Better Today Than Yesterday

A backwards way of getting things done. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kellyvohs.substack.com

On the patio this morning. First time this spring I could start my morning outside. I sense something to my left. Last time it was a bear. A turkey comes over the hill. It's cold. But good. So's the coffee. Just me and her. She flips over some leaves with her feet. I've been heads down in a few projects the last couple of weeks. It's been a lot of fun, learning, and mornings with no alarm clocks....

The Price of a Thing Things are expensive. Some things are cheap. Most of us know what we’re paying in dollars. We’re less honest about what we’re paying in life. I’ve paid a lot for what I am now. The good and the bad. The jobs, the travel, the adventure, and now the wonderful life that is today. Some of it worth it. Some of it not. We’ll spend our very selves to get things we think we need. Then...

She has smile lines. The library has books. It’s not really a library as I think of it. Low shelves with windows at waist height. Orchid plants without the orchids. All gifts for someone who lives here. But they call it a library, so will I. That’s where we sat for our visit. I’ve been spending a lot of time with my grandmother. Yes, at my age I have one left. One of the boys and I were with her o...

Valet took the car. We walked in and it was dark. My eyes adjusted. The front room was smaller than I thought. I should’ve worn a jacket. Then I remembered. Princess Buttercup is behind me. They aren’t looking at me anyway. She’s got the room. She always does. The host took us around the corner. The room opened up, but got darker. A beautiful booth was waiting for us. We were excited. My son had a...

I was sick this week. That doesn’t happen often. When it does, I don’t want much. Just not to be sick anymore. “A healthy person wants a thousand things, an unhealthy person wants one thing.” Seneca I think. Maybe Epicurus. Some wise person with lots of quotes that people use. I’m better now. And I already want more than one thing. Build this. Read that. Run there. Plan that other thing. That all...

“You are more than halfway to 90.” One of the kids said that the other day. For some reason, it doesn’t bother me. Gramma is 93 and still going. I do think about how I use my time. Feels like a fight to do everything that needs doing. Maybe it’s a better calendar system. Maybe it’s the 18th to-do app, integrated with a meeting transcription tool, connected with another that surfaces everything eac...

The air tasted like salt and diesel. The Statue of Liberty was coming up on my left. This was the summer before my freshman year. We were delivering a luxury yacht from South Jersey all the way to Old Port Montreal. I was the deckhand. I’m pretty sure the job was just a favor to my stepfather. But maybe not. Like most things in my life, this wonderful opportunity came through relationships. Lookin...

I heard once: you don’t always need new books. Sometimes, you need the old ones again. So, I’ve been re-reading favorites. In one of those, I found the metaphor of the horse and the rider. The rider is the rational self. The logical part of you. The horse, your emotions. Those emotions are your fuel for action. The energy and power that moves you. Sometimes helpful, sometimes not. Some riders can...

It’s Sunday night. He has his favorite bottle of scotch and is settling into his weekly ritual: reading emails from every employee, each listing their top five priorities — a practice Jensen Huang started in the early days of NVIDIA. For him, this was about getting early signals. It was definitely about control too. From the outside, some might call that micromanagement. Maybe even a bad practice....

“Ego is about who’s right. Truth is about what’s right.” — Tribe of Mentors I was chatting with Princess Buttercup the other night. She’s built an incredible business. It has a real impact on people. Reflecting on something I was dealing with, I said to her, “I wonder if there are only two states when running a business. On the floor in the fetal position or euphoria.” When you’re in the thick of...

“The quality of a person’s life is directly proportional to their commitment to excellence.” — Vince Lombardi I don’t think it’s entirely true. Plenty of people are deeply committed to excellence and still face hardship. Circumstances, ancestry, DNA, luck—those things all matter. But it’s likely mostly true. Life tends to get better, richer (whatever that means to you), and more meaningful in prop...

"Bravery is a subjective virtue measured by how much insecurity, vulnerability, and resistance have been overcome when you’re afraid." -Mark Matousek I keep a journal. One of my favorite things about journaling is looking back on the same day from other years. Some days there are no entries. Today, there were 17. One jumped out. I'm in NYC. Mixed emotions. I'm a little tight. Not sure why. But I j...

"One of the most confounding laws of human nature is that when faced with a task, people will work harder alone than they will when joined in the effort—a phenomenon known as social loafing. There is, however, an antidote. It’s the presence of one person who leaves no doubt that they are giving it everything they’ve got." -Sam Walker, The Captain Class A story stuck with me this week. A colleague...

“Responsibility means recognizing both pleasure and price, action and consequence, then making a choice.” — Dan Millman There’s a word most people don’t want to be associated with. It sounds sharp. Dangerous. Maybe even wrong. But try building anything that matters without it. In 1961, psychologist Arnold Buss described two kinds of aggression. One hostile, driven by anger and meant to hurt. The o...

In order to be right, you must be willing to change your mind. If you’re not willing to change your mind, you’re going to be wrong a lot. -Shane Parrish I’m wrong. About something. Or lots of somethings. We all carry a few strongly held beliefs. But if you never flip them, never walk around to the other side of the table, you risk building on something a less experienced version of you got wrong....

To bear trials with a calm mind robs misfortune of its strength. -Seneca Yesterday I met someone who runs fifty 1:1s a week. I also know someone who does zero. Both are sure their way works. Both are probably right. I used to say leading and managing is complex. Because people are complex. Today, I’m not sure that’s right. I think it’s simple. Just sometimes hard. There is no right answer. There i...

“The problem is that obviously good ideas are not truly innovative, and truly innovative ideas often look like very bad ideas when they’re introduced.” —Ben Horowitz When someone brings you an idea, what’s your first instinct? I’m trying to start with: “What I love about that is…” And when I have a hard negative reaction, I try to pause and ask: “Can you walk me through how you’re thinking about i...

“Abraham Lincoln wasn’t born on Mount Rushmore. He didn’t arrive in the world with his face on the penny. He came as we all do — a bare-gurgling bundle of possibility. Born, as we are, free — within some limits — to make of himself what he would.” - William Lee Miller We ran out of water. We lived on an island. And like many places not connected to the underground magic of modern life — city water...

“Being a trailblazer is difficult. It’s the road less traveled for a reason. It’s filled with doubt, discomfort, detours, and dead ends. Lined with naysayers, puzzled looks, and unsolicited advice from those stuck on the beaten path. And only scattered with subtle signs that you’re on the right path.” — George Raveling It’s still dark out. I’m sitting here thinking about how much of life comes dow...

When I think back to times and places that were difficult, they usually seem not as bad as when I was there. There is a reason for this, and it’s called Fading Affect Bias. But first, a memory. We were deployed in Baghdad and in the midst of it. 18-hour days of grind. I’d beat the sun up and stumble over to the secure room we set up to access highly classified material. The coffee wasn’t great, bu...

Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud? Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud, A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, He passeth from life to his rest in the grave. —William Knox Is ambition bad? Ambition often feels like a negative word: restless, self-focused, a need to prove yourself through achievement or acclaim. And that’s not new. The word ambition comes from the L...

"Beauty is the harvest of presence." —David Whyte What is beauty? It’s the worn middle of your grandfather’s desk. Snow in the spring. A mother on a long flight. A sip of something warm in the morning. Walking through the leaves in the fall. A child laughing. My child smiling, finding their strength. Sitting by the fire with her, the wave of hair falling across her left eye. The green light when y...

"Pain is coming anyway. Don’t get a shield. Get a saddle. Tame it." —Derek Sivers It turns out, I’m scared of emus. Okay, scared is a strong word. My wife would definitely say I’m scared. I’d say, I’m moderately anxious around them. My reasons are valid. My sister has two, and they’re basically velociraptors from Jurassic Park — they hunt in packs. One comes at me from about two o’clock, and the o...

"Stand still. Let the forest find you…What kind of adult do I want to be?" —Jerry Colonna Some people are miserable at work. Others love it. Same job. Same company. Wildly different experiences. One person comes alive while another counts the minutes until they can escape. We tend to blame the person. Or the job. But what if we’re missing something deeper? What if the real difference is alignment?...