Better Today Than Yesterday

To bear trials with a calm mind robs misfortune of its strength. -Seneca

Yesterday I met someone who runs fifty 1:1s a week.I also know someone who does zero.

Both are sure their way works.Both are probably right.

I used to say leading and managing is complex. Because people are complex.Today, I’m not sure that’s right.I think it’s simple. Just sometimes hard.

There is no right answer. There is just right now.With the information you have. And what your team needs.

Usuall...

“The problem is that obviously good ideas are not truly innovative, and truly innovative ideas often look like very bad ideas when they’re introduced.” —Ben Horowitz

When someone brings you an idea, what’s your first instinct?

I’m trying to start with:

“What I love about that is…”

And when I have a hard negative reaction, I try to pause and ask:

“Can you walk me through how you’re thinking about it?”

The best ideas rarely show up fully formed.It might not come out polished,but that do...

“Abraham Lincoln wasn’t born on Mount Rushmore. He didn’t arrive in the world with his face on the penny. He came as we all do — a bare-gurgling bundle of possibility. Born, as we are, free — within some limits — to make of himself what he would.” - William Lee Miller

We ran out of water.

We lived on an island. And like many places not connected to the underground magic of modern life — city water, especially — you ran out of things. Our house sat on what used to be a coral reef a few million year...

“Being a trailblazer is difficult. It’s the road less traveled for a reason. It’s filled with doubt, discomfort, detours, and dead ends. Lined with naysayers, puzzled looks, and unsolicited advice from those stuck on the beaten path. And only scattered with subtle signs that you’re on the right path.”

— George Raveling

It’s still dark out.

I’m sitting here thinking about how much of life comes down to two things: creating or consuming. Every day, in small ways, we’re either making something or taking something in. And...

When I think back to times and places that were difficult, they usually seem not as bad as when I was there. There is a reason for this, and it’s called Fading Affect Bias. But first, a memory.

We were deployed in Baghdad and in the midst of it. 18-hour days of grind. I’d beat the sun up and stumble over to the secure room we set up to access highly classified material. The coffee wasn’t great, but if Folgers was good enough for grandad, it was good enough for me.

We’d push p...

Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,

A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,

He passeth from life to his rest in the grave.

—William Knox

Is ambition bad?

Ambition often feels like a negative word—restless, self-focused, a need to prove yourself through achievement or acclaim. And that’s not new.

The word ambition comes from the Latin ambitio, meaning “a going around”—as in walking the streets to seek votes and curry favor...

"Beauty is the harvest of presence."

—David Whyte

What is beauty?

It’s the worn middle of your grandfather’s desk.

Snow in the spring.

A mother on a long flight.

A sip of something warm in the morning.

Walking through the leaves in the fall.

A child laughing.

My child smiling, finding their strength.

Sitting by the fire with her, the wave of hair falling across her left eye.

The green light when you need it.

A...

"Pain is coming anyway. Don’t get a shield. Get a saddle. Tame it."

—Derek Sivers

It turns out, I’m scared of emus.

Okay, scared is a strong word. My wife would definitely say I’m scared. I’d say, I’m moderately anxious around them.

My reasons are valid. My sister has two, and they’re basically velociraptors from Jurassic Park — they hunt in packs. One comes at me from about two o’clock, and the other from nine. Both of them are male, by the way. I’m not sure if that mak...

"Stand still. Let the forest find you…What kind of adult do I want to be?"

—Jerry Colonna

Some people are miserable at work.

Others love it.

Same job. Same company. Wildly different experiences.

One person comes alive while another counts the minutes until they can escape.

We tend to blame the person. Or the job. But what if we’re missing something deeper?

What if the real difference is alignment—the right combination of elements that make work feel energizing instead of draining?

The ri...

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 got to know him. But ev...

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.

It’s instinct. A thousand years ago, getting kicked out of the group could mean death. That fear 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 rationalized them away either to protect myself or the other person. My lack of courage kept me silent.

...

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 one owes you anything. → Take responsibility. Do the work.

2. Some people are victims. Most people just act like they are. → Stop waiting for life to be fa...

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 preoccupations will shrink to proper size, not all that important in the greater scheme of things…” -Nietzsche

No. 3

Beliefs often come into our lives and get...

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 and they will receive your work in the same lackluster spirit it was created in. If you are...

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 insulate yourself in the protective cocoon of executive comforts, you may well wake up one day to discover your company has...

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 powers on a single object, can accomplish something. The strongest, by dispensing his (powers) over many, may fail to accomplish anything. The drop, by con...

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 computer. It was a Gateway and came in that iconic dairy cow-colore...

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 unsustainable. It might work, but not forever.

No. 2—“If you wish to make progress, you must be content in external matters to seem a fool and a simpleton.” -Epictetus<...

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 day asked that question. Let's come back...

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 photos of this woodpecker the other day and this shot of his tongue (it is male) made me do some...

//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 you can have it.

Part of the process is checking if...

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 to change. It’s important to be aware of our mindsets and, when necessary, take action to change them. I want to talk about one mindset that I’ve adopte...

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 is gunning for your business. He knows your weak spots and he is making plans for your destruction."

Let's think about your team or organization as a river. It's a bi...

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 okay to have strong beliefs but hold them lightly.

Be good and take care, Kelly

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 write a very short sentence of what they actually did - their responsibility. Here are some examples:

* Head of HR - Enable the building...

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. It’s emotional, often irrational, and struggles to parse fact from fiction. When threats...

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 embarrassment to others. You just can’t.”

That's from Mark Manson.

I was in t...

"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-workers' goals; what would be best for their personal image, not their team's."

- Mike Metcalf & Shaun Peet, “12 Second Culture”

“Three eggs, over medium, cooked...

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 the caller down, and they do this by staying calm. This is central to understanding reality.

Leadership is the same. Because of their powe...

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 site before the foe and could claim the high ground. In the aftermath of victory, the general called his troops to...

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 whether it’s more valuable to listen or contribute at that moment. Sometimes, listening is contributing. Leaders often dominate conversations due to their authority. As leaders...

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 right up there with the best advice about writing, or life, I have ever h...

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 responsible for. The second one is compensation. And there's a whole lot to unpack there, so let's try to do it through a little...

The most powerful force that could be potentially harnessed is dogged incremental constant progress over a very long time frame.

-Peter Kaufman

I can’t be the only one who lets out a little sigh when the elevator stops on the way down. It’s too early, and this box feels too small. Can I just get to the bottom of the building and out to my daily caffeine spot with as little human interaction as possible, please? Usually, but not always, the newcomer gets a small smile from me, and maybe even a "good morn...

"…tranquility…comes when you stop caring what they say, think, or do. Only what you do."

- Marcus Aurelius

There is some change happening in my life. A new job, a kid left for college, and a few other things that add complexity and a touch of anxiety. Most of this change is good, some of it not. All of it is part of life. 

Wrestling with a few thoughts and some internal disturbance, I went back to re-read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Often, it's not the books you read that make a differe...

I believe the most effective type of team is a “Human Team.”

These teams accept their members for their individual strengths and struggles. They want the entire human to show up, not just the tip of the iceberg. These teams are about helping each other, and the collective "us," find our potential. If you are on one of these teams, you feel it. It’s different, and you show up and do the best work of your life because you don’t want to let your teammates down.

Recently, I read a passage in the book 12...

Two Quotes

“One of the things we try to do at Amazon is minimize the amount of energy that’s wasted on maintaining power and control and ego, as opposed to what really matters, which is helping our customers.” - Jeff Bezos

"To be everywhere is to be nowhere." – Seneca

A Lesson Learned

This past week, I learned about Amazon’s single-threaded leader model. I'll explain that in a minute, but first, an admission. I once thought I could do it all, whether for ego reasons or to prove my self-wo...

Are you on a team or just a group working in parallel?

The word "team" dates back to the 8th century and originally referred to a group of animals harnessed together to pull a cart or plow. By the 15th century, it had evolved to its modern meaning—a group of people working together, particularly in competitive contexts like sports or battles.

Today, "team" means collaboration, mutual support, shared objectives, and winning.

A couple of yaks harnessed together to pull a cart are just two yaks pulling a cart. Many so-called teams are li...

Clarity is arguably a leader's first job. Why are we here? What are we doing? How do we work?

MISSION = WHY

This is why we exist—the mission. It’s the guiding principle that serves as the foundation for all work. When you talk about it, you should feel your energy rise. When it gets hard, this is what gets you to the other side of the hard. The mission should be clear and have deep meaning to everyone.

STRATEGY = WHAT

This is the plan of action to achieve the mission. This...