I'm Not Going to Reason You Out of a Position You Didn't Reason Yourself Into When to walk away, when to de-escalate, and when to shut your mouth and save your sanity. Alana's Coffee Roasters The other morning at Alana's Coffee, I found myself in a situation I haven't dealt with in years. A situation that reminded me why saner heads need to prevail. Why picking your battles matters. And why some fights aren't worth having—even when you're "right." I was sitting there, working on my computer,...
1 day ago • 8 min read
The Steel Horse You're Not Riding: Why Rest Isn't Weakness Sometimes the most important move is standing still I'm sitting at Alana's—the little café that's become my office—with my noise-canceling earbuds wedged in tight. They're supposed to block out the world. Sometimes they're not noise-canceling enough. But that's a different problem for a different day. Today, I hit shuffle on one of my YouTube playlists—the white noise mixes that help me concentrate while I read, study, write. And then...
2 days ago • 8 min read
Don't Be a Useful Idiot: How Critical Thinking Became the Most Dangerous Skill You're Not Using Being right feels better than being smart. That's why they've got you exactly where they want you. There's a story that keeps showing up in motivational posts and feel-good memes about ancient humans. Femur bone on the human body An archaeologist supposedly found a 15,000-year-old human femur that had been broken and healed. The fracture showed evidence of proper setting, time to mend, and care...
3 days ago • 11 min read
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...
4 days 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...
5 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...
6 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....
7 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,...
8 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...
9 days ago • 11 min read