Better Today Than Yesterday

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...

Work that helps you follow through on promises to customers creates value — everything else wastes resources. As organizations become bigger, their gravity gets stronger. Their size, bureaucracy, and politics distract you from the work that matters. Spend too much time in this gravity vortex, and one day, you'll find yourself irrelevant. Ben Horowitz said, "Somewhere there is a guy in a garage who...

In my recent emails and messages, I noticed myself starting sentences with 'I know that...' I went back and changed these to 'I believe that...' What I call knowledge is often my perspective based on today's information, my biases, and my blind spots. The older I get, the more I realize how little I know. This week, watch your writing and speaking. Notice when you express absolute certainty. It's...

Title-seeking is dangerous. Work titles began as a way to clarify responsibility. They evolved into frameworks for compensation. Now, in the age of social media, they've increasingly become status symbols. We aren't titles. We play roles. In my last company, we took titles off email signatures. Instead, we put functional responsibility. If I were to take it a step further, I would have had people...

There are two voices in my head fighting for control. The two voices are my lower self and my upper self. The lower version of me is a critical companion as it is responsible for keeping me alive. Its singular focus is my survival. I call this me the “Lone Survivor.” It doesn’t care about anyone else, just me. Lone Survivor This version of me is usually the first to speak up and can be the loudest...

My middle one is coming home from school in a few weeks and we are going to go for a ruck. So, I’m thinking about rucksacks. //Transcript// Hey, I came across a quote this week, and I wanted to share it with you. Let me find it. Here it is. “Because here's another sneaky little truth about life. You can't be an important and life-changing presence for some people without also being a joke and an e...

"What pulls the rope in most workplaces is the elevation and promotion of self (ego), not the elevation of others, purpose, heart, and mind (soul). It's no wonder that people feel so alone in most workplaces today. Interconnectedness gets lost when you have a team or company of people who are making decisions based on their ego's needs: What would be best for their own personal goals, not their co...

No. 1 In the midst of chaos, your mind cannot be chaotic. - General Jim Mattis, “Call Sign Chaos” In chaos or crisis, emotion is unhelpful and clouds judgment. Think about a 911 operator answering a frantic call. The operator is ALWAYS cool and collected while the caller panics. The operator tries to understand the situation (facts) and deploy appropriate resources. Part of their job is to calm th...

No. 1 The will to victory may be demonstrated in places other than actual battle. A Roman general was leading his legions toward the enemy in a swampy country. He knew that the next day’s battle would be fought on a certain plain because it was the only dry, flat place for miles. He pushed his army all night, marching them through a frightening and formidable swamp, so that they reached the battle...

Here are two quotes from The CEO Test  by Adam Bryant and Kevin Sharer. The book's content is simple, practical, and actionable for most leaders. Quote No. 1 “A helpful acronym for leaders to keep in mind is WAIT, which stands for, "Why Am I Talking?" because anything a leader says can quickly overwhelm a discussion and make people shut down. Asking yourself, “Why am I talking?” helps determine wh...

A dear friend recommended the book Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. It took me a year to read it, which was a waste of a year. This week I scrolled through my highlights and I feel compelled to share a few with you. You don’t have to see where you’re going, you don’t have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is rig...

I’ve been thinking about and talking about this topic a lot recently, and I found myself revisiting this post, so I’m resurfacing it for you today. I originally published this in July 2022. Note: This post is made for listening, but I’ve included the transcript if you’d rather read. TRANSCRIPT [00:00:00] Hey there. I wanted to follow up on my other note about one of two things leaders are responsi...