The Anti-Keystone Habit: What Marcus Aurelius Didn't Tell You About Subtraction Sometimes the fastest way forward is to let go of what's holding you back As Good As It Gets I was watching As Good As It Gets the other night. Haven't seen it since the theaters back in '97. Sitting there almost thirty years later, I had this strange experience—like watching a documentary of my younger self. Jack Nicholson's character, Melvin, obsessively controlling everything through his OCD rituals. Helen...
1 day ago • 8 min read
You Don't Need More Motivation—You Need One Standard You Won't Break And it probably won't feel good at first. I recently saw the exact bike I bought back in 1988 I was a first-year apprentice when I made a promise to myself that sounded reasonable in summer but turned brutal by November. I'd just sold my Fiat Spider—"Fix It Again Tony," as I called it—and bought my first motorcycle. Nothing fancy. Just a reliable Honda Hawk NT650 that got me to the jobsite and back. The deal I made with...
2 days ago • 10 min read
The Specialist-Generalist Trap: Why Dabbling Keeps You Broke If you're decent at everything but great at nothing, the market will treat you exactly like you deserve. Here's what nobody wants to hear: Being "well-rounded" is the participation trophy of the professional world. A participation trophy It sounds good. It feels safe. It makes you seem adaptable. But it doesn't make you valuable. You know what makes you valuable? Solving pain that matters. Not surface-level pain. Not feel-good...
3 days ago • 8 min read
The Toolbelt Test: Why Most Leaders Are Faking Competence When the pressure hits, you'll reach for a system you don't have—and everyone will know. Here's the thing nobody tells you about leadership: It's not about being the smartest person in the room. It's not about having all the answers. It's about having the right tool in the right place when the moment demands it. There's a funny story about Henry Ford being taken to court because of his "ignorance" and only 8 years of formal schooling....
4 days ago • 15 min read
Get More Done with Less Effort: The Power of Cognitive Bandwidth and Personal Knowledge Management Like many people, I struggled for years on how to get more done with less effort, not let things fall through the cracks and to create space not just for work I was pursuing but also for the life I wanted to live joyfully. There always seemed to be another book to read. Another app to try. Another system that would make this all work. But what I discovered, after trying so many different tools,...
5 days ago • 12 min read
Questions Are the Answers: Why Great Leaders Ask, Not Tell When I first began to run work on construction jobs, I was the typical new naive boss with too many ideals and not enough experience or wisdom. I would struggle to get my guys to understand what I was communicating to them and to get the job done as I had envisioned. This of course led to a lot of challenges at work. When things weren't done to my "expectations," I would take it as a personal affront and chastise my guys, which didn't...
6 days ago • 11 min read
The Single Biggest Difference Between a Leader and a Loser: Confidence vs. Arrogance When I was an apprentice, my buddy would always talk about a classmate of his in the night classes, Bradley, but everyone called him "Bragley" because no matter what story someone would share in class, he had to one-up it and start his story with, "that ain't nothing... I did..." and then ramble some BS story of how he did more, suffered more, and overcame more. Soon after "journeying-out" and as a brand new...
7 days ago • 13 min read
Hard Times Create Hard Men: Why We're Doomed to Repeat History "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana I often reference Marcus Aurelius in my newsletter because while he was not the first of my many historical mentors and teachers, he is one of the highest. The Richest People in History - Visual Capitalist As the ruler and emperor of Rome from 161-180 AD, he was not only one of, if not the, most powerful men on the planet, but his power was...
8 days ago • 12 min read
You Don't Need to Learn More, You Need to Apply More Over the years, I've come across so many martial artists. From those who did it years ago as a kid but never continued their training into adulthood all the way to the badass warriors who made martial arts training integral to their lives, training for years and decades on end. The most interesting group falls somewhere in the middle. The 4 Stages of Competence They dabble a little here and dabble a little there, never staying anywhere long...
8 days ago • 13 min read