Better Today Than Yesterday

The last couple weeks have been full of “last times.” The last time you walk into your local grocery store. The last time you walk out of your childhood home. Some of them are emotional and some aren’t, but they’re all connected. You go into those places a thousand times, ten thousand times, and you never think about the last time you’ll walk out. The last time you’ll buy lunch from the woman at t...

I take a little camp chair to a hill near the house some mornings. I call it pond hill. There is a pond. And a hill. Not my best branding but it's stuck now. The pond is full of frogs (or toads?) during the summer. Well, I guess they are there in the winter too. Writing out highlights from books I've read is one of the ways I get my mornings going. Up on that hill, in the city, or wherever. Here’s...

I remember the first time I threw a hand grenade. It was a clay hole in Fort Benning, Georgia. There was a Staff Sergeant standing right next to me, and he walked me through every piece of it: how to hold it, when to throw it, what to say, what to do after. I was nervous. I threw it. He grabbed the back of my vest and yanked me down into that hole. I was glad he was there, helping make sure I didn...

Funny, but not funny, how it's easier to see something good when it's gone. How much of your today is what you wanted yesterday but you're too focused on tomorrow to see it? Take care. Be good.kv 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

You might have a decay problem at work. Life is often described as a stool with four legs. Health, family, work, faith/spirituality. Get one of these wrong and the whole thing tips over. What about at work? Here's three: Leg One: Results This is why we're here. If you run a business, that means making money. What you do with that money is up to you. Reinvest it, give it away, give it back to inves...

My mornings are broken. I'm working on fixing it. Some combination of coffee, reading, writing, exercise, personal hygiene, then work. They started feeling like a bowl of Greek yogurt where I pick out the best blueberries. Negotiated mornings end up with me doing what I want to do. I leave the must-do berries in the bowl. I'm good at that. The routine. The rituals. Or the process. It matters. Mayb...

I used to follow this guy on Instagram. He would fill a bucket with paint and swing it from a rope that was tied to the ceiling. Maybe you’ve seen him. He had pink hair. The bucket swung over giant canvases, usually black, sometimes white. He’d hold the bucket off the edge of the canvas and then let it go. It turns out paint pouring out of a swinging bucket lands in patterns. Symmetric. Beautiful....

"When faced with deficiencies instead of strengths and inclinations, this is the strategy you must assume: ignore your weaknesses and resist the temptation to be more like others." -Robert Greene, Mastery He's writing about Temple Grandin, the Colorado State University professor who was diagnosed with autism as a child and has been a beacon of what is possible. And Greene's advice is this: direct...

I was the product of a warrior culture. And I learned early on to suppress my emotions and respond to danger with great composure. I was never the plaything of greed or fear. -Xenophon Emotions exist for a reason. Use them. Understand them. This is a translation of something written 2,400 years ago. I think Xenophon (ZEN-uh-fon) would use a different word than suppress. But his point is still true...

The only permanent solution to your problems is to go inside and let go of the part of you that seems to have so many problems with reality. Once you do that, you'll be clear enough to deal with what's left. -Michael Singer, The Untethered Soul Some problems aren't that simple. They don't go away when we "go inside." They are still there. Real and painful. That said, I know that some of "my proble...

This is what I did today. This is how I fought to save the entire battle in my sector. These are the obstacles I found. This is how I plan to fight tomorrow. -Niko Kazantzakis I've written this in my notebook dozens of times since I found this a couple weeks ago. It feels so simply clean and fundamental. Some sort of clearing. An inventory. A reminder. What did I do today? How did I save the entir...

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...