Better Today Than Yesterday

“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?...

Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past me I will turn to see fear’s path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. —Paul Atreides (Frank Herbert, Dune) I had a friend once. His name was Rob. He wasn’t old enough to drink when I first g...

We do not lack ability. We just lack courage. It all comes down to courage. — Ichiro Kishimi We want to be liked. I know I do. Whether for financial security or just fitting in, we shape our choices in ways we don’t always notice. Little by little, we trade pieces of ourselves for acceptance. We try to say the right things, wear the right clothes, and sometimes signal belonging by what we drive. I...

Your fears are a kind of prison that confines you within a limited range of action. The less you fear, the more power you will have and the more fully you will live. — 50 Cent Some events have me repeating a phrase to myself: You'll regret the uncomfortable conversations you avoid more than the ones you have. I'm thinking about a conversation or two I didn't have, and now it's too late. I rational...

We are anxious to improve our circumstances but are unwilling to improve ourselves. —James Allen Everything worthwhile takes time, discipline, and a willingness to face hard truths. And those truths can be uncomfortable. Here are a few you might find helpful. I’ve run into them and tried to act appropriately. Sometimes I do, and sometimes I get them wrong. Uncomfortable Truths and Actions 1. No on...

Insights No. 1 "Pride freezes us in our own image, beliefs, and positions." -Arthur C. Brooks No. 2 “If you can approach the world’s complexities, both its glories and its horrors, with an attitude of humble curiosity, acknowledging that however deeply you have seen, you have only scratched the surface, you will find worlds within worlds, beauties you could imagine, and your own mundane preoccupat...

Insights No. 1 "Expertise coupled with strength of will is going to prevail." -Bill Walsh It doesn't matter how good you are if you can't endure the pain. No. 2 "If you are doing something primarily for money and without real emotional commitment, it will translate into something that lacks soul and has no connection to you. You may not see this, but you can be sure that the public will feel it an...

Insights No. 1 "A strong leader accepts blame and gives the credit. A weak leader gives blame and accepts the credit." -John Wooden If you’re leading, everything is your fault - but it is your responsibility. Accept that and get back to work fixing it. No. 2 “If you lose your voracious curiosity about tactical details, if you lose passionate interest in people and how they are feeling, if you insu...

Insights No. 1 “There’s a lot of alpha in being willing to do “menial” work (take notes, send out agendas, order pizza, manually inspect raw data, whatever). Beware of over-delegation and being too far from the details." - Nabeel S. Qureshi Most people want big things but aren’t willing to do the small things, and “menial” work adds up. No. 2 “The weakest living creature, by concentrating his powe...

BTTY Bites No. 1—“Perhaps it’s impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be.” - Enders Game No. 2—“If we look outside of ourselves for relief from our own predicament, we are sure to come up short." - Mark Epstein No. 3 — Don’t ask for feedback. That gets you a critic. Ask for advice. That will get you an accomplice. A Thought When I was in college, I bought my first comp...

BTTY Bites No. 1 —“In a fear-based, failure-averse culture, people will consciously or unconsciously avoid risk. They will seek to repeat something safe that has been good enough in the past. Their work will be derivative, not innovative. But if you can force a positive understanding of failure, the opposite will happen.” -Ed Catmull This is the best description of why fear as a tactic is unsustai...

BTTY Bites No.1 - “It’s the commotion the mind makes about life that really causes problems.” - Michael Singer No. 2 - “If you can’t decide, the answer is no.” - Naval Ravikant No. 3 - “Process saves us from the poverty of our intentions.” - Elizabeth King Maybe process saves us from the poverty of our actions? A Thought What Do You Call the Space Between Raindrops? A book I was reading the other...

BTTY Bites No.1 - “A common cause of time wasters is largely under the executive's control and can be eliminated by him. That is the time of others he himself wastes.” - Peter Drucker No. 2 - “People are motivated by one of two things: Either avoiding loss or acquiring potential gain.” - Phil Jones No. 3 - Did you know that woodpeckers have tongues? I mean really long tonguges. I took about 1,600...

//TRANSCRIPT// I want to let you in on a little secret about me. Now everybody knows this. I'll tell you in a minute, but first, a story. I signed up to go in the army to become a Green Beret. That in itself was, as you can imagine, a bit of an anxious time, difficult time, right? You have this dream, you want to do this thing. And this is a giant bureaucracy. Just because you want it doesn't mean...

When I was nine, I was sure I’d be homeless. There were reasons for this fear, some real and some imagined. As you can imagine, this colored my thoughts about money, work, and many other priorities. Eventually, it became a mindset for me. Your mindset significantly influences how you view your abilities, make decisions, set priorities, and handle challenges. These deeply held beliefs are difficult...