Better Today Than Yesterday

He is a dear friend, a long-time mentor, and one of the most remarkable people I know. He left his job as CEO to build a hotel run by folks with special needs. He's pretty special. For decades, he's drilled into me the qualities required to be a good leader. Here they are: * Humility & empathy. * Self-awareness & self-control. I've always agreed. They make sense, but I never dug in. Then, I sat wi...

"The best way for me to spend any given day is to essentially figure out how to make my team a tiny bit better. Because there's really only two kinds of days-ones when your team gets better and ones when your team gets worse. And if you just spend time getting better, then over a prolonged period of time you become essentially unbeatable." -Adam Bryant and Kevin Sharer, The CEO Test Missions hold...

"Workaholics aren’t heroes. They don’t save the day, they just use it up. The real hero is already home because she figured out a faster way to get things done." -Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, Rework Video calls have become a significant part of my life. Probably yours, too. People are quick to admonish them. I’m not in that crowd. They are helpful and add a level of productivity that...

Leadership is disappointing people at a rate they can absorb. Leadership is ultimately about driving change, while management is about creating stability. Stability is important in a work environment, but confronting challenges and realizing new ideas require discomfort. This means that you and your teams must abandon the stable and familiar in favor of an uncertain—but exciting—new direction. -Ex...

"I made up my mind long ago to follow one cardinal rule in all my writing — to be clear. I have given up all thought of writing poetically or symbolically or experimentally, or in any of the other modes that might (if I were good enough) get me a Pulitzer prize. I would write merely clearly and in this way establish a warm relationship between myself and my readers, and the professional critics —...

"In complete solitude, I stop objectifying myself. In the bush, I don’t think of myself on some social hierarchy. I don’t define my value as a comparison with others. The birds and animals don’t judge me. It’s a kind of healing in which I become human again. In complete solitude, we are not a concept of ourselves; we are ourselves." (Boyd Varty, The Lion Tracker's Guide to Life) Hi friend, What wo...

Don’t waste the rest of your time here worrying about other people—unless it affects the common good. It will keep you from doing anything useful. You’ll be too preoccupied with what so-and-so is doing, and why, and what they’re saying, and what they’re thinking, and what they’re up to, and all the other things that throw you off and keep you from focusing on your own mind. Roman Emperor Marcus Au...

"The more urgently you want to speak, the more likely it is that you will say something foolish." -Leo Tolstoy and Peter Sekirin, A Calendar of Wisdom We’re a few months away from one of the boys leaving the house. He’ll go away to school, and he won’t come back. At least not the way it’s been for the last 18 years. He has all of the choices in the world to make - A whole life ahead that likely wo...

“If you keep experiencing the same things, your mind keeps its same patterns. Same inputs, same responses. Your brain, which was once curious and growing, gets fixed into deep habits. Your values and opinions harden and resist change. You really learn only when you’re surprised. If you’re not surprised, then everything fits into your existing thought patterns. So, to get smarter, you need to get s...

"The intensity of our striving for power is inversely proportional to the degree to which we can be educated." -Alfred Adler, Understanding Human Nature Organizational charts are typically represented as pyramids, and for good reason. There is one person who is ultimately responsible, and clarity of decision-making and authority is essential. That said, Organizational charts should be inverted pyr...

You succeed by finding ways to capitalize on who you are, not by trying to fix who you aren’t. -Marcus Buckingham Thomas Jefferson was not a good public speaker, but he knew it. He spent little time trying to compete with the great public speakers of his time. Instead, he wrote —and write he did. We can thank him for the Declaration of Independence. Don’t waste your time trying to ‘fix’ your weakn...

"If we allow more people to solve problems without permission, and if we tolerate (and don’t vilify) their mistakes, then we enable a much larger set of problems to be addressed." - Ed Catmull Recently, a friend said: “At a certain point, you can’t muscle it anymore.” It was one of those comments that made me stop midstride and say, “Why didn’t I think of that.” I love it when that happens, and it...

In the West, we often think of art as a blank canvas, something we add to create the final piece. In the East, artists frequently start with a piece of jade and remove parts until the art is revealed. We each have a self-image formed through our experiences. We often cling to this image, which influences various aspects of our lives—how we dress, behaviors, language, beliefs, friendships, and self...

You’re not as good as you think. You don’t have it all figured out. Stay focused. Do better….This is the characteristic of how great people think. It’s not that they find failure in every success. They just hold themselves to a standard that exceeds what society might consider to be objective success. Because of that, they don’t care much about what other people think; they care whether they meet...

Highlights from Charlie Munger's Commencement Speech at The Harvard School in 1986.If you found that helpful, please copy this link and send it to a friend.https://kellyvohs.substack.com/p/how-to-guarantee-a-life-of-misery Take care, Kelly PS: What Alcohol Does to Your Body, Brain & Health - As mentioned, this. episode by Dr. Andrew Huberman may change how you view alcohol. This is a public episod...

If you found that helpful, please copy this link and send it to a friend. https://kellyvohs.substack.com/p/three-ideas-about-time Take care, Kelly 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

If you found that helpful, copy this link and send it to a friend who might find it helpful too. https://kellyvohs.substack.com/p/taking-the-longview-on-people Take care, Kelly 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

We are just bags of water walking around in our own unrealities. - Epictetus We tell ourselves stories. Some of them are true, but a lot of them are not true. Stories about what we can do, and what we can’t do. And who we are, and who we aren’t. Most importantly, about who we can and cannot be. Be careful with your stories. Many of them are unrealities. When we’ve reached a conclusion we haven’t n...

"The professional prepares mentally to absorb blows and to deliver them. They aim to take what the day gives them. They are prepared to be prudent and prepared to be reckless, to take a beating when they have to, and to go for the throat when they can. They understand that the field alters every day. Their goal is not victory (success will come by itself when it wants to) but to handle themself, t...

The idea that there are “well-rounded” people is a prescription for mediocrity, if not for incompetence. Strong people always have strong weaknesses, too. Where there are peaks, there are valleys. - Peter Drucker Someone asked me about my "leadership focus" in '24, and here is where I've landed: * Respond , Don't React : This has been at the top of my list for the past three years. A smart friend...

(The audio and video are the same, but with a bit more color than what is below. I enjoyed putting this together and hope you enjoy it, too.) “Why is everyone walking around underperforming relatively to their ability? Largely, it’s because people live their lives trying to avoid embarrassment." - Dr. Gio Valiante I’ve been lucky to study under masters. One day, a master of his craft sat me down a...

(The audio and video are the same, but with a bit more color than what is below. I enjoyed putting this together and hope you enjoy it too.) Jeff Bezos, talking about hiring: "Will you admire this person? If you think about the people you’ve admired in your life, they are probably people you’ve been able to learn from or take an example from. For myself, I’ve always tried hard to work only with pe...

Here are a few of the most important lessons I learned this year. But first, something from someone we lost this year: I think it’s a huge mistake not to absorb elementary, worldly wisdom if you’re capable of doing it because it makes you better able to serve others, it makes you better able to serve yourself, and it makes life more fun… —Charlie Munger My 10 Lessons Learned From 2023 * Be Unprodu...

I am sure that neither numbers nor strength brings victory in war, but whichever army goes into battle stronger in soul, their enemies generally cannot withstand them. —Xenophon Wilma Rudolph was born in Saint Bethlehem, Tennessee, on June 23, 1940. At the age of four, she contracted polio, a debilitating disease that left her with a paralyzed left leg. Doctors initially believed she might never w...

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from their point of view...until you climb into their skin and walk around in it.” - Atticus Finch Hi friend, Most people don’t spend as much time thinking about you as you think. They’re too busy worrying about themselves. Sometimes it’s selfish, usually it’s just survival. You and I are no exception, and it often holds us back. We c...