Apart from sharing the Mt. Rushmore of American scientists, all three of them studied in Europe.

Oppenheimer left for Germany, where he studied under Max Born. Rabi shuffled across the continent among the laboratories of Arnold Sommerfeld, Niels Bohr, Wolfgang Pauli, Otto Stern, and Werner Heisenberg. Noyes found his way to Leipzig, where he earned his doctorate under Wilhelm Ostwald.

This seems like a small thing but it holds the seed of a larger reality.

Subscribe now

American universities could acquire the same textbooks, teach the same theories, and spend far more money than many of their European counterparts. Yet America’s greatest scientists still felt the need to leave.

Why?

Michael Polanyi asked this question, arriving at a conclusion we’d be wise to heed today. While American universities were masters of the contents of science, it was the art of science that was lacking.

Turns out, bearing fruit isn’t a matter of head knowledge, it’s a matter of human craft.

Polanyi writes, "Without the opportunity offered to young scientist to serve an apprenticeship in Europe, and without the migration of European scientist to the new countries, research centers overseas could hardly ever have made much headway.”

Scientific inquiry isn’t immune from the true nature of understanding.

True understanding isn’t a matter of knowledge accumulation, it comes from deep apprenticeship to human practitioners. The art of scientific inquiry, indeed of all inquiry, is deeply personal. It requires humans giving their lives to operate within a tradition, then inviting others close enough to watch, imitate, practice, and eventually contribute something new.

A method can describe the steps of inquiry, but it can’t transfer the instincts that make inquiry fruitful.

Hence American scientists continued to travel overseas for apprenticeship to practitioners that couldn’t be found in our own ivory towers.

Textbooks can’t teach someone which question is worth asking, which anomaly deserves attention, when to abandon a theory, or when to keep going. Those judgments can’t be prescribed or pre-programmed into an AI model.

They can only be formed by proximity to humans who have committed themselves to craft.

I fear this reality is being lost today.

Subscribe now

Our society is arriving at the belief that knowledge can be detached from humanity in domains never thought possible.

Why go to the doctor when ChatGPT can diagnose you? Why see a therapist or confide in a friend when AI therapists are available 24/7? Why move across the country to a graduate program when you can just read books on the topic or watch YouTube tutorials?

Knowledge can be transferred but understanding must be formed.

It grows through proximity to people who have given themselves to a craft—people close enough to watch, imitate, and eventually follow beyond what any textbook, method, or machine can teach.

The deepest forms of understanding are not taught.

They are caught.

Walt Disney Studios.

This campus is the birthplace of Bambi, Dumbo, The Jungle Book, Aladdin, and many other classics. Titans of American creativity have called this place home and from its’ soil hearts around the world have been caught by the magic of Disney’s storytelling.

Yet look a little closer and you’ll noticing something peculiar.

The animation building sits at an angle to everything around it. It doesn’t quite line up with the grid of Burbank’s streets. Further inspection shows more. The building’s walls are lined with windows facing north.

How interesting, you think to yourself as you turn back to the traffic.

Interesting it is and completely intentional.

After putting down his deposit for 51 acres in 1938, Walt got to work crafting the studio, imagining the perfect space to bring his dreams to life.

From underground tunnels to non-circulatory air vents, and humidity controls, every inch was designed to optimize production. But one of the most important pieces to consider was something technology couldn’t create — sunlight.

For animators to do their best work, they need maximum exposure to natural light. So angling the windows toward the north gives Disney’s team day long access to the natural light needed for their best work.

Sunlight was vital to Disney’s dreams coming to reality so he literally engineered a building to get in its’ path.

Walt Disney understood something we easily forget.

Once we know what’s most important, we need to architect our lives to get it. Be it daily runs, evening walks, morning prayer, weekly coffee with a friend, daily deep work, we all have things that are essential to our flourishing.

But how often do we structure our lives around them?

More often, we leave the things that matter most to chance. We hope there will be time to exercise, pray, create, rest, or see the people we love after everything else is finished. But everything else is never finished……

Disney didn’t hope his team got enough sunlight, he designed for it. He angled an entire building toward it.

Flourishing requires us to do the same. Not simply identifying what gives us life, but rearranging our days so we repeatedly find ourselves in its path.

Because the lives we want are rarely built through good intentions alone.

They’re built by what we face.

Subscribe now

Subscribe now

What would Rockefeller do?

I asked myself while walking on the trail.

Leaves crunching beneath my feet, the wind blowing through the trees, completely lost in thought. My mind stuck on a career decision. Options before me with only one to pick from.

Thankfully, I had wisdom beyond myself to draw on from an annual practice I always take up.

Reading one biography a year.

Every year I try to spend quality time with a person worth mulling over.

People like John D. Rockefeller, Dorothy Day, Eugene Peterson, Martin Luther King Jr., Alexander Hamilton, or D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, all figures who have much wisdom to share from fascinating lives.

I’ll spend a year reading biographies on their lives, reading some of their work or listening to their messages.

These are men and women from history whom I feel as thought I’ve spent time around and can draw from their lived experiences. A little bit of their lives are living in mine so I can take a breathe in, breathing out their wisdom.

I’m no longer making decisions alone, I’m drawing from the lives I’ve chosen to carry with me.

One outcome of this habit is that I find myself in situations and I can ask myself the question, what would ____ do?

Subscribe now

This was what happened on that trail.

I was finishing Ron Chernow’s excellent biography of John D. Rockefeller.

So I asked myself, what would Rockefeller do?

Well, I replied to myself, kicking gravel with my shoes, He would be calm and thoughtful, listen to advisors and asses the situation as clearly as possible. But (and this is the hard part for me) once he made a decision he would act swiftly and decisively on it, not wavering one bit.

Recognizing this, I stopped.

Looking into the trees I decided right there I would follow Rockefeller’s example.

In the days ahead I prayed, talked to mentors, talked to my wife, did my own research and made a decision. Like Rockefeller, I leapt of the diving board of options and dove headfirst into the water of a single pool — let the water splash how it will, this is where I’m choosing the swim.

This is why we should all invest ourselves in the greats of the past.

Read enough great lives and, eventually, you begin carrying them with you. Their courage, patience, mistakes, and wisdom become part of the counsel available to you when your own experience runs thin.

A good biography doesn’t just teach you about a life that was lived. It gives you another life to draw from. So, dear reader, whose life would you like to draw from?

Let this be your own diving board moment.

Take the leap and see where another’s water takes you.

Subscribe now

Envy is a core part of modernity’s diet.

It’s impossible to go a day without seeing something you want which another person has. Could be a nicer car, better clothes, a bigger house, more followers, more subscribers, a happier family, or a cooler job.

None of us is immune.

However strong and stoic you may be, all of us have chinks of envy in our armor. We’re scrolling through social media feeding on it. All that’s left is bitterness, dissatisfaction, and an unquenchable hunger.

It’s in these moments I tell myself 2 phrases. 4 words each.

The first is this….

Breathe your own oxygen.

Instead of inhaling the possessions and accomplishments of others, I stop. Focusing on my breathe, I remember this truth — I can’t live someone else’s life and neither can you.

All I have is the oxygen finding its way into my lungs and every breathe is a gift.

So I breathe.

I breathe in what’s around me and who I am, centering myself on the only reality that matters — the one that I have.

Then I release, telling myself the second phrase….

Tend your own garden.

I have my own roots and rots, fruits and fallow places, grass to water and weeds to pull. The landscape of my humanity needs careful attention so I can’t waste time comparing it to another’s.

Besides, our perception is an illusion.

Where we see our neighbor’s new car and feel envy, they see their new car and feel the subtle angst of another loan. Where we see another’s promotion, they see the update on LinkedIn and feel the unrelenting voice whispering in their ear you’re still not enough.

Subscribe now

As we chase after our neighbor’s life, we’re really chasing after the wind.

It’s better to take a deep breath of what’s been given to us. To return to the soil beneath our own feet, rejoicing in what’s good while pruning what isn’t.

Envy tells us the good life is always somewhere else. In someone else’s driveway, Instagram, job, or family photos. But peace begins when we stop trespassing in imaginary gardens and start paying attention to our own.

Breathe your own oxygen.

Tend your own garden.

That is enough work for one life.

Share

A recent development, Dakota Drive was a loop in my small Kansas town. Our house was one of an island of homes on the inner ring. When I think of this house, I think of one memory in particular.

I don’t quite know the year the happened, likely 2000.

The turn of the century and the turning of a new chapter in my life.

The chapter? An awareness of that most beautiful, wonderful, intoxicating of human experiences…..joy.

As dusk was settling over our island’s outer ring, my dad gave one last push, shouting “Keep pedaling! Keep pedaling! Go go go! Pedal!”

I wobbled left, then right, but I didn’t stop. My little calves dug into the plastic pedals. Slowly, the wobbling subsided, the bike steadying beneath me. A smile the size of our state spread across my face as laughter followed.

I was riding a bike.

No longer was I bound to that most basic form of transportation — walking. I’d advanced to a higher plane. Now I could soar. Dakota Drive wasn’t a street anymore, it was a racetrack, an oval of inexpressible joy.

My world would never be the same.

This tiny moment taught me the truth behind Nietzsche’s observation. Joy is “the feeling that power increases—that resistance is overcome.”

Joy is the experience of overcoming resistance, increasing our abilities.

Joy is nailing the presentation you’ve been practicing, running your fastest marathon time, strumming a perfect G chord on freshly calloused fingers, or pedaling your way down the neighborhood without training wheels.

If you want to experience joy, increase your abilities. Seek out a challenge. Pursue a new skill. Place yourself in the path of resistance. Get knocked down, then get back up.

Eventually, the training wheels will come off.

You’ll begin to soar.

And like a little redheaded boy racing down a Kansas street, you may never be quite the same.

Subscribe now

Pop over to his Wikipedia page. Along with mentioning him as one of Britain’s greatest Prime Minsters, he’s remembered as a historian, painter, politician, military officer, writer. But there’s one thing missing.

Bricklayer.

Subscribe now

It wasn’t uncommon to find Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill outside, smoking a pipe, boots covered in mud, laying bricks.

Churchill was so devoted to this practice that he even joined a local bricklayers union as an honorary member in 1928. At times laying 200 bricks a day.

This begs the question.

Why was Britain’s most powerful man laying bricks in the mud?

His answer: to keep “the Black Dog” at bay.

Like many of us, Churchill was plagued with bouts of depression. Days would come when the heavy of fog of despondency would descend on him.

On days like these, Churchill wouldn’t sit idly and let the dog continue biting.

He’d step outside into the sunshine — or British overcast— and get moving. Brick by brick, he’d build his walls, letting continual motion become his homeostasis. Brick by brick, the dog’s bite would ease.

Churchill knew what many of us are learning today.

Motion is often the best medicine.

As Allen Levi writes, “motion is lotion.”

Or as George Mack writes, “depression hates a moving target.”1

When we get moving, things get better. Our actions shape our emotions. Our physical life reshapes our thought life. And it doesn’t matter what the motion is. Be it bricklaying, biking, running, walking, pottery, painting, or ice-picking, it just has to work for you.

So remember this the next time you’re feeling down or just emotionally off.

Remember Churchill and find your own bricks to lay.

Subscribe now

Subscribe now

After addressing my grievances with Online Productivity Gurus (“OPGs”), I thought it wise to make something clear.

While I disdain OPGs idolatry of productivity at all costs and on their own terms, I still want to be productive. As I’ve written before, I just want productivity that’s about playing the long game, celebrating small wins, and leaning into steady growth. Productivity that is human.

In this spirit, I’d like to share one of my favorite tips to feel more productive as the end of the day.

I call it the 4 Quarter Framework.

In this framework, I divide my day into 4 quarters.

Quarter 1 is early morning. It starts when I wake up and ends when I start my workday. Quarter 2 is the start of my workday till lunch. Quarter 3 is my workday after lunch. Quarter 4 is the rest of the day.

The goal is to “win” 2 quarters a day and winning looks different for each one.

Q1 is all about my morning routine. If I wake up with enough time for reading and writing, it’s a win.

Q2 & Q3 are dependent on my workday. If I have the meetings I need to have and get the tasks done that are needed, they’re a win.

Q4 is about enjoyment and chores. This varies wildly but as long as I’m present with my family or getting out the chores I need to, it’s a win.

All I need is to win 2 quarters to win the day.

If I have a great morning of reading, writing, and meetings then it doesn’t matter if the rest of my day goes off the rails.

If I fail at Q1, sleeping through my alarm then dropping off my daughter at daycare with just enough time to make it to my first meeting, that’s ok. I have 3 more quarters to still have a great day.

The secret of this framework is that it makes the scorecard highly achievable so my chances of feeling productive are maximized. It leaves plenty of room for error and humanity.

The 4 Quarter Framework reminds me that a good day doesn’t require a flawless day.

You just need a couple of wins.

That’s what makes this framework feel so freeing. It gives me permission to recover.

A failed morning doesn’t have to become a failed day. A chaotic afternoon doesn’t erase the good that came before it.

There’s always another quarter.

Give the 4 Quarter Framework a try and let me know how it goes!

Subscribe now

Subscribe now

Once upon a time I fell into an unfortunate trap.

The trap of the online productivity gurus — "OPGs”

They’re the guys (almost always guys) on the internet with perfectly dialed in days and maximally optimal routines. They wake up at 5am sharp, work out, then have 3 hours of completely uninterrupted deep work. Every part of their lives is oriented toward squeezing as much juice out of today’s 1,440 minutes.

But here’s the thing…..as you go down the rabbit hole of their books, podcasts, and videos you don’t find your days bearing the fruit of progress but of despair.

You’re haunted by the nagging sense of I should be doing more.

And the second your perfectly planned day is interrupted, you’re met with frustration that snowballs till your head hits the pillow.

Falling into this cycle of high expectation met with deep frustration, I found a realization that saved me from the OPGs snare.

Most of these influencers are living untethered lives of isolation.

They are little islands in themselves. They don’t have spouses or kids or faith commitments, never mind a sense of communal duty. They belong to no one but their own desires.

Days are crafted around them.

Anything that gets in the way should be cut out.

They can’t fathom staying up in the middle of the night with a crying baby, skipping their most productive hours for a spouse’s appointment, or delaying a project because you were volunteering at a fundraiser.

It’s a life designed to live as unencumbered as possible.

To modify the famous Socratic maxim…the unencumbered life is not worth living.

OPGs miss that the best things in life are the things which lift us out of ourselves.

Take kids, for example.

Having a child is signing up for maximum inconvenience. Kids get sick, cry in the middle of the night, and will happily ignore a room full of toys to play with the one thing that could ruin your plumbing. Yet there are heights of love I wouldn’t know were it not for my daughter.

The really impressive men aren’t the ones who cut out kids as an inconvenience.

They’re more like J.J. Spaun, who won the U.S. Open after making a middle-of-the-night CVS run because his daughter was sick. It’s the opposite of the OPG fantasy. It’s greatness with Cheerios in the carpet. Victory with a diaper bag nearby. A life not optimized away from love, but enlarged by it.

So embrace the inconvenient commitments of your life.

Don’t let the idol of unencumbered productivity crowd out your vision for those around you. Lean into the family member who needs you, the friend whose wife has been hospitalized, and the church member whose emotionally breaking down.

They aren’t disturbances to life — they are the stuff of life.

Not a perfectly optimized life.

A life lived as it was meant to be.

Have you ever had this thought? Been stopped in your tracks by the words worked on a page? Sitting silently in wonder at what you just read?

It doesn’t happen often….but it does happen.

The truth is when a beautiful sentences appears, it’s not an accident. It’s the fruit of practice, effort, and commitment to craft. A worthy sentense is decades in the making.

And I, like many of you, what to write worthy sentences too.

So over the past several years, I’ve collected books, interviews, and conversations that have helped me become a better writer.

Here are 14 of my favorites….

Let’s start with some books….

Everybody Writes by Ann Handley

My rating: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

This is one of my favorites.

Written from the perspective of marketing, Handley has a keen eye for what works. It’s immensely practical, helping everyday Joes like me take their writing up a notch.

The Art and Business of Online Writing by Nicolas Cole

My rating: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

5 years ago, this is the one that finally convinced me to start writing online and launch CrossTalk. It’s the most practical book I’ve read about writing specifically for the internet.

Nicolas Cole understands that writing online is its own medium. People do not read an essay on their phones the same way they read a hardcover book beside the fireplace.

Structure matters. Openings matter. Formatting matters.

Read this when you are ready to move from “I enjoy writing” to “I want to publish consistently and understand how the online writing world works.”

Show Your Work! and Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon

My rating: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Steal Like an Artist removes the pressure to be completely original. Every writer is influenced by other writers. Every creator borrows, combines, responds, and builds upon what came before.

Kleon gives you permission to absorb the work of others and create out of that.

Show Your Work addresses the next obstacle: letting other people see what you make.

You do not need to wait until you are famous, finished, or fully confident. Share what you are learning. Document your process. Invite people into the work.

Both books are short, aesthetically cool, and fun to read.

Several Short Sentences About Writing by Verlyn Klinkenborg

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is the strangest book on the list

It’s also one of the most useful.

Klinkenborg asks you to stop thinking primarily in paragraphs, arguments, and sweeping ideas. Instead, pay attention to the sentence directly in front of you.

On Writing by Stephen King

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

On Writing is a window into the formation and habits of one of the most successful writers alive.

King is especially good on reminding us of the discipline we need.

Writers write. They read constantly. They protect time for the work. They learn the tools of the craft, sit down, and produce words even when inspiration has apparently gone on vacation.

You may not want to write horror novels, but King’s devotion to the practice is contagious.

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Writing often becomes overwhelming because we try to hold the entire project in our heads.

The whole essay. The entire book. The finished result. The imagined criticism. The possibility that no one will care.

Lamott brings the writer back to the small piece directly ahead.

One paragraph. One scene. One memory. One bird at a time.

She is honest about insecurity, envy, procrastination, terrible first drafts, and all the other unglamorous realities of creative work.

Read this when you need less strategy and more permission to be an imperfect human who writes.

Now here are some conversations worth listening to….

Books are helpful, but I also love hearing writers talk about how they actually work.

Here are a few conversations I love.

Morgan Housel on How I Write

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Morgan Housel is one of the clearest nonfiction writers working today.

These conversations explore how he finds ideas, structures stories, edits his work, and turns observations about money and behavior into memorable essays.

Jimmy Soni on How I Write

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Jimmy Soni’s work requires an enormous amount of research, organization, and synthesis……and he loves the craft.

Brandon Sanderson with Tim Ferriss

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

You do not have to read fantasy to learn from Brandon Sanderson.

He is prolific and remarkably thoughtful about creative work. The conversation covers routine, output, world-building, business decisions, and how to build a sustainable life around writing.

Steven Pressfield on How I Write

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Pressfield is best known for naming the invisible force every creative person encounters: Resistance.

Resistance appears as procrastination, distraction, perfectionism, self-doubt, and the sudden conviction that reorganizing your desk is more urgent than writing.

Nicolas Cole on Ali Abdaal’s podcast

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

These conversations focus more directly on building an online writing habit, choosing ideas, growing an audience, and creating opportunities through publishing.

Some online-writing advice can become overly formulaic, but Cole and Bush are excellent at helping people move from private thinking to public practice.

What about you?

If you’ve made it this far, chances are you have favorite resources on writing too.

Comment below so we can all learn from them too!

Subscribe now

Where am I?

This is the question I want to get better at asking.

And I mean this quite literally. Not where am I emotionally or spiritually or anything like that.

I mean it physically.

Where are my feet planted in this moment? What are they doing? What’s in front of me?

Because if you’re like me, you’re often not where your feet are.

You could be waiting in line at the grocery store, ruminating on an upcoming conversation. Doing the dishes, so lost in thought you’re oblivious to the soap trickling through your fingers. Or, worst of all, holding your daughter while marinating on a task you need to knock out instead of marveling at the eyes looking back at you.

It’s natural for us to be anywhere but where we actually are.

So much so that Thich Nhat Hanh once wrote:

“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth.”

This is the miracle of being present.

To be fully where your feet are planted, alive to the world you’re inhabiting. To notice the quiet joy of the worker stocking shelves as you walk down aisle 3. The freshly painted building you pass every day. The tiny rise and fall of your daughter’s chest as you rock her to sleep.

It’s a miracle to be where you are.

So today, try to walk where your feet take you.

Subscribe now

Our old house was across the street from a cattle farm.

It wasn’t abnormal to find me sitting on the stairs, looking out the window and watching the cows do their thing. What was their thing? Nothing much from what I could tell…..walking, eating, and mooing.

To put a single word on it, grazing.

The textbook definition of grazing is “an agricultural and ecological practice where herbivores, primarily cattle, sheep, and goats, feed on growing grass or vegetation.”

The JD definition is “cows doing their thing, roaming freely without anywhere to be, chewing on whatever they find.”

After watching the cows graze, I decided I could use some space to do the same. So I started scheduling Grazing Time on my calendar.

Last week I wrote about feeding your Second Soul and Grazing Time is one way I do this.

In Grazing Time, I head to a coffee shop to set aside 1.5 - 3 hours. Caffeinated and comfortable, I sit with a legal pad, open pen, and a book on hand.

Then, I graze.

There’s no agenda and nowhere to be. Wherever my mind takes me I go. I could sit stoically the whole time, pour my heart out on paper, or map the solution to a problem I’m facing.

Almost always, a number of ideas come my way.

From solving a work issue to thinking through newsletter articles to considering why my best ideas only show up after I’ve paid $6 for coffee. In Grazing Time, I have permission to chew on whatever comes to mind.

Grazing Time gives me space to breath in a world that wants to take my breathe away.

Grazing Time is my small rebellion against that.

It’s a way of saying that not every moment needs a measurable outcome. Not every hour needs to justify its existence. Sometimes the best thing you can do is sit with a pen, a book, and a cup of coffee, then let your mind wander until it bumps into something worth noticing.

The more I practice this the more I realize these cows were onto something.

They weren’t rushing or optimizing. They weren’t building a personal brand around grass-based thought leadership.

They were just grazing.

And sometimes, that’s exactly what a flourishing life needs. A little less sprinting. A little more wandering. A little more room to chew on what’s right in front of you.

Subscribe now

Subscribe now

I once heard somewhere that artists have second souls.1

Meaning they have a second part of themselves with their creative hopes, dreams, and wishes. It’s a part of them that needs to be nourished and not ignored lest the creative spirit shrivels.

So the task of the artist is to make room for the second soul.

But really, it’s the task of all of us.

I don’t care if you’re a CPA, math teacher, or CEO. Every single one of us has a second soul. And we each hold creative wisdom to grow it.

My neighbor is an engineer but takes ballet classes. I know someone who owns an executive search firm and is writing a novel. My friend Jaime is a Harvard PhD who studies Alzheimers but has a YouTube channel talking about vintage video games….and has 51,000 subscribers.

I write 3 different newsletters!

But here’s the thing…it doesn’t matter if you’ve put your second soul in a drawer for years or don’t even know where you left it. Just try something, anything. Then keep trying till you find what you’re looking for.

Then give it space, even a sliver.

Soon curiosity wakes up. You begin to feel less like a function and more like a person again.

Then feed it a little each day, and watch what comes alive.

Subscribe now

Subscribe now

All work ceases.

The crowd roars. Palms are waving. Singing ensues. Trumpets blast.

Riding in a chariot of gold, the general arrives.

Ahead and behind him are his soldiers. Marching on foot and riding their horses to the rhythm of victory. The emperor awaits them. His victorious army is home.

But look closer and you’ll see something curious.

Shouting behind the general is a younger man cutting through the cheers with a different tune.

“Sic transit gloria mundi. Sic transit gloria mundi. Sic transit gloria mundi….” Over and over again.

“All glory is fleeting. All glory is fleeting. All glory is fleeting…”

At the height of this conquering general’s accomplishments, a slave is tasked to pester him with this sobering reminder.

All glory is fleeting.

The euphoria will soon subside. All glory is fleeting.

The cheering crowd will return to the mundanity of life. All glory is fleeting.

Your accomplishments will soon be relegated to dusty history textbooks. All glory is fleeting.

Don’t fall for the noise. Don’t be seduced by the accomplishments. All glory is fleeting.

Whatever it is you’re striving after and putting your hope in, remember this. Stick it on your computer or write it on your walls. All glory is fleeting.

So when the mountain tops come and success arrives, don’t count on it continuing forever. All glory is fleeting.

Rome’s conquering generals needed to hear this message and so do we.

Share

Subscribe now

In the 1980’s, Red Bull was planning an aggressive growth spurt.

Dietrich Mateschitz wanted to spread this energy drink far beyond the shores of Thailand. So his did what any thoughtful business would do — they issued a study to see how the global market would like the Red Bull’s taste.

The discovery wasn’t optimistic.

Taste-testers didn’t just dislike Red Bull….they hated it.

One reviewer going so far as to say, “I wouldn’t drink this piss if you paid me to.”

After this, most of us would’ve said no thank you to global expansion and stayed put. But Dietrich thought otherwise. He decided to go for it.

Some 40 years later, Red Bull has 40+% of the energy drink market share, generating over $11 Billion in annual revenue. We find their iconic logo plastered along the Carbon Fiber of F1 cars and adrenaline chasing athletes jumping out of airplanes.

Turns out, the initial reviews were wrong.

You don’t need to pay people to drink “this piss.”

They’ll happily pay you for the honor.

To marketers, Red Bull is the ultimate case study for why their industry exists. For everyday people like you and me? It’s case study for the truth we tend to forget.

Our tastes, preferences, desires, hopes, and dreams are shaped by a variety of factors beyond us. We are are result of the the places we live, the families we grew up in, and the algorithms we scroll through.

Put Red Bull in an unmarked can? It tastes like a punishment.

Put Red Bull in its signature can? It tastes like human potential.

The lesson is this: be vigilant to the influences you let in your psyche.

From the influencers we scroll past, the books we read, the podcasts we listen to, and the shows we watch, pay attention. Our thoughts, preferences, and the actions we take in the world are downstream of these influences.

So consider who you want to be then reverse engineer the influences you need to get there.

Guard the inputs, because they quietly become your instincts.

Choose them well, and you won’t just shape your taste…you’ll shape your life.

Subscribe now

Subscribe now

“You wouldn’t believe how bad my writing is on the first go.”

He says from his study, books and artifacts piled high in the background.

His stroke-surviving voice straining to get the words out.

“But I go deep, deep, deep into what I’m thinking.

I cross it out, I do something else, I edit it. By the 10th time I go into it, something interesting is happening.

When you focus deeply on something, ideas will come to you — and sometimes those ideas will be brilliant.”

The source of these comments is Robert Greene.

Greene is wrote The 48 Laws of Power, considered one of the most influential business and strategy books written in the 21st century.

In a recent interview he shared two pieces of wisdom for us all.

First, expect an ugly first draft.

Greene’s books read with magnetic prose but they don’t start that way.

On the first round, they’re not pretty or publishable. In fact, they’re unbelievably bad. But that’s part of the process.

You get your thoughts out, moving from step 0 to 1. Then, stepping back, you cross out, clean, re-work, and sharpen. You start molding the parts into a coherent whole.

Along the way, a piece of art takes shape.

Anne Lamott famously shares this opinion,

“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something—anything—down on paper.”

This is true of writing and anything we take on in life.

Nothing we start is pretty at first.

The first time I tried to ride a bike, I fell. The first time I changed a diaper, it went on backwards. The first time I pitched a product, it was laughable.

But the flops lead to learnings. And learnings lead to progress. Eventually, progress gives way to mastery.

Second, go deep.

Greene is an intense student.

For every book written, he reads 300+ books during his research. He voraciously studies, learning everything he possibly can on a topic. He mines the thoughts of others and his own thoughts. Not stopping until stumbling upon something that’s gold.

It’s the not the first, second, or third attempt, that he strikes gold. It’s more like the 10th.

This is a valuable lesson for our age.

We’re constantly seeking quick answers or fast turnarounds. Efficiency and speed rule the day. But quality comes from slow, intentional digging and pruning.

Mastery rarely arrives with a bang.

It sneaks in through revision—showing up, making a mess, returning to it, and going deeper than feels comfortable.

Do that enough times, and “bad” becomes “better,” then “brilliant.”

So maybe the invitation isn’t to be brilliant on command, but to be faithful to the process. To sit down, make something clumsy, and stay with it a little longer than feels natural. To trust, like Robert Greene and Anne Lamott, that the magic isn’t in the first pass but in the return.

Because the real work isn’t writing the perfect sentence.

It’s showing up again to wrestle the imperfect one into something alive.

Did someone send this to you? First, tell them thanks. Second, maybe you should subscribe too?

Subscribe now

Subscribe now

My very first newsletter was written on June 29, 2021 with the same title as this one.

You are what you abide in.

Nearly 5 years later, I still stand by this statement.

But what does it mean to abide?

Abiding isn’t a word that we hear a lot.

In fact, it’s not a word picked up in modern parlance. It comes from the soil of my faith tradition, from the words spoken by Jesus of Nazareth. At one point, he says to his followers, “Abide in me, and I in you.”

Abide comes from the greek word menō. This connotes remaining and continually being present to.

The lesson for Jesus followers like me is simple. If we want to be like Jesus, we must continually be present to him and remain rooted in his love. But there’s a secondary truth for all of us — Jesus followers or not.

We become the things we remain present to.

If we’re constantly locked onto the news of the day, letting the headlines ruminate through our minds, we’ll become anxious, angry, and (dare I say) self-righteous.

If we’re consuming social media like oxygen, we’ll soon become indulgent, distracted, and oblivious to the miracles of life around us.

If we’re continually hunting for the next purchase to make, captive to our consumerism, we’ll soon lose our capacity for non-transactional joy and generosity.

The lesson is simple.

Keep an eye on where your presence is.

You become what you abide in.

So abide well.

Subscribe now

Subscribe now

Warren Buffett hardly needs an introduction.

This Nebraska boy is one of the most successful investors in history, with a track record earning him the nickname “the Oracle of Omaha” and a net worth placing him among the world’s wealthiest individuals.

And beyond business advice, Buffett possesses wisdom worth listening to.

Especially when he starts talking about scorecards.

Despite generating billions of dollars for investors in his fund, Buffett receives criticism for leaving billions more on the table.

Why? Because he refuses to compromise a few core beliefs.

Buffett won’t implement layoffs or sell holdings he could easily replace with more profitable ventures. Based in his hometown of Omaha, he won’t move his headquarters to tax havens like Bermuda, which would legally save billions in taxes.

This costs unimaginable sums of money and frustrates investors.

Yet Warren won’t give in.

This quote explains why.

“The big question about how people behave is whether they’ve got an Inner Scorecard or an Outer Scorecard. It helps if you can be satisfied with an Inner Scorecard.”

Most people operate with an external scorecard.

That is, success is defined exclusively by others. The goals we strive for, the decisions we take, the work we do is all dictated by others. Our families, community, our online followers, our internet influencers.

But some people — the best kind of people — have an internal scorecard.

They make decisions according to goals, standards, and expectations which they deem worthy. They won’t do something because others want them to.

And if their internal scorecard isn’t matching with the scorecards of others……they’re willing to live with that tension.

Because at the end of the day, you have to live with yourself longer than you live with anyone else’s opinion.

The question isn’t whether the crowd approves.
The real question is whether the person in the mirror does.

So every once in a while, it’s worth pausing and asking: Whose scorecard am I really playing for?

Did someone send this to you? First, tell them thanks. Second, maybe you should subscribe too?

Subscribe now

Subscribe now

Take a second.

Look at the man below.

His name is Hans Wilsdorf.

Aside from excelling in the mustache department, Hans built one of the world’s most recognizable brands. In fact, its’ name was crafted in such a way that any dialect can pronounce it. I’m not talking about Ferrari or Facebook. Nor Gucci or Chanel.

I’m talking about Rolex.

But most don’t know how the name came to be.

Wilsdorf didn’t start with the name Rolex.

At first he was making watches under 20+ brand names.

And they sounded more like prescription medication or commercial oil products than luxury brands. Omigra, Elvira, and Rolwatco were a few of them.

Eventually Wilsdorf wanted a brand name which could be pronounced in any dialect. So, he got to work and crafted Rolex. Whether you’re a lawyer in Kabul, a stock broker in Hong Kong, or a teacher in Louisiana, you can say it.

What started as Omigra become Rolex — and the wold has never been the same.

This is what I call the Wilsdorf Principle.

By being unafraid to throw strategic spaghetti at the wall, Hans found out what sticks.

Without all those wacky names, he wouldn’t have found Rolex.

He got busy making watches then he got picky on the name.

Most people wait for the perfect idea before they begin. Wilsdorf began first, experimented relentlessly, and let the perfect idea reveal itself along the way.

Sometimes the path to something timeless is paved with a lot of forgettable names.

The Wilsdorf Principle reminds us of this and encourages us to keep going.

Subscribe now

Try as you might, you can’t escape life’s moments of decision.

Ready or not, we all end up in threshold moments where we have to re-evaluate the trajectory of our life and make a decision. Do we stay on the current path or pick a new one? Do we accept the job offer or not? Is it wise to stay or go?

If you’re like me, these threshold moments keep you up at night.

Not long ago, a reader of this newsletter, faced just such a threshold moment.

She was wrapping up a Master’s degree and had to decide to stay in her field, pursuing doctoral work or pivot to something else.

I didn’t have answers for her. These are decisions no one else can make for us. But I did have some guiding exercises and questions to ask.

Today, I’d like to share with you, one of these exercises.

It’s a pro/con list…with a twist

Making a pro/con list is the oldest trick in the book.

But here’s the thing…..usually we have a faulty assumption at work, assuming each item on the list is created equal. Have 5 pros with 5 cons? Looks like you’re in a deadlock. Have 6 pros with 2 cons? Your answer is clear!

Wrong.

Not all items on the list are created equal.

Different items carry different weight.

Instead of treating the list like math equation, you need to feel your way through it.

Some pros carry more weight than cons. And visaversa. You need to let your body and emotions speak.

Make a pro/con list with your head, then check in with your body.

What feels heavy vs. light?

What do you keep coming back to?

It could be you have 1 pro with 6 cons. But that single pro is an emotional anchor you can’t break free from.

Or you have 6 pros with 1 con. But that single con is a shackle you can’t shake.

When we feel our way through a decision, we begin to recognize the body’s quiet wisdom.

Our minds tally the list, but our bodies register the weight. They notice what lingers, what tightens our chest, what keeps returning to our thoughts.

So make the list with your head.

Then sit with it long enough for the rest of you to speak.

Sometimes the clearest answer isn’t the one with the most points on the page.

It’s the one your whole being can live with.

Did someone send this to you? First, tell them thanks. Second, maybe you should subscribe too?

Subscribe now

Subscribe now

In 1974, Robert Pirsig published Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Pirsig sold 50,000 copies in the first three months and over 5 million copies in 27 languages during Pirsig’s life, making it the most commercially successful book on philosophy ever published.

In 1980, Eugene Peterson’s breakout book A Long Obedience in the Same Direction was first published.

Peterson sold 200,000 copies and kickstarted his public writing, paving the way to The Message. This translation of the bible would go on to produce 20 million copies.

Aside from the same letter inaugurating their last names and writing beloved books, these two men have another thing in common.

Rejection.

Pirsig was rejected by 121 publishers until a small one picked him up.

Peterson was rejected by 20 publishers until InterVarsity picked him up.

Both had visions of life they were desperate to share with the world. Both were told no. Both pressed on.

The lesson isn’t just about publishing.

It’s about perseverance.

Most of us won’t write a bestselling book, but we will face rejection, setbacks, and closed doors. The difference between a life that stalls and a life that moves forward is often the quiet decision to keep going anyway.

So, dear reader, keep going.