, but you move on. 

And let’s face it, as engineers, we’re the guys in the ditch with the shovels or 20 feet up in the bucket with the rubber-handled tools. We’re the doers. We make little rocks out of big rocks. We don’t get a say, but why should we? What do we know of the market, balance sheets, or quarterly reports?

But do you know what engineers do know and do care about? 

Making stuff. Making great stuff. 

All we want is to make something that somebody else cares about. Maybe once in your life, you realize the dream of making something truly great. Those opportunities don’t come around every day. 

Official project (or division or company) funeral services follow a familiar script. The leader stands up front and talks about regret, how it’s not our fault, and how we’re gonna come out of this stronger and better. They wax eloquent with buzzwords like synergies, core focus, and alignment like they mean anything to the guys with the hammers and lunch pails. 

But the vibe today at this funeral service is very different. The leak didn’t smooth out the edges. The pirates are angry. 

Because this funeral isn’t for a favorite Uncle. You just murdered our precious baby girl.

We’re gonna say our piece. 

And though we may not have insight into the board room, the handshake agreements, or whose bonus is at risk, we know, sure as shit, that Gladys’s New Shoes is worth making. We know this one is great and will make a difference. For many of us, maybe all of us, this will be our professional legacy. 

Mutiny is at hand.

“You’re joking, right?”

“I wish I was. I’ve been fighting for the last two weeks. They won’t listen. They’re doing it. They’re gonna kill the project. They’ll announce it tomorrow. I felt you should know.”

“How? Why?”

“They [the mobile phone division execs] just lost [their biggest phone customer]. They’re cutting everything so that when they announce the loss to the street, they’ll have something to soften the blow.”

“But this is THE FIX!!??”

“Of course, but they don’t see it that way. Our division’s name is ‘mobile phones’ and this isn’t a mobile phone.” (ah, the fear-driven, short-sightedness rears its ugly head)

“Won’t the street see that we’re gonna make it up on iPod?”

“Apple won’t let us tell them.”

And so here we sat as the early-evening sun flooded the cafeteria with a pall that matched our emotions. I could see he was drained. I had just found out, but he had been living this nightmare for two weeks and had fought the good fight. 

But it was over. 

We stayed for a while as he patiently played therapist while I bitched and moaned, swang from anger to sadness, and started to come to grips with reality. My dream project, the one that intersected my geeky fan-boy past with the impending tech cultural shift of our future, was over. And I had no say in the matter. 

Gladys’s New Shoes had just been run over by a bus full of fearful executives afraid of getting scolded for what they lost rather than being excited and confident about the possibilities of what could be.

“Oh, please, mommy, don’t be mad at me!”

I walked back to my desk in zombie mode and sank into my seat. As I stared at nothing, the lead silicon engineer popped in and said, “Hey, man, did you see that [the VP of the division] just invited us to an all-hands for the New Shoes team? I wonder what’s up?”

“Sorry, man. We just got invited to our funeral.” 

Gladys’s New Shoes were to be the first generation iPod Nano and the first iPod with Video.

Both cutting edge and groundbreaking. Statistically speaking, you probably owned one of them.

In our lab, we have some of the (extremely confidential) new bits and pieces Gladys has shared with us. I’m using them, experimenting, and figuring out how the CPU we’re making is gonna allow them to sing and dance for 24 hours on a single charge.

We’re a year or so into this whirlwind, and I’ve been to Cupertino a couple times. One Infinite Loop and De Anza 8 — where the history of my geeky youth was made. Now I’ve walked the hallways, sat in the rooms, and even scratched out a few of my own markings on whiteboards.

I can’t believe my good fortune.

Every time I show up, I get my ass kicked. They rake me over the coals. But it’s like having David Goggins as your personal trainer. He’s gonna kick your ass. You’re gonna be a dishrag and gonna wanna quit. And then tomorrow, you’re stronger.

At the end of each day’s struggle session, we go somewhere in Santa Clara county, eat sushi, smash a few beers, and talk about conquering the world.

With every fiber in my being, I know this is how great stuff is made.

It’s towards the end of a nondescript day in our office near Allentown, PA. I’m at my desk when the chief engineer of our team walks up and says, “Follow me.”

I’m not alarmed or concerned because this happens a lot. He and I have spent hours on his whiteboard working through the unending pile of hard stuff.

But we don’t go to his office. Instead, he leads me into the empty cafeteria. I can still remember the orange-ish hue of the late-day sun pouring through the large glass windows, casting its early evening glare throughout.

I take a seat, and he sits across from me. OK, now it’s weird.

I know him and his British mannerisms well. We’ve been through some shit on other projects, and certainly on this one. We have an informal manner to our relationship — friends in addition to colleagues. This seems kinda formal.

At first, he doesn’t say anything. He just kind of sighs and blinks. I can read the resignation.

And then I know. This can’t actually be happening.

I joined the cult in 1984.

I was excited to work on Gladys’s New Shoes because I’d been in the cult already for 20 years. I saw the super bowl commercial like millions of others, and then I got to touch one in person. I was hooked.

The look, smell, feel of the keys, and this new-fangled thing called a mouse. It was magical. 

In high school in 1984, the Mac was a cool and interesting curiosity kept at arm’s length because I didn’t have one. But Penn State changed all that.

At Penn State, we had rooms full of Macintosh SE’s stationed throughout the campus. Rooms full of IBM PCs also existed, but the Mac labs were for the cool kids. Who in their right mind would want to use some ugly greyish, multi-box, wires-everywhere, DOS-based PC over the slick point-and-click beauty of the Mac SE?

“Hey man, we got a paper due tomorrow. I’m heading to the Willard Lab to get in line. You comin?” 

I was on team Steve. I grumbled when he got fired, monkeyed around with NeXT, and cheered when he came back. 

As I jumped into the New Shoes project, my favorite Mac of all time was sitting in my kitchen (yes, the kitchen) — the iMac G4, looking like a desk lamp with a beautiful 15″ flat-panel display and ice-white hemispherical base. It was a beautiful addition to the kitchen decor. 

Then came the iPod. Like with the first Mac I touched, it instantly hooked me. When I held that smooth, shiny deck of cards and spun the click-wheel under my thumb, I knew this was my thing. I bought one as a “gift for my wife.” Wink, wink. 

And now I was lucky enough to be working on the next generation.

The engineering team is rolling.

Apple, famously, and to their credit, is hard on their partners and suppliers. But not in the “we’re gonna grind you up and toss you to the wind so we get ahead” way. 

I’ve had the misfortune of working with those customers. They abuse you on price, time, and effort to lever their competitors and undercut them by pennies. They chew you up, spit you out, and think nothing of it. As a supplier, you can’t succeed. You’re better off without their money. 

No, Apple is tough because they do care. They care deeply about what they’re making — the thing that has their name on it. They want it to be awesome. And to make it awesome, they hold themselves and their partners accountable. They demand excellence. You’re in the fire when you work with Apple, but it’s a cleansing fire. Not everybody can handle it. 

I can handle the fire. Our team can handle the fire. 

All told, we’re about 20 people inside a company of 5000. We’re like an internal startup. Not exactly outcasts, but definitely outsiders because we’re not working on the core product of our business unit, mobile phones. 

We’re a bunch of pirates. 

We’re small and energized. Innovative and agile. The executives aren’t lording over us. We’re an afterthought, which we thought was awesome. We’re working long, hard, and quite frankly, killing it. 

What’s today’s unsolvable problem? And then we solve it.

I’m exhausted, but exhausted in the way I am after finishing a triathlon. 

And we knew that at the end of this race, we’d be standing on the top step of the podium. Future Agere Systems executives will point to our team and our project and say, “That’s when we went nuclear. These 20 guys made this company.” 

We’re gonna be able to do anything we want. We had the ship, cannons, and the crazies with nothing to lose. We had the power. 

Ah, how naive I was. 

Apple builds consumer trinkets like it’s a matter of national security — all to feed the hype machine. Marketing brilliance. 

If you’re familiar with the Steve Jobs era, you know that their “one more thing” product announcements were always a self-congratulatory exercise in pretentious back-patting. 

“Scotty, engage the maximum hype generation drive!”

“I’m giving her all she’s got, Captain! She’s gonna blow!”

As such, they kept their new products’ specifications, development partners, and suppliers entirely on the down-low. As a partner (and for this project, the main partner), we had to sign NDA’s not just for normal proprietary information protection but also promising never to disclose we were working with them.

We had to create an internal code name for Apple and another for iPod as part of our contractual obligation. We were to always use these codenames, even within our office walls. 

Somebody suggested Gladys for Apple and New Shoes for the iPod. So we walked around talking about Gladys’s New Shoes. Presentations, whiteboard sessions, and documentation all referred to Gladys’s New Shoes. Imagine the blank stares and exaggerated blinks from our colleagues. 

I’ve worked under real security on very secure programs in the top-secret world. This was just funny. For what? Gladys’s New Shoes was a fitting name. 

And this level of pretend security, specifically not announcing to the street that we were involved, was part of our downfall. Because eventually, we’d be stupid enough to kick Gladys and her New Shoes right out the door.

My team single-handedly destroyed a $2B company, and then I got fired. 

This is less of a personal regret than a regret by association, and reliving it boils my blood, even today. 

It’s 2003, and I’m working at a semiconductor company called Agere Systems, which is a spinoff from the former Lucent Technologies and AT&T. We invent, design, and build the core technologies for cell phones, computers, network infrastructure, and many other electronic devices you’ve had in your pocket, in your car, or in your office.

I’ve just landed my dream gig — lead systems engineer on an exciting project. The project? It’s the big guy. The one that took the recently back-on-the-map Apple and catapulted it to the stratosphere.

“1000 songs in your pocket.”

And 2003 was the moment of dancing silhouettes with white headphones on primary background colors. Go to the gym on a Monday and see a few people with the tell-tale white headphones. Go again on Friday, and you see twice as many. Week after week. 

You don’t need special insight, marketing expertise, or anything other than a set of open eyes. Walk down the street. This shit is happening. 

This was the beginning of the Holy Growth phase for the iPod and Apple. The genesis of the changeover from cultural curiosity to planetary vernacular. The heel in the proverbial hockey stick curve. 

No matter. Even a giant in the industry with $2B in revenue can screw the pooch.

After two announced delays, we finally boarded. 

I’m fake smiling at people as I snake through the aisle full of lucky bastards up front. I hate them with all of my being. 

All the while straining my neck to catch a glimpse of seat 23D. For sure, I was giving the death stare to whoever had kicked me out. Daggers, baby. Get ready to have me think that I’ve made you uncomfortable with my death stare. 

But it was empty. And not just that seat. The entire section of rows 16 to 29 was completely absent of seated passengers. What’s going on here? I didn’t know whether to be annoyed or elated. What did this mean? I didn’t know what to feel. 

So I asked the flight attendant. She said, “Oh, this section is empty for weight distribution purposes.”

Huh? All of it? That’s bullshit!

Here’s the thing — my father was a professional pilot. I grew up in airplanes. I know this is true. My brain knows it’s a real thing. I’ve been in airplanes with him and personally witnessed him move people around for proper weight distribution. 

But I can’t get my emotions out of the way of my brain. It makes no sense. 

“Keep moving, sir. Your seat is just back there.”

When I got to 37D, I found exactly what I assumed I’d find given how this entire mess had gone so far — two people occupying seats 37D and F. My bookends. 

I thought to myself, “Oh, here we go. Fourteen more hours of this shit.” Wheels up. 

And then an angel appeared.

“Sir, now that we’re airborne, we can redistribute the weight. Would you be interested in changing seats?”

Uh, would I? All I know is that within ten seconds, I was back in that aisle, being led to a new and promised land. I don’t remember standing up. I probably left some of my crap in my old seat. I’m sure I stepped on the person next to me. 

“Sir, take your pick. You’re welcome to just about any seat in this section.”

So I chose. Really, there was only one choice. 

I sat my ass right down in seat 23D and contemplated the fourteen hours of relative bliss ahead. 

I was that guy. 

You know the one. The one you hate. The one you and your people shake their heads at. You see him at the restaurant, sometimes at the doctor’s office, and always at the DMV. And today, my fellow humans saw him at the airport in Doha. 

“What’s the deal with that guy?”

And then, suddenly, I had a moment of clarity and calm amid my temper tantrum. 

It didn’t come from bullshit, fake optimism like “making lemonade from lemons” or “smiling on the outside so my inside will believe it.” I couldn’t possibly have conjured any of that. 

But somehow, I stumbled on a moment of mindful awareness of my presence in that time and space and gratefulness for being. I’m in freakin Doha, Qatar. That’s kinda cool.

Yup, the old me also thinks that sounds nuts. Was I chemically altered?

An actual calm came over me as I paced in the corner behind the gate seating. I saw the light bulb. I took a seat.

I’d be lying if I said that now all was well, but at least I could sit and breathe.

But this was a brief respite. The pressure was about to build again.

Through the haze, I heard the agent mutter something about a seat reassignment. 

He quickly confiscated my boarding pass and handed me a new one. At first, the obscene markings on the new boarding pass didn’t even register, but then I focused my eyes and understood — seat 37E.

The fog lifted, and I became razor-focused on my surroundings.

WHAT??!!! 37E??!!!

I didn’t know exactly where 37E was, but I knew it was a) near the back of the plane and b) in the freakin middle seat of the middle aisle.

And the wheels fell off.

I don’t know who grabbed control. Obviously, it was some version of me, but I never want to meet that guy again. Do we all have this ugly infant inside of us?

I had a full-on out-of-body experience because one appalled part of my brain. I remember thinking, “Oh my God, stop!” I couldn’t, though. 

At one point, the agent asked me to please step aside so that the manager on duty could help me without holding up the process. 

I simply refused, like a child.

“I’m staying right here, blocking this line, until this is fixed!”

I was yelling and waving my arms. I wouldn’t be surprised if I stomped my foot at some point. At one point, I left the gate agent, stewed on it some more, and returned to pick up the fight. But in the end, I got no satisfaction. 

I was flying home in seat 37E.

We land in Doha at 4:30 am local time, but the airport looks like 9 pm on a Saturday night in Times Square. 

People and overly brilliant lights everywhere. No escape. 

I’m as introverted as they come. I enjoy less people so much more than more people. And when I’m agitated, I prefer even less people. At this point, I haven’t slept for over 24 hours. 

The InstantPot in me is now building pressure.

Luckily we have a savior in the form of my boss. He has a pass to the Qatar Airlines lounge and is happy to bring us. All we have to do is cut through the haze of brain fog and exhaustion, wade through the crowd, and find the lounge. 

We stumble upon the lounge. Yet another line, but upon entry, we sit down with some sparkling water and snacks to kill the next couple of hours.

Snacks and sparkling water. WTF is wrong with you? Quit your bitching. You live like a king.

An hour before boarding, in full zombie mode, I waded through the masses and found my way to the gate. 

After a quick and easy gate-entry security check, I hand my boarding pass to the gate agent for what I assumed was simply verification of my identity and acknowledgment that the passenger in seat 23D was at the gate.

That’s when the lid blew off the InstantPot. 

The journey started rough in Armenia.

Flights from Yerevan to Doha leave at 3 am local time. My colleagues and I worked all day, relaxed for a few hours in the evening, and then made our way to the airport. 

No sleep. 

We arrived in a brain fog at the airport to crowds, slow lines, and odd rules. At one point, an Armenian TSA officer confiscated my friend’s laptop. Not mine, though. What was the difference? After some difficult conversation, they hand it back, and we’re on our way to the gate. 

What just happened there? We still don’t know. 

Window seat on a 737. Tight, but maybe I’ll be able to lean against it and doze a bit for the three-hour flight. 

A young couple takes their seats next to me, and the friendly man sits in the middle, likely to shield his partner from the grumpy old man in the window seat. We exchange some pleasant conversation while the remaining passengers board.

I’m already glassy-eyed. I don’t blame the guy for shielding his partner.

Wheels up, and somehow, inexplicably, my formerly talkative neighbor falls sound asleep. Snoring. How does one fall sound asleep in coach? In the middle seat? 

It helps if you take over half of your neighbor’s seat.

So the next three hours were an exercise in physical and mental tension. I’m straining to keep myself out of his way, yet I’m smashed against the fuselage.

It’s uncomfortably warm, I’m exhausted, I have no place for my feet, I’m trying not to touch the guy next to me, my back hurts, and I’m hungry.

I’m starting to feel like an InstantPot full of rice, and someone just locked my lid and pushed the “go” button.

Even at 50, I couldn’t stop stamping my feet, waving my arms, and generally making an ass out of myself.

I squirm just thinking about it.

The occasion was a flight home from Armenia. My itinerary called for three hours from Armenia to Qatar, a 3-hour layover in Doha, and then 14 straight hours to Philly.

All in coach.

Although I’d never done this particular trip, I have flown many similar trips that were 13-16 hours on one leg of the journey. I’ve been to China nine times.

Always in coach.

If you’ve ever spent 14 hours in coach, you know that your personal seating arrangement on that long flight can make all of the difference between tolerable and miserable.

You have your preference — window, aisle, or middle. The correct one for you makes all the difference. And an empty seat next to you? That’s the emotional equivalent of hitting the $300M lottery.

I’m twitchy, and I prefer the perceived freedom of the aisle. Just the fact that I can get up whenever or flop my leg into the aisle, if even for just a few seconds, satisfies my twitchy mind like a calming balm.

When booking this particular trip, I chose the best under-the-circumstances seat for the leg from Doha to Philly — seat 23D on the inside aisle.

As perfect as can be expected for 14 hours in coach.

I don’t believe in “no regrets.”

I think it’s a bullshit mantra of the narcissistic hustle culture. Rock star-wannabe entrepreneurs, tech bros, influencers, and “sell me this pen” dickheads. Justification for living an outlandish life.

Because if you have no regrets, that means a) you’ve never tried something that didn’t work, b) you’ve never lost control of your emotions, or c) you’re a self-centered bastard. 

I certainly have some, and they generally fall into two categories: regrets of omission and roads not taken (the what-ifs) or regrets of things I have said or done.

This next phase of storytelling will focus on regrets. Not so much the what-if regrets. What’s the point of that? Any road not taken materially deviates from the road I did take, and I focus daily on gratitude for where I am and who I am with. 

But I sure have done some stuff I regret. 

The thing about regrets, though, is that each one is a lesson. A lesson in how to improve. A lesson in self-control. A lesson in being human. 

I now had an opportunity, but it would require going out of character.

I would have to open my mouth and talk to the stranger next to me.

But here’s another thing about me — I hate waiting. And this guy, who walked in at the same moment I did, didn’t wait at all. I summoned the courage. 

“How did you know that blue shirt was the right guy and get waited on so quickly?”

“I didn’t. But look around. What do you see?”

I just blinked. I had nothing.  

“Every single person in this store has their face buried in their device. Even the people talking to a blue shirt. They’re all the same. Nameless and faceless.”

All you gotta do to get waited on is stand out just a little. So I walk in with my head up, immediately make eye contact, and smile at the first blue shirt I see inside the door. Without breaking eye contact, I walk right around the cloud of people milling about. If they aren’t the right person, they tell me who to see, and then I repeat that process.”

I asked, “But don’t you feel bad about skipping the line?”

“What line?

The Apple Store doesn’t have a line. On purpose. Those people are just standing there because they don’t know what to do. They don’t know how to stand out. So they fade into the background.”

Huh.

Sometimes it pays to keep your head up and your mind open.

I’ve spent most of my life trying to not stand out. 

Fit in. Fade into the back. Stay comfortable. Don’t speak up. Wait my turn.

Maximize my sameness.

“I was just overwhelmed by how invisible he was. Just his shear mediocrity was hard to deny. It was so attractive.”

That makes sense, right?

Which brings me to the Apple Store, or as like I call it — The Introvert’s Torture Chamber. No customer service desk. No discernable line. No signs. Just a sea of co-mingled blue-shirted workers and customers running around doing extroverted things. 

Torture for anyone looking to maximize their sameness.

Once, however, I found an unlikley guide that has forever changed my Apple Store experience and taught me a life lesson in how and when to stand out. 

Needing to replace my laptop keyboard, I approached the door at the Philly Apple Store simultaneously with another guy. I held it for him, followed him in, and walked into the nightmare. 

Inside the door, a haphazard cloud of 10 or 12 customers milled about in front of a group of three blue-shirts. 

What’s my next move? I guess I’ll just stand here. 

But I watched with amazement as this guy I held the door for found the correct blue-shirt guy, checked in, and walked directly over to a table to wait for help within 60 seconds. Ten minutes later, after waiting my turn, I found myself standing next to him at our appointed table.

Here was my chance. 

Sometimes you just need a push. 

The other time I was compelled to overcome my fear of heights was in front of a bunch of teenagers. Luckily, I got a push.

We spend the Sunday of workcamp week on team-building exercises. If you’ve ever been to summer camp or a corporate retreat, you’re probably familiar with many of these activities — low-ropes stuff such as alligator crossing and the spider web. 

But sometimes, we did high-ropes courses. 

High-ropes courses are teamwork plus personal battles. And for me, or anyone with a fear of heights, a big-time personal battle. Fun for all on the two-line cable crossings, unstable bridges, and the suspended cargo net. If you freeze up, or can’t participate, everyone knows your shame. 

At this particular course, you end your time in the tree tops with a zipline trip down the hill. Fun!

I traverse the course with sweaty palms and weak knees, determined not to let these bouncy and bubbly teens see me struggling. I don’t look down. I never look down.

I make it to the zipline platform. Phew, I’ve done it. They won’t know. 

I hook in with some help from a worker and freeze. Like on the 10 meter platform, I can’t make myself jump off. I have no idea why my brain let me make it through the rest of the course but froze up here at the end. Maybe it’s because there’s nothing under me. Maybe I don’t trust that itty-bitty cable. Regardless, I can’t do it.

So I come up with a solution. I turn my head to the zipline-hooker-upper guy behind me and say, “Push me,” fully expecting to have to explain my novel idea.

I start to formulate my explanation, but to my surprise, he just smiles and says, “Sure thing.” This was not his first rodeo. 

And he pushes me. 

A thousand feet of exhilaration later, with my feet firmly planted on the ground, I feel the butterflies, but this time of joy.  

If you can’t do it yourself, get some help.

Twice in my life, I “overcame” a fear of heights with help from others. And by help, I mean physical help. A push, to be exact.

During a summer semester at Penn State, my friends and I liked to go to the pool on campus. The pool had a diving area complete with a 10-meter platform.

“Sure, let’s do it!”

Four of us climbed the ladder and waited at the platform’s back end. I watched two friends saunter out to the edge, peer down and jump off, piercing the water feet first.

My turn. I walked out just like my buddies, looked down, and froze. Over 30 feet in the air, plus the depth of the pool. It may as well have been a thousand feet.

I stood there for what seemed like and hour and could not will myself to jump, no matter how hard I tried. My lizard brain was locked up. Now my buddy behind me sees what’s happened and starts hazing me. So do my friends below. They’re on me hard.

I can’t do it, so I turn around and walk back to climb down the ladder, fully prepared for the relentless hazing that would fill the remainder of the day. It’s gonna suck, but it’s the only way.

But my friend behind me is having none of this. He blocks my way to the ladder, turns me around, and gives me shove.

Somehow that worked. With the momentum from the shove, I started running, stared straight ahead, and just ran off the end. Next thing I know, I’m swimming to the edge of the pool.

Yes, it was 100% peer pressure, but without that shove, I’d never be able to say I did it, and I’m glad I did. How many thousands of people have jumped off that platform and not died? All of them.

The Ben Franklin Bridge became my Mt. Everest. 

I spent three years running around center city Philly at lunchtime. Starting at the gym at 15th and Arch, I could explore the Rocky movie sites, historic district, Penn’s landing, University City, the sports complex (watched the Eagles a bit during training camp), boathouse row, and even had a few scary moments. It was awesome.

But there was no hill. If you’re training for an event, and I often was, you need some hill work.

I found the solution while running along Penn’s Landing at the Delaware river — the bridge! The Ben Franklin Bridge is a mile-long, majestic, arching hill over the river. Perfect. 

So on my next run, I set out for the bridge, feeling a bit smug with my brilliant idea. 

Approaching as a pedestrian is tricky because it hosts seven Vine St Expressway (I676) lanes, commuter rail from Jersey to the city, and the pedestrian walkway. There’s a lot going on, but you can find the walkway entrance on the south side, just past Franklin Square and behind the National Constitution Center. 

The pedestrian walkway sits about 20 feet over the rail, above, and outside the roadway. When on it, you can’t see the road or rails unless you lean over the railing. As I crossed the first time, I approached the crest of the hill and mindlessly peeked over the way-too-short outside railing. 

High (135 ft) — check . 

See straight down — check. 

Mistrust the safety equipment — check. 

Instantly my knees turned to jelly, and my brain locked up. I froze, put my arms out like I was walking a tightrope, tip-toed my way to the inside girder, and hugged a light pole like a long-lost relative. 

What the hell was that? But I couldn’t help it. 

I can only imagine what this looked like to the others on the walkway. Not surprisingly, a few passers-by gave me plenty space on the way by. 

Now what?

I composed myself, turned back toward the entrance, and shuffled the almost half-mile back off the bridge with my hand on the inside girder. Head straight. Eyes forward. Hug the railing.

I was flustered and more than a little embarrassed but also determined. I wasn’t going to let it beat me.

So over the next weeks and months, I kept trying it. Eventually, I made it over. It wasn’t pretty — head straight, eyes forward, hug the inside railing. But I did it.

Over time and repetition, I got to the point where I could run along the outside and even take some quick peeks over the side. My knees still weakened, but the more I did it, the more I could control my mind. More than once, I did hill repeats. 

The fear hasn’t left me, but I’ve learned how to cope and operate in the face of it. Here’s some proof of progress. 

Lighthouses — cool structures, romanticized nostalgia, and a wealth of symbolism.  

Some of my earliest and fondest memories from childhood are of the Hatteras lighthouse on the outer banks of North Carolina. 

And over the years, I’ve climbed many in different parts of the country with little issue, so I had no idea that the one on Tybee Island, Georgia, would turn me into a whimpering toddler.

I’m lucky in that I don’t have a universal fear of all heights. I don’t actually have clinical acrophobia, but I’m easily reduced to a bowl full of jelly when just a few ingredients exist. 

• High enough that I risk injury. So probably over 15 feet.
• I gotta be able to see straight down.
• I don’t trust the safety equipment (railing, wall, cable, etc).

If you combine those things, my knees weaken, and my mind locks up. The lizard brain takes over.

Which brings us to the top of the Tybee Island lighthouse. As I emerge from the lantern room onto the catwalk, all three ingredients combine to rip any vestige of self-control away from me. 

It’s a lighthouse, so of course, I knew it was high, and I’d be able to see straight down. I’ve done it many times. But I had no idea the catwalk railing would come up only to the middle of my thighs! Usually, the catwalk railing is at least chest high and often reaches over my head. 

I’ve lost all trust in the safety equipment. 

Who’s that minuscule railing gonna save? Uh, nobody over 3 feet in height. What if you get startled, someone bumps into you, or you lean over just a bit too much while waving to the smart people below? Surely the remains of people waving to their much smarter family and friends litter the ground around the bottom of this lighthouse.

My lizard brain was having none of it. It locks up, and now I physically can’t move. I literally can’t move. 

Not only can’t I move, but now I find myself hugging the lantern room from the outside. Not hugging in the sense of “staying close to.” No. Hugging, hugging. Like it’s a giant teddy bear — arms outstretched, belly and cheek stuck to it. 

And I’m not the only one on this catwalk. Heck no. I got at least ten other people around to witness this public display of terror. Lucky me. 

At first, the others are mildly curious, like maybe I’m playing some kind of game. If only. But after a few minutes, they all know. My shame is public. How could it not be? I’m hugging the giant lighthouse 140 feet off the ground, and I can’t move. 

Well, here’s how it ends. After my friends and family take a few pictures of me for nostalgia purposes, my wife saves my ass. She tenderly takes my hand, looks me in the eyes, and says, “OK, don’t look anywhere else but at me. I’ve got you.”

And she leads me around the catwalk to the lantern room door and into safety. Finally, I can move again on my own. 

November 18, 2011 at the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall about an hour north of Beijing.

How was I supposed to know that to stand on that wall required a windy traverse over what certainly was a bottomless chasm on an old rusty ski lift? 

That part was not in the brochure.

But there I was with my coworker and friend George, somehow standing on the platform of that ski lift, waiting for the 1970s-era 2-seat, open-air death trap to come around the giant cog and grab my ass.  

I almost didn’t do it. Truly. I was sweating, shaking, and probably white as a ghost because I knew what would come after dropping the bar over my head. 

But I sat my butt in that chair, and now I was trapped.

We took off, rose over the initial crest, and the ground dropped away. I froze. Not from the early winter chill in the air but from terror. The wind picked up. All I could see was that rusty cable stretching as we bounced along 8 billion feet above the earth. 

How much more could it withstand?

I knew with all of my being that the cable on the lift was about to snap. I believed it with all of my heart. The only thing that kept me from outright weeping was my pride in front of George.

He, though, was apparently unphased — turning around, taking pictures, leaning over the bar, and making that itty-bitty seat bounce even more. So I closed my eyes, sat ramrod still, and let George do all the talking. Thank God he was talking. I couldn’t have choked out anything comprehensive above a grunt. 

Miraculously, somewhere between 5 minutes and 3 hours later, I found myself standing on that wall. What a payoff that was. 

And I would do it again in a heartbeat, even knowing the terror that I’d hoist upon myself again. The Great Wall is truly one of the great wonders on this planet. I’ve seen the pictures, you’ve seen the pictures, but the only way to appreciate its majesty is to stand on it with your own two feet.

If I’d succumbed to the fear, like I almost did right before the chair lift swung around that giant cog, I’d be kicking myself forever. 

Many of us have them. 

Irrational fears — spiders, snakes, needles, public speaking, the dentist, whatever. Various estimates put the number of people in the US with phobias from 20% to 25%. 

Mine is heights, and I share acrophobia with about 5% of the population. That means 95% of you are crazy and should think about therapy. 

Because our phobia is better than yours. Better in the sense that it’s real. Real in the sense that we will die if we fall from something high. It’s not some made-up fear like nomophobia or xanthophobia. 

I feel good and validated about my acrophobia. But still, even though I’m afraid of something real, unlike y’all with ablutophobia, I recognize that I must not let it get the best of me. Life demands it. 

So I test myself. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally. I always pass with flying colors (if flying colors means freezing, running the other way, crying, or acting like a toddler). 

What follows over the next few days are stories about those tests. 

Oh, and if globophobia or optophobia has got you stuck in your house in the dark, you should dig in here. The nuggets of wisdom will be coming fast and furious.

If my ridiculous fails and antics can’t at least help someone feel less alone, then what am I doing here?

I’m alone in the dungeon, but I make it to the locker room door.

Shit! It’s closed and locked. My key’s down by the pool. This door is always locked. We’re in center city. Stuff happens.

Just as I’m about to wheel around and head back to the pool because now I’m committed to the locker room, the door opens and hits me. A guy runs out and says, “Get out, man!” And he’s off.

I grab the door before it closes. At my locker, I pause and look around for just a second or two. It’s empty, of course, but at no point have I smelled or seen smoke. That’s still true. The fire, if there is one, may prevent me from escaping, but here in this locker room, my life is not in immediate danger.

I can’t escape the vision of myself out on the busy city street in my jammers in ball-scratching cold weather. What would I look like? What would people think?

So I get dressed. Then I grab my bag and take off, not knowing if an escape route even exists anymore. If not, at least I’ll die with my clothes on.

Up the stairs, around the corner, through the big double doors, and out onto the sidewalk. With my clothes on.

Thank God. I mill about with the rest of the crowd and learn that this wasn’t a drill, but neither is the building on fire. A false alarm.

I chose well.

As far as I know, this is not a drill. The building is on fire. This is real.

The fire alarms blink and sound their klaxons. Is that smoke? I might be the last one left in the building. The “Fire!” guy is long gone. I don’t see anybody else.

I can, and probably should guarantee my safety by immediately evacuating. That means running up the two flights of stairs and outside onto the busy city sidewalk. I’m soaking wet, wearing only my jammers and a towel, and it’s 15 degrees.

And then what? The building is on fire. My clothes will be toast. Or, if not toast, who knows when I could get back in.

And then what again? What am I gonna do soaking wet without clothes? Walk the four blocks across center city in 15-degree weather? Walk into my office? Dude, I’m essentially naked.

Is this guaranteeing my safety?

Another possibility flashes into my mind. I can chance it. Take a quick duck into the maze of a locker room, which is just one floor up from the dungeon, and on my way out. At the very least, I can grab my stuff.

I decide to chance it. Really I had no choice.

Vanity versus death.

For a couple years, I worked in center city Philly — 18th and JFK. At lunchtime, I’d make my way past Love park to the gym at 15th and Arch. It’s an ancient YMCA building with a pool in the basement. 

Lap swimming is a form of sensory deprivation. Not in the total absence of senses, but in the inability to hear anything beyond the sloshing of your arms through the water and the inability to see anything past the radius of those arms, except some hazy, amoebic glow. 

Consequently, you find yourself retreating internally, oblivious to what’s happening around you. There’s really no other way. 

On this mid-winter day, deep in the throws of this sensory deprivation, I became vaguely aware of a flashing light. I stopped to pick my head up and look around. There it was — the flashing light came from the fire alarm on the wall. 

For how long? Impossible to know, but I wasn’t nervous. Because I, like you, have participated in hundreds of fire drills throughout my 50+ years. So I drug my annoyed self onto the pool deck, fully expecting to hide in the locker room until we got the all-clear. 

But something happened on my way to the locker room. A guy ran past me, yelling, “Fire! Get out, now!”

Uh oh.

There I stand, dripping wet in nothing but jammers and my towel. It’s 15-degrees outside. The building is on fire. I’m in the basement.

The250 is a project about stories. 

Specifically, how personal history colors the lens through which we remember and interpret those stories. Because ultimately, we see and understand the world around us through our collection of stories. They leave an indelible mark on what we believe to be good and true, whose side we’re on, and how we see our own role in this world. 

“People don’t believe what you tell them.
They rarely believe what you show them.
They often believe what their friends tell them.
They always believe what they tell themselves.”

Seth Godin

And we’re squarely focused on exploring that last line: what we tell ourselves. 

Our stories are about the memory of emotions, sometimes to the detriment of the memory of facts. We often twist, embellish, or create “facts” to match the memory of those emotions, which is why the passage of time is the enemy of an eyewitness in the judicial system. 

But we’re really good at remembering the emotions attached to a moment and our personal context in that moment. What was happening in our life at that time? Who was there? How did we think of ourselves? What change did that moment bring about? 

As our journey continues, we add more context, personal history, and outcomes. With a proper mindset, we can and should reinterpret and even change our stories. 

We always believe what we tell ourselves. This here is the uncovering of the stories I tell myself. 

I totally believe that authorities can coerce false confessions, and I’m thankful for those who work on behalf of the victims. I believe it because it almost happened to me right here.

I almost confessed. I really did. But to what? I hadn’t done anything other than keep my mouth shut, but I just wanted it all to stop. Right now. I would’ve said just about anything.

But I stuck to the truth, probably because I just didn’t know what else to say. The next time I got coherent words out, it was something whiny like, “I didn’t. I really didn’t. But I knew some people were.”

“OK, who was it?”

Wait, was this a glimmer of hope? Throw somebody else under the bus, and maybe you’ll be free!

So, I did. I gave them Derek, and then I couldn’t stop the gusher. It was like an out-of-body experience. But I guess it worked. If that’s what you want to call it. I walked out of there with nothing but a deep wound on my soul.

And that’s when I knew they were just fishing, and I was a live one. Maybe somebody had given them my name (like I had Derek’s), or maybe they just pulled me in because of my friendship with Derek (who they already nabbed). They were just soaking me for information and using fear as the mechanism.

I get it. I understand why authorities do it. It works.

But I also understand how this authoritative intimidation can lead to false confessions. It left a deep impression on me. Every time I see something about questionable confessions, I wonder.

Now standing in the security office in front of several stern-faced adults, I was shaking. I’m sure my face read like a book because I knew what this was about — it was about the system.

And this was the reckoning.

Even though I knew about and had seen the system in action first-hand, I was too afraid and prudish to have tried it myself. I hadn’t stolen a single dollar. Even if I had thought about trying it, fear and guilt kept me on the sidelines.

I hadn’t done anything wrong other than not squealing (yet), but here I was.

Mirrored sunglasses, staring directly at me since I walked into this chasm of hell, cuts right to the chase, “We know you’ve been stealing from the cash register. Now’s the time to come clean. If you do, we’ll go easy.”

Somehow, I choke out a feeble, “Um, no, I haven’t…”

“Bullshit! We’re way past that. We know you have.”

At this point, the dude-perm starts waving his finger at me, “Every dollar you put in your pocket comes right out of my pocket!”

This, coming from the guy who’s currently wearing 80’s style athletic short shorts that not only didn’t have a pocket but weren’t exactly concealing much else.

I just blinked and stammered. I wasn’t being smart, or coy, or playing any sort of game. I couldn’t even think. Had I peed myself?

People are clever and clever people who think they can’t get caught get careless.

I made a couple of friends working at the burger and fry shack that summer. One of them was Derek. He was cool. A year older and already driving; longer hair; metalhead like me. I had no idea, of course, that this friendship would eventually land me in the security office shaking like a leaf.

A week or so before my call down to the office, Derek let me in on a little secret, although, as it turns out, it wasn’t really a secret. He was lifting money from the cash registers, and “it was a foolproof system.”

Not only was he doing it, but several people were. Someone else had shown him. And now he was going to show me.

We sold three things at our stand: burger (with or without cheese), fries, and soda. Each priced a nice round number like $1.00 or $3.00, plus we had a “meal deal” where you got all three for $5.00.

Most customers ordered either a single item or the meal. Almost no change and easy math.

“Gimme a fry. Here’s $2.” Or, “Gimme two meals with cheese. Here’s a $10.”

And since they’re not getting any change, they grab their grub, wheel around, and off they go. They’re not looking at you or their money. As the cashier, just peek behind you to ensure no manager is watching and hit the “no sale” button. The cash drawer pops out, but with some kindergarten sleight of hand, that $5 or $10 misses the drawer and lands in your front pocket, and the cash register and daily reconciliation are none-the-wiser.

The system was foolproof.

But here’s the thing about clever people, they really like to show others how clever they are. What good is it if you can’t take credit?

More people. Less foolproof.

Ever wonder why prices at fast food and other volume-based retail establishments are $2.95, $1.10, and $5.15, rather than $3.00, $1.00, and $5.00? Wouldn’t it just make sense to use round numbers to make it easy on both the customer and the cashier?

Teenagers. That’s why.

Near the end of my summer working as the fry guy at Dorney Park’s Wildwater Kingdom, the shift manager summoned me, “Get your ass to the security office.”

So I did. I had no idea why, but this wasn’t an altogether foreboding request. We got summoned to the security office for a variety of non-scary and non-security reasons — phone call from home, forgetting to sign your time card, a question about a lost and found item, etc. I had been there a handful of times myself. No big deal.

So I sure didn’t expect what was waiting for me inside that office.

I walked through the door and into a group of stern-faced adults that included the head of security (in CHiPS-style uniform complete with mirrored aviators), another security officer (also in uniform, but without the shades), the operations manager for all food services, and the big guy himself — the bodybuilding, 80’s athletic short shorts and string tanktop wearing, dude-permed owner of the park.

My heart sank, my anxiety shot to the moon, and I thought to myself, “Uh oh, I think I know what this is about.”

For just a second, I didn’t move. Nobody did. 

A silence dropped over the entire room for what seemed like an hour. I had no idea what had happened, but now I could smell burnt hair. 

I looked down at the hair on my arms — most of it gone, and what was left was curled up like Christmas ribbon. A coworker looked at me and said, “Dude, your eyebrows.”

My eyebrows were gone, and so too were my eyelashes. My bangs looked like the few remaining follicles on my arms. 

And that smell.

If you’ve ever worked a pilot light before, you know what happened. I pushed and held the gas valve knob, which momentarily shut off the gas flow to the pilot light and choked out the flame. But I failed to twist it so that it stayed off. So as I worked to clean the fry hopper, the pilot light gas trickled (luckily, only trickled) out and built up inside the cavity, just waiting for some dumbass kid like me to come along and present the flame. 

My father-in-law had a great saying, “It don’t pay to be dumb unless you show it.”

I got my money’s worth that day. 

The good news is that now, over 35 years later, I’m extra diligent around gas-fired appliances. Fool me once…And I’ll never forget that smell.

Oh, and this was 1985. Of course, I stayed and worked the rest of my shift.

Now get off my f*#!kin lawn.

In the summer of 1985, I was 15 and worked the inaugural season of Dorney Park’s Wildwater Kingdom. I learned a lot of life lessons in those short couple of months. 

I worked in the burger and fry joint stationed at the end of the wave pool. Get out of the wave pool, and exchange your soggy dollar bills for a refreshing drink, burger, and fries. Yeah, we got ketchup. 

I was the fry guy.

Actually, we all rotated through the various jobs, the fryer was one, but we also made burgers in a conveyer belt oven, slung drinks from the fountain, and took our turn at the window interacting with the public. 

But my favorite job was making fries — I didn’t have to interact with the wet and impatient public; it was a one-man job; and most importantly, I could nic a few fries here and there throughout my shift. 

Today was cleaning day. As the “fry guy,” my job was the fryer. My directions:

1. Turn off the pilot light
2. Drain the cool oil
3. Clean the hopper
4. Fill it with new oil
5. Relight the pilot light

I went at it with fervor. Steps 1 – 4 were complete; now time to fire it all back up.

I reached for the pilot light with the match, and “Phwooooof!”

I can still remember the smell of the first computer I saw and touched. It was a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I. I was in fourth grade, and this was the library in Lower Milford Elementary school.

What is that smell? It’s caused by the out-gassing of blah, blah, blah…

It doesn’t matter what it is. Every time I smell it, it takes me back. Directly to that library in 4th grade. The engagement of nostalgia through my olfactory sense. Once I’m there, I can hear the keys’ click and feel their resistance under my fingers.

The first moment that set me on what was to be my professional path for over 30 years.

I remember the smell of the movie theater seats where my dad took me to see Star Wars in 1977 and the smell of the inside of a brand-new Dodge Omni. I remember the smell of the blanket we wrapped our oldest son in to bring him home from the hospital.

And I also remember the smell of the insides of many houses that I worked in doing mission work. I’m not sure what the ingredients are, but it’s the unmistakable smell of poverty. 

Every time I get a whiff of any of these out in the world, I’m immediately transported back to that moment. The story, or stories that surround those moments, make me who I am. 

What are the smells from your past that form the story of who you are?