"Leaning back in my recliner each night, staring at the ceiling, I tried to settle myself. I told myself: Life is growth. You grow or you die." -Phil Knight Hey friend, I graduated from the infantry school at Ft. Benning two decades ago. Next week, a dear friend’s son will do the same. While our time there was likely very different, there are similarities. The pain, the push-ups, the heat, and the fire ants. It’s a place where the bathroom meant walking off into the woods with an entrenching too...
Aug 06, 2023•4 min
"Our narrative defeats our surroundings. Every time." -Seth Godin We find ourselves in a magnificent era where it is increasingly easier to create — first paper, then the printing press, then computers, and now almost independent machines. The future is bright. Creating is easy. Deleting it is hard. To delete the long-held beliefs about ourselves, the world, status, money, fear, love, or insert your whatever - that’s hard. Increasingly, the most valuable use of my time is not to create but to re...
Jul 30, 2023•3 min
“It’s hard enough to create something good deliberately and with intention. And it’s no guarantee just because we believe something can happen, it will happen. But we know that unless we believe something can happen, it will not happen inadvertently by itself. And so it becomes really important that we imagine a world that we want, that we imagine solutions we want and believe that we can make them happen.” —Kevin Kelly It’s not always easy to stay optimistic. Our modern news cycle bombards us w...
Jul 23, 2023•5 min
If a person gave away your body to some passerby, you’d be furious. Yet you hand over your mind to anyone who comes along, so they may abuse you, leaving it disturbed and troubled—have you no shame in that? —EPICTETUS A little one in our family was playing the other day. It was reckless in all the good ways. High energy and relentless in the pursuit of his interests. The world’s pressures, expectations of others, and worries of ‘what if’ have not burrowed in. We view the world through the lens o...
Jul 16, 2023•6 min
“In my whole life, I have known no wise people who didn’t read all the time – none, zero .” -Charlie Munger They say we are the sum of the five people we spend the most time with. I say we are the sum of what we consume—food, relationships, entertainment, and media. For the first time, the number of people who did not read a book in the last 12 months eclipsed 50% of the US population. I understand why, as I’ve been drifting into a nasty habit of scrolling social media. Catching myself, I wonder...
Jul 09, 2023•3 min
"The true price of leadership is the willingness to place the needs of others above your own. Great leaders truly care about those they are privileged to lead and understand that the cost of leadership privilege comes at the expense of self-interest.” —GEORGE J. FLYNN, LIEUTENANT GENERAL, U.S. MARINE CORPS (RET.) With the right paperwork signed and physicals completed, replete with 77 X-rays (that can’t be healthy), I drove off post. That was it. My time in the Army was over. A friend, and forme...
Jul 02, 2023•4 min
"When circumstances scare us, our imagination tends to take over, filling our minds with endless anxieties." This gem is from Robert Greene’s book The 33 Strategies of War . Knee deep in this massive volume of stories and lessons, I was delightfully surprised when Kindle recommended another book by Greene, The 50th Law. Robert Greene’s books are big, deep, and well-researched. You may know his others - The 48 Laws of Power, Mastery, and The Laws of Human Nature. He is also a mentor of another be...
Jun 25, 2023•11 min
A message came in that asked for a document only I had. While walking, I found the file on my phone (a 42-page document), attached it to a teams message, and hit send. Please take a moment. That is some Jetson’s level stuff. It’s incredible, and there is a man that, in many ways, made it possible. Andy Grove, a first-generation immigrant, arrived in the US in his early 20s. In his memoir, he described his early life this way, By the time I was twenty, I had lived through a Hungarian Fascist dict...
Jun 18, 2023•8 min
Hi friend, Edvard Munch. If you don’t know that name, you probably know his most famous piece—The Scream. Painted in 1893, The Scream has widely been interpreted as representing the universal anxiety of modern man. A pastel version would sell for $119 Million 68 years after Munch’s death. Munch described his inspiration for the piece this way, I was walking along the road with two friends – the sun was setting – suddenly, the sky turned blood red – I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the ...
Jun 11, 2023•4 min
Hi Friend, Last summer, the family was off doing their own thing, and I found myself at home alone with three hairy and very barky friends. I didn’t feel obligated to participate in what they were doing. In truth, I wasn’t invited. That allowed me to be alone without pressures, family responsibilities, email, calendars, or other distractions - all guilt-free. But I wasn’t alone. I was in solitude. Glorious solitude. This solitude allowed me the space to think and do what I wanted needed. I chose...
Jun 04, 2023•5 min
Hi friend, A warrior once said to me, “Silos of excellence, that’s the US government.” I will keep her name classified. At the time, she had worked for the federal government for more than 20 years. Probably 30, I can’t remember. We had formed a connection, and for her counsel, I was grateful. She kept me out of a sticky situation or two and helped me get into ones that made a difference. She was with a three-letter agency that affects US policy in places that end in stan or are republics of the...
May 28, 2023•10 min
Hi friend, I’ve been giving some thought to problems lately. I’ve concluded that two questions really matter. Life is full of joy, excitement, and winning - probably more than most of us tend to see. That said, try and see all the bright sides you want, but life will show up, punch you in the face, and drop a box of problems at your feet with a cheery “Hey, I think these are yours.” Sometimes they are big curl-up-in-the-fetal position problems, and others, like Starbucks’ vicious change to its r...
May 21, 2023•6 min
You are the only one here for the whole ride. Fortunately, we will have friends and foes join us along the way. They will teach us, torment us, and one day they will leave us. "There is nothing worse than having nobody important in your life, yet we easily take for granted these precious, fleeting overlaps as they are happening." ( David Cain, This Will Never Happen Again ) When this is over, you will look back at your life and see it was a trail of encounters — moments when we overlapped with s...
Apr 30, 2023•2 min
Coming at you this week with a few thoughts from Peter Drucker’s book The Effective Executive. As this is my second or third most highlighted book, I've whittled down these down to just over a dozen with some effort. No promises that this will be the last time I bring you wisdom from Mr. Drucker. Let’s get into it. 1. “Only three things happen naturally in organizations: Friction, Confusion, and Underperformance. Everything else requires leadership.” This happens when leaders stop showing up, pr...
Apr 23, 2023•8 min
2,240 Were World Class 2,240 women participated in March Madness. This small group of elite women reached the pinnacle and represented only .00000028% of the world's population. A young girl watching with 9 million of their friends last month (a record!) has nearly no chance of attending that dance. So why try? There is no rational reason, but fortunately, humans have a unique ability to be irrational. For love, we often choose irrational paths. Sometimes we stay on those paths, and other times ...
Apr 16, 2023•5 min
Beliefs come into our lives and often get stuck. They become a part of us — beliefs about ourselves, the world, how things should be, or how they could be. Like sweaters, we collect them, and they stack up in our closet. From time to time, we should see which are worth keeping, sharing, or tossing. Here is an idea I came across: “Read less, study less, but think more.” That is from Leo Tolstoy in a book of wonderful quotes he put together. In today’s society, it’s counterintuitive. It even contr...
Apr 09, 2023•2 min
I have a thing about station wagons: big ones, small ones, dark ones, light ones, and particularly dog-filled ones. When I see one, I get distracted from whatever I’m doing. Make, model, and other questions whiz by. What’s driving this? On the way to dinner with Princess Buttercup, we got into one. I started fantasizing about how great life would be if I had one. The absurdity of my happiness connected to a car helped me realize there have been a lot of station wagons in my life. Grandma’s black...
Apr 02, 2023•4 min
TL;DR 1. Insecurity is natural. Mixing it with ego and ambition can kill your dreams. 2. The first step to managing your insecurities is recognizing them. Look in the mirror and get real. Therapy, journaling, and meditation can help. 3. Insecurity becomes crippling anxiety for 1 in 10. Help when you can and get help if you need it. It’s okay to not be okay. 4. So far, you have survived 100% of the bad things this life has thrown at you - chances are you will figure out whatever comes next. Go ge...
Mar 26, 2023•8 min
A book, coffee, and porridge sit with me in an empty dining room. With no calendar appointments and no emails, it’s peaceful. This feels more right than the usual mornings. A gentle human who is the cook, attendant, and server moves effortlessly, lighting his way with his smile. I am going to miss this place. We are tucked into a little harbor in Norway. The small town of Bergen has shuffled people and goods for a thousand years. The history is deep, and the people are lovely. We were here for l...
Mar 19, 2023•9 min
Transcript Kelly Vohs: [00:00:00] I love historical fiction. Love! And I think it's the weaving of the stories, learning about what's happened. One of my favorite books is called Pillars of the Earth. And it follows a life of a medieval peasant. And that peasant ends up becoming a stone mason and playing a very significant role in the building of a cathedral. Then cathedrals would take more than a lifetime to create. He knew he would never see it to completion. His job, although more complicated...
Mar 12, 2023•2 min
Transcript of Video [00:00:00] I was thinking about one of my favorite books I read a decade ago: Wooden on Leadership by Coach John Wooden. He was the head coach of the UCLA Bruins for quite a while, and they won 10 NCAA national championships for basketball. And I wanted to get this book, and I wanted to get it back in my hands. I wanted a hard copy. So I ordered it and showed up, opened it, and it fell on a page immediately. There it was. Coach Wooden was talking about hats. And in specific, ...
Mar 05, 2023•2 min
[00:00:00] I want to tell you a story about a farmer. Let's go back to the early 1900s when we're in Missouri, and a young man works on his family farm. This is the kind of farm where you take care of your crops and livestock, and you eat what you grow. You eke out a living and a life, and he's ambitious. [00:00:24] One of the things he wants to do is go to the military academy. He applies to West Point and doesn't get in, even though he's really smart. He has bad eyesight and wears glasses. Lif...
Feb 26, 2023•6 min
The last couple of weeks stacked up on me. The requirements at work, travel and other things have resulted in poor self-care - particularly sleep. As you can imagine, a trip to the west coast and back causes havoc with the routine. I can’t emphasize the importance of sleep enough, at least for me. When I’m sleep deprived, a few things happen: * I get more negative * Everything seems more difficult * My choices get worse * The fog makes seeing a way out harder This last point is important. Work w...
Feb 19, 2023•4 min
I found myself tucked into a small seat on a long flight. Don’t cry for me, I was sitting next to one of my favorite humans on the planet, and we were on a great adventure. That adventure turned out to be more than I could ever have hoped. I’ll share some of it another time. But this may have happened 👇 He slept, and I found myself deep in a new book. The Courage To Be Disliked: The Japanese Phenomenon That Shows You How To Change Your Life And Achieve Real Happiness. I’m still working through ...
Feb 12, 2023•6 min
BTTY gets BTTY with three ways to take it in. Watch, read, or listen. I hope you find something helpful here. Take care. BTTY turns ten this year, but it’s the last year that has taught me the most. The concept of BTTY hatched on my office floor in 2013. It was a Sunday, and I’d been on the job for 39 days. My boss and dear friend, for almost 25 years at this point, told me, “don’t do anything for 90 days.” Yet, there I was, with 67 major projects or changes that I KNEW needed to occur. There wa...
Feb 05, 2023•11 min
Inbox Zero The first email was sent on October 29, 1969. Yesterday, 347 billion emails hit inboxes worldwide - in one day. There are only just over 2.5 billion active email addresses. You do the math. That’s over 100 emails per account per day. It’s not simply that you never get through your email; it’s that the process of “getting through your email” actually generates more email. This is from David Burkeman’s book 4,000 Weeks: A Mortals Guide to Time Management. While the list of books I’d lik...
Jan 29, 2023•6 min
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 pixels, people, and o...
Jan 22, 2023•5 min
Coffee and A Lion Tracker’s Guide to Life is how I started 2023. This was my second time through this little gem of pithy prose. The Premise Boyd Varty grew up on a game preserve in South Africa. His grandfather converted a bankrupt cattle ranch into a lion-hunting enterprise. Spoiler alert: the lions were eating the cattle. His father would do the right thing and bring it back to its natural state and a safari operation. Boyd would learn the art of tracking here. Boyd brings a refreshing look a...
Jan 15, 2023•6 min
I've been giving a lot of thought to warriors. I’ve found myself using this word recently and more than the days when I was surrounded by what the box office stylized as a warrior. If you close your eyes, you can conjure the stereotype- the violence, the blood, the action. A warrior, for me, is something different. Violence is not the calling card of a warrior, but rather love. I've walked with warriors, fought with them, drank with them, cried with them, bled with them, and buried them. Warrior...
Jan 08, 2023•5 min
New Year resolutions - I understand why we do them. It’s a natural cutoff point and easy to ‘start new.’ We can do that any time of the year, but since we are here together, let’s take advantage of the collective momentum. But first, I want to offer a contratarían point of view. Let’s Stop, Not Start As you think about what you will change in the new year, consider what you can take away. Not what you will start doing but what you will stop doing. Here are three stops that are top of mind for me...
Jan 01, 2023•2 min
