The Tennis Mindset: Express, Forget, and Refocus
Express yourself daily to clear your mind, listen better, and build stronger relationships.
Of all the sports I’ve ever played, tennis demands the most mental toughness.
In tennis, maintaining a positive and aggressive state of mind is crucial throughout the match. If you’re not positive enough, your muscles tighten, leading to overthinking and missed shots. Conversely, if you’re not aggressive enough, you won’t take the necessary risks to win points.
The key to staying in this optimal mindset is learning to forget points quickly. Each point in tennis carries emotional weight, whether it’s a win or a loss. However, carrying these emotions from point to point disrupts the flow state essential for a tennis player. Therefore, it's vital to let go of previous points, regardless of whether they were good or bad.
The moments between points in tennis are crucial for resetting your mindset. This brief pause is the only opportunity to unload emotions and regain focus. To move on effectively, a tennis player must express all their emotions—whether positive or critical—between points, ensuring no lingering feelings disrupt their game.
The essential lesson here is to express, forget, and refocus on the point ahead.
This lesson from my time as a boy who grew up playing sports has profoundly impacted my adult life: the necessity to express myself every day, even if it's just in my journal. This need to express is a significant reason I’m committed to writing on this blog weekly.
Expressing myself allows me to calm down and gain the mindset required to truly listen and pay attention to those around me—whether it’s my family or my team at work. This ability to express and unload my thoughts is critical because if I can’t listen, I can’t love. If I can’t listen, I can’t solve problems. If I can’t listen, I can’t support others.
Even a five-minute free-write or singing songs from my karaoke favorites playlist on the way to work helps me to express, forget, and refocus.
I am so grateful for the chance to play and watch tennis because this lesson has been so impactful in my life. To anyone whose interest was piqued by this post, my advice is simple: express yourself every day. Whether it’s writing in a journal, talking to an old friend, or taking a few minutes to draw, do something daily that allows you to embrace the tennis mindset of express, forget, and refocus.
This simple lesson from one of the world’s great sports - to express, forget, and refocus - is the key to truly listening. By listening, we create the space to solve problems and form loving relationships with those around us.
Stale Incumbents Perpetuate Distrust
Low trust levels in America benefit groups like “stale incumbents,” who maintain their positions by fostering distrust and resisting change.
In a society where trust levels are low and have been falling for decades, have you ever wondered who stands to gain from this pervasive and persistent distrust?
My hypothesis is this: low trust isn’t just a social ill—it’s a profitable venture for some. Over the years, I’ve noticed different groups that seem to benefit from distrust, both within organizations and across our culture. In this post, I’ll share my observations and explore who profits from distrust. If you have your own observations or data, please share them as we delve into this critical issue together.
Adversaries
The first group that benefits from low trust is straightforward: our adversaries. Distrust and infighting often go hand in hand. It’s much easier to defeat a rival, whether in the market, in an election, in a war, or in a race for positioning, when they are busy fighting among themselves and imploding from within.
Brokers
Another group that profits from distrust are brokers. Though they often don’t have bad intentions, brokers make a living by filling the gap that distrust creates. By “broker,” I mean someone who advocates on our behalf in an untrusting or uncertain environment. This could be a real estate agent, someone who vouches for us as a business partner, a friend who sets people up on blind dates, or someone whose endorsement wins us favor with others.
Mercenaries
Mercenaries are a less well-intentioned version of brokers. These people paint a dark picture of a distrustful world and then offer to fight for us or provide protection—for a price. Mercenaries never portray themselves as such, even if that’s what they really are.
Aggregators
Aggregators are people or organizations that build a reputation for being consistently trustworthy, especially when their rivals are not. Essentially, they aggregate trust and communicate it as a symbol of value. A good example of aggregators are fast food brands. When traveling abroad, people trust an American fast food chain to be clean, consistent, and reasonably priced. Many brands across industries thrive because they’ve built a trustworthy reputation.
These groups are fairly straightforward, and many of you might find these categories intuitive and relatable. However, they didn’t seem to cover enough ground to explain the persistent low trust levels in our culture. As I thought more about it, I realized that the largest group benefiting from distrust might be hidden in plain sight…
Stale Incumbents
Now, let’s consider the largest group that might be benefiting from distrust: stale incumbents.
Imagine someone you’ve worked with who always slows down projects. They resist learning new things and believe in sticking to the old ways. They’re nice, but their team never meets deadlines or finishes projects—they always have a believable excuse. This person is a stale incumbent.
More specifically, a stale incumbent is someone in a position who is out of ideas or motivation to innovate. Their ability to keep their job depends on everyone being stuck in the status quo. Here’s how it works:
They get into a comfortable position.
They stop learning and trying new things.
They run out of ideas because they stopped learning.
They try to hide and let new ideas fade.
They allow distrust and low standards to settle in.
When new people ask questions, they blame distrust: “It’s not my fault; others aren’t cooperating.”
They make the status quo seem inevitable, doing the minimum to keep their position and discourage change.
They repeat steps 4-7.
Stale incumbents need distrust to hide behind. They want to keep their comfortable position but have no new ideas because they stopped learning. A culture of distrust is the perfect scapegoat: it can’t argue back, and people think it can’t be changed, so they stop asking questions and give up. The distrust also makes it harder for new people to show up, innovate, annd expose the stale incumbent.
Ultimately, stale incumbents can keep their jobs while delivering mediocre results. This staleness spreads, making the culture of distrust harder to reverse because more stale incumbents depend on it. It’s a cycle of mediocrity, not anger and fear.
I don’t have experimental data, but I do have decades of regular observation draw from. I believe stale incumbents help explain the persistent low trust in America. Many people started with energy but never found allies, and the stale culture assimilated them.
The good news is there’s hope. If distrust is due to stale incumbents rather than malicious actors, we may not face much resistance in bringing about change. The path to change is clear: bring in energetic people and help them bring others along. It’s hard, but not complicated. By fostering a culture of learning, innovation, and trust, we can break the cycle of mediocrity and create a more trusting and dynamic society.
To my old friends
I think of you more than I let on.
Occasionally, we will bump into each other at a game or perhaps at the market. Or, we’ll be in your town and none of our kids will be sick and we’ll meet up at a park.
And maybe, it’ll be on a zoom call with all our pals who can make it. Or, perhaps in one of its fleeting uses, Facebook will remind me that it’s your birthday.
One of my sons, after awhile will ask, “how do you know them, Papa?”
And I’ll get to say one of the phrases in the whole of the English language that is the most special to me:
“We’re old friends.”
I am lucky enough to have old friends from three places I’ve lived: Rochester, Ann Arbor, and Detroit. We’ve lived in Detroit for 13 years this fall, longer than I’ve lived anywhere and certainly long enough to be “old friends.”
I was laid up sick this weekend, and as my fever was peaking above 103 degrees and I didn’t even have the energy to fall asleep, I listened to Ben Rector’s live album, thought of you, and wept - like I am now. How I miss you, so desperately.
I think of you so much more than I let on. I am so sorry that it can be years sometimes before I’ll pop up out of my hole. I’m so sorry I’m not better.
The reason why, is one I owe you.
My dreams have come true. All I ever wanted, I realize now, was a family. And we have one. It has been a beautiful, messy, hilarious, journey. Here, tucked away in Detroit, my life has been made.
I want to be here, in my hole, soaking up every moment.
There’ll be times when I’m about to text or call and one of my sons will rope me into a soccer game in our basement. We’ll laugh. And then it’ll be bedtime, and then it’s dishes time, and then I’ll be wiped but glowing with happiness as Robyn and I spend 30m together if we can - and the moment will have passed.
I don’t mean this to be an excuse, but it is a reason.
So to my old friends, I miss you. I love you very much, and will think of you often - I promise.
Until we meet again,
Neil
Days Like These: A Father’s Wish
I wish for another day where we celebrate at a table more crowded than the year before.
I forget sometimes how large I loom in their world. But on this Father’s Day, I am reminded of it, and it’s something I don’t want to forget.
All my sons put so much effort and care into my Father’s Day present. It helped me remember that, no matter who you are, as a young kid, the people who raise you are your whole world. Mothers and fathers are just…giants to a kid. All children explore this, fascinated and in awe. That’s why all kids put on their parents’ shoes and mittens and walk around in them.
“Maybe someday,” we wish, “these will fit and I’ll get the chance to be like them.”
Mothers and fathers are giants to a kid.
This is such a gift of love, not just for our joy and hearts but for the people we will become in the future.
I’ve been thinking about how this year, on my birthday, my perception of age changed. When we’re young, the first change comes when you realize how awesome it will be to be older: bigger, stronger, and more free. Then you hit the invincibility years of your twenties, wishing to stay 27 or 28 forever.
Next come the years of control—or lack thereof, I suppose. There’s not enough money, not a good enough job, the kids grow up too quickly, and you find yourself nervously joking about the increasing gray in your hair or talking about revisiting old haunts to recapture fleeting youth.
Then my 37th birthday hit, and my perception of age changed again. It was a birthday where I thought, “Damn, I’m just glad to be here for it.”
Why? Because I became very conscious of how our table grew more crowded this year, not less. This year, we’ve added children, brothers, and sisters to our table of friends and family. And we lost almost nobody. I’m old enough now to realize how rare and precious birthdays like this one will be from here on out.
So yes, when I blew out the candles on my pineapple birthday cake this year, my wish was: “Thank you, God, for letting me celebrate this birthday. My wish is for my next birthday to be like this one, with our table more crowded, not less.”
One of my greatest fears about death now is not the pain, suffering, and uncertainty that surrounds it—though that’s still a real fear. I have started to fear that a birthday will come—especially if my friends and family are gone, and I’m the last one standing—where I won’t wish for another one.
That’s the final change in our perception of age: moving from a place of peace and gratitude for our life—where we’re just happy to be here—to hoping for death to come peacefully, but also soon. I don’t want to ever slip into that last phase of age. I hope this last birthday, where I was just happy to be here and hoped for another birthday, is the last time my perception of age meaningfully changes.
No matter what happens, I know today that I have mattered to my sons. Days like these, marked by little celebrations and small gestures of love, remind us that we mattered to someone—whether it was our kids, friends, family, colleagues, or neighbors—that we loomed large.
These little Father’s Day gifts, like the ones I received today, are more than just presents. They are symbols we can hold onto as we age, reminders that we loved and were loved. These symbols of love will always give me hope and a feeling of worth, a reason to keep wishing for more birthdays. Because we were loved once, there’s always hope that each day we wake up, there will be that light of love again—whether it comes to us or is the light we carry and gift to others.
Adding a 'Thank You' to Gratitude Journaling
Adding a simple "Thank you" to my daily gratitude journal has transformed my outlook, making me more humble, connected, and motivated to spread love and support to others.
Almost a decade ago, my wife Robyn introduced me to the practice of keeping a gratitude journal. Over the years, I experimented with different methods, including a four-part gratitude exercise. However, I've found that the simpler version—writing down three things I'm grateful for each day—resonates most with me. Recently, I made a small yet profound modification to this practice.
At the end of each gratitude, I add a simple “Thank you” to acknowledge the forces and people making my life better. This small change has significantly impacted my daily gratitude practice, and I recommend trying it if you keep a gratitude journal.
First, it’s humbling. Giving “credit” for the good things in my life makes me realize the generosity and care others are capable of. I am often in awe of their talents, grace, and how they share both with me.
Second, I feel loved—the opposite of alone. Every time I write the name of someone who has done something—knowingly or unknowingly—for me, it’s as if I feel that person giving me a hug or a smile. With a stroke of a pen, writing the name of another person in gratitude builds a feeling of love in my heart and reminds me that no matter what I think or what is happening around me, I am not alone.
Interestingly, I can’t always articulate something specific to acknowledge in my daily gratitude. Sometimes, all I can think to thank is the universe, the culture, God, or the Earth. It’s a reminder of how expansive human life can be and breaks me out of the minutiae of the daily grind. It helps me reach a headspace where small things remain small and the traces of bigger things emerge.
This emergence of these bigger forces is motivating. It makes me want to forget about the narrow and childish things that can often consume too much of my energy. When I remember that there are forces out there conspiring to make my life joyous, it makes me want to add a dollop of untraceable love and support out into the universe for others.
Ultimately, this is the broadest lesson from adding a “thank you” to my daily gratitude: by thanking the people behind my blessings, it helps me to think of and make sacrifices for others myself. If we are trying to be good people in the toughest moments, this is exactly the motivation we need to cultivate.
15 Slow Seconds Is Enough
This is your excuse to get back to the here and now.
Instead of taking 5 minutes to read my blog post this week, please take 15 seconds to just take a pause. Notice something so that you can make a memory of where you are right now.
The reason for this deliberate non-post? It’s because one of the building blocks of human bonding is attention. Relationships only form when we pay attention. Love blossoms in the here and now.
I remembered this after attending a very special family wedding where the bride and groom gave us the gift of presence by asking for the ceremony to be phone-free.
This is an image of a dog offering up a glass of water. Take one more brief moment to look at it and plant it firmly in your mind.
Now, when you and I inevitably see a dog or a glass of water this summer, let’s use it as a trigger which gives us the permission to take 15 seconds, shake out of whatever we were thinking about, and get back to the present moment.
Once we’re back to the here and now we’re ready for love and fellowship.
Doing Strategy in Politics
Don’t give me a platform without a vision first!
Here’s my thought experiment for how we might do political visioning in America, grounded in the aspirations of the entire polity.
The first bit is a good illustration of how I think about the American Dream. But for what it’s worth, I mean this post more as an exercise in how to “do” politics differently than just having a platform on 50+ issues that matter to the polity and shouting about it as loud as you can - not an unpacking of my own vision.
My main consternation as a citizen is this: I don’t want a policy platform unless you’ve shared a bona fide vision first! Rather than just griping, I figured I’d actually explain how I think things could work instead.
And, for what it’s worth, this is how I’ve seen great organizations function across sectors. This sort of discipline around strategy and execution is one of the things I most wish the public sector would adopt from private sector organizations and business school professors.
To start, let’s assume a visionary political leader believes these are the three overarching questions that unify the largest possible amount of our polity:
On average, do people have enough optimism about the present and future to want to bring children into this world?
On average, once someone is brought into this world, do they flourish from cradle to grave?
Overall, the simplest and most comprehensive way to measure the health of a society is Total Fertility Rate vs. replacement rate. Is our long-run population stable, growing, or declining?
Thinking about the fundamental need gripping the polity is key. I think whether or not people want to reproduce is a good bellwether of a LOT and therefore a good framework for contemplating political issues at a national level.
A vision statement based on these questions could be:
I imagine a country where our citizens believe it’s worth bringing children into the world and have reasonable confidence that those children will flourish during their lifetimes.
A vision statement statement has to describe the world after you’ve succeeded from the POV of the citizen, not the work itself.
A pithy slogan / mission (which does sharply focus and describe the work itself) to capture the essence of this vision statement could be:
“Families will thrive here.”
Let’s assume this is a vision / mission statement that the polity believes in. If so, then the political leader can translate their rhetoric into action by asking two simple questions:
Is the vision true today?
If not, what would have to be true for the vision to become reality?
From there, a political leader can create an integrated set of mutually reinforcing policy and administrative choices that they believe will allow the polity to make disproportionate progress toward the vision state.
Put another way, by working backwards from the vision, you can place bets on the initiatives that are more likely to succeed rather than wasting resources on those that won’t get us to where we agreed we want to go.
The problem with this approach is that you actually have to articulate a vision, understand the root causes that are preventing it from happening without intervention, do the extremely abstract work of forming a strategy, and then communicate it clearly enough so that people get behind it. That’s really hard, and you have to have major guts to go through this exercise of vision -> strategy -> priorities -> outcomes.
This is quite different, I think, than simply articulating a pro-con list of policy preferences across a widely distributed set of issue areas that aren’t contemplated in an integrated way. But the thing is, having focus and priorities tends to work much better than “boiling the ocean” or “being all things to all people.”
To be fair, I’ve seen some contemporary politicians operate this way. Not many though.
In a nutshell, one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned from observing the leadership of private-sector companies is that it’s a big waste to just start doing stuff in a way that’s not integrated and focused—as if every possible initiative is equally impactful. It works much better when you start with a specific end state in mind and work backwards. It’s an idea that’s useful for political leaders, too.
Mastering the Mind: How Artists and Athletes Think and Feel Simultaneously
Elite artists and athletes excel by mastering the simultaneous ability to think strategically and feel deeply.
Have you ever wondered what sets elite artists and athletes apart from the rest of us? I sure have.
Over the years, I’ve reflected on their mindsets, which, on the surface, appear quite different. (Check out this post on athletes and this one on artists).
But there’s at least one big thing that elite artists and athletes have in common: they can think and feel at the same time. Let’s take the example of a tennis player and a stage actor.
A tennis player has to think and make snap decisions with every stroke, fluidly, in real-time. When you’re playing tennis, you’re constantly thinking about your game plan, your opponent, the match's momentum, and your tactical strategy—and then putting it into action on every single point.
Additionally, a tennis player must manage their emotions because the sport is an emotional roller coaster. Clinging to bad shots or failing to ride the momentum can hinder their performance. To be a great tennis player, you have to be able to think and feel at the same time.
Consider a moment in a high-stakes tennis match. The player is down a set and facing a break point. The crowd holds its breath as the player takes a deep breath, silencing the noise in their mind. In that instant, they must trust their training and instincts, feeling the weight of the moment while calculating their next move.
A stage actor must also access their emotions. Characters become believable and storytelling compelling only when it comes from a genuine emotional place. As a stage actor, you have to delve deep into your inner world to tap the emotional reservoir necessary for an outstanding performance.
At the same time, a stage actor has to think deeply. The actor has to think about their lines and their cues, of course. But also, the stage actor has to think about their technique, body movements, intonation, and their interplay with all the other actors onstage - especially if something goes wrong and the ensemble has to start improvising. To be a great stage actor, you have to think and feel at the same time.
This skill of simultaneous thinking and feeling applies to many domains of our lives. As a parent, we have to think about our actions and principles while deeply empathizing with and listening to our children. At work, we have to think analytically about problems but feel and attune to human dynamics and emotions within our teams. This skill - which artists and athletes possess - is broadly applicable.
The trick lies in the “how.” How do we cultivate this dual skill of thinking and feeling simultaneously?
As I contemplate this, I think of two martial artists who spar inside our heads: “The Thinker” and “The Feeler.” The key, I believe, is letting these fighters go at it. Not in an antagonistic way, but in a symbiotic, we’re-on-the-same-team, iron-sharpens-iron kind of way when we do hard stuff.
In practice, this means two things. First, we have to do novel, challenging things. We need new, difficult stuff for The Thinker and The Feeler to work on. Maybe it’s a new project at work, or training for a race, or resolving to be a more patient parent.
Second, we have to ensure that The Thinker and The Feeler aren’t just going through the motions. We can’t let ourselves go on autopilot and do things the way we always do. The Thinker has to be trying new stuff to become a better thinker, and The Feeler has to be trying new stuff to be a better feeler. In any novel situation where we’re trying to “train,” we should periodically ask ourselves, "Am I on autopilot, just going through the motions? Should I be?"
If we aim for excellence in any field—be it artistry, athletics, parenting, or our vocation—we cannot afford to be pushovers. We need The Thinker and The Feeler in our minds to be strong, agile sparring partners, ready to tackle any challenge in real-time. By continuously training both, we forge a path to mastery.
Comfort Reveals Character: Like Adversity, Ease Defines Us
Comfort reveals our true character just as much as adversity does, challenging us to maintain our integrity in times of ease.
How we react to adversity is a true reflection of our character, revealing our true selves when challenges arise—this is a familiar adage that holds much truth.
However, the times of ease and abundance in our lives—moments when we are most comfortable—also define us, yet these periods receive far less scrutiny. This week, I've come to realize that our actions during these comfortable times are equally telling. When the pressure is off, and we are left to our own devices with resources at hand, who do we choose to be? This question, I believe, is as crucial as how we face adversity, for it sheds light on the values we hold dear even when no one is compelling us to uphold them.
The Challenge of Super Comfort
I might become super comfortable for various reasons. Perhaps I’ve fallen into some money, achieved sustainable wealth, gained mastery in my job, or it’s simply sunny and I’m on vacation. Maybe I’ve just gotten a promotion or been recognized for some sort of award. Maybe one of my posts has gone viral, and I’m currently "the it guy" because of it. How do I act then?
Do I lose my hunger to be a better man? Do I let my standards slide? Do I forget about the injustices others face because this mojito I’m palming is just that hypnotizing? Do I take the day off from my duties because I feel like I’m above doing the work in the trenches now that I’ve "made it"? Do I stop diving for the metaphorical loose ball? Will my tastes get more expensive simply because they can, or will I remain the same guy from the schoolyard who went out and worked for it every day and put the team ahead of himself?
When things are rolling my way and I’m super comfortable, who am I going to be? When I feel like I’ve made it, will the game be about "me" or will I walk the walk on it being about "we"?
How We Can Manage Super Comfort
Dealing with super comfort is a real issue, not confined to stratospheric levels of wealth or social status. Owning a house, maintaining a retirement account, having a respected job, and enjoying paid vacation days—these are signs of 'super comfort' accessible to many, not just the super-rich. And here's the crux: I don’t want comfort to corrupt my character.
I've always cared about more than my own comfort, tracing back to when I joined the Brooklands Elementary student council at nine years old. I still aspire to be that hopeful, gregarious lad who believed that serving others was time well spent. Honestly, I don’t want to fade into a life of super comfort and become a self-indulgent navel-gazer. When I enjoy a lazy, restorative moment, I want it to be just that—a moment. Once it passes, I aim to return to something bigger than comfort.
So, if we care about our character and the impact we have on others and our corner of the world, this question is vital: How do we not let super comfort corrupt who we are?
It starts with a strong sense of who we are and what we care about unconditionally. We must literally post our deep convictions on our wall so we can't ignore them once we've 'made it.' Moreover, we must be wary of gated communities. The term 'gated community' often brings to mind exclusive residential areas that are physically gated off from the surrounding world, but it also applies to social circles and activities that are metaphorically gated through economic, cultural, or educational barriers.
True inclusive spaces are those accessible to everyone. To prevent our comfort from corrupting us, we must actively engage with these places. It's not just about avoiding country clubs or luxury suites at stadiums; it's about ensuring our daily environments—coffee shops, churches, date nights—are not so elite and self-selecting that we go weeks without having our comfort zones challenged. It's about choosing to leave the bubbles of our grad school networks and being open to interactions with diverse groups of people at the grocery store or our kids’ soccer games. The only real inclusive spaces are those that everyone can access, and to prevent corruption through comfort, we must show up in those places.
Super comfort becomes normal when we detach from public life and limit our social interactions to these private, exclusive spaces. It’s easy to indulge in comfort and rationalize elitist behaviors when we only inhabit specific slices of our world.
This is a bit of a rant, and that’s because this idea of corruption through comfort is new to me. How we act when we face adversity defines us, obviously. But how we act when we are faced with super comfort matters just as much. Maybe even more so, because in the throes of being comfortable is when we are most likely to make an exception to the standards of character we have set for ourselves.
Maybe it’s not novel for you, but it is novel for me: I have to fight the effects of super comfort, and that starts by even acknowledging this idea that how we act when we are super comfortable requires introspection and scrutiny.
Just as our character is defined by how we act in moments of adversity, it’s also defined by how we act in the moments where adversity is furthest away.
I’ve fallen in love, again and again.
Every new season brings a fresh chance to fall in love again. Over the years, my marriage has taught me that love deepens and renews itself, unveiling its beauty time and again.
The years in my mid-twenties, when Robyn and I fell in love, were some of the best of my life. Looking back, that whole time felt like a smile.
Eight years ago this week, Robyn and I were wed at an old Jesuit church in downtown Detroit. This was the Gospel reading we chose, Matthew 7:24-25:
"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock."
We chose this reading deliberately. Fresh off the sudden passing of my father three months before our wedding day, we had already been through the gales and floods of a big storm. The notion of “in good times and bad” wasn’t just an abstract concept to us—our young relationship had already lived through both.
We had at least some notion of the good and bad days ahead. We knew that there would be more death and grief ahead. We didn’t know exactly what parenting would be like, but we did have some idea of the intense joy and struggle it would entail.
We knew that jobs would come and go with varying levels of stress and accomplishment. We knew that we’d have fun passing time around Detroit with friends and neighbors. And, perhaps most importantly, we knew that “family first” would be a guiding principle for our life together, and with that commitment would come love and sacrifice.
We chose that passage for our wedding Gospel reading because we wanted to anchor our marriage into the “rock” of God and love so we could celebrate the good days and weather the bad days we knew would come.
We didn’t know exactly what was coming or when, but we knew it would.
All that said, something happened over the last 8 years that I never predicted, and honestly, it completely blindsided me.
I never imagined, after that first season of falling in love, that I’d fall in love with Robyn again. That I’d feel that rush of romance after we had long passed the days of being love birds and our honeymoon phase.
But I have. As we’ve lived through each new season of our life together, I’ve fallen in love with Robyn again and again.
And I’m so grateful.
The reason why this happened is simple: we’ve each changed, a lot. Of course, our core principles remain intact. But holy cow, so much has happened these past 8 years. The entire context in which our lives are set has changed, how could we not be different people?
All this change has made things novel and fresh. It has given us an opportunity to fall in love again and again, in every new season. That’s a choice: we’re choosing to grow together instead of apart, and that has perhaps made falling in love the second, third, and fourth times even more exciting and beautiful than the first.
And what a silver lining that is.
Because I know I’m getting older. I see it and feel it regularly. Like when with each new haircut I notice a few more grey hairs. Or in how my hangovers are less frequent, but last much longer.
All these are mile markers that remind me that every day I’m a day closer to the end of this beautiful life.
But damn. It makes aging so much more bearable to know that as we grow old we are growing older together. And that as our seasons change we will get to fall in love several more times throughout our life.
If we must trade our youth for age, it is a blessing to realize that we get this gift to fall in love, again and again.
Maybe I Should Just Shut Up
Reflecting on the struggles and revelations of parenting: sometimes the best thing we can do is just stay back and let our kids figure things out on their own.
My conclusion after a slump of parenting was this: Maybe I should just shut up.
Maybe my meddling between two sons, who have infinitely more experience in what it’s like to have a brother, isn’t helping. Unless they’re drawing blood, breaking bones, or veering into legitimate cruelty, maybe I should keep doing the dishes and let the hollering in our basement work itself out.
Maybe I’ve taken what Dr. Becky taught me a little too far. I should help narrate and put some scaffolding on their big feelings, sure. But maybe I can let him freak out for at least 20 seconds before I interfere and force his heart rate to lower through me and my adult voice. Maybe I can just sit here with him and just breathe for a minute, before I say something that he’s trying to express and feel himself.
Maybe if my reaction to whatever just happened carries the tone that I’m older, smarter, and more arrogant—believing my son is being ridiculous—I should take my own advice and shut up if I don’t have anything nice to say or if I can’t say it kindly right now.
Maybe when they’re excited about something—like a goal they scored, a word they learned to read, or a bug they saw on the playground—I can just smile eagerly. I don’t have to rattle off details like Wikipedia, make their moment mine, or turn it into something teachable. Maybe I can just look at them, give them my attention with my whole body, and smile eagerly.
It turns out, for an external processor of feelings and thoughts like me, learning to keep my mouth shut long enough to let a pause pass was really hard. But it turns out, it freaking works.
I always worry about letting them struggle to the point of developing depression, anxiety, or God forbid, a hopelessness dangerous enough to invite self-harm.
Yes, I need to not cross that line.
But damn, it turns out I could have avoided many of the worst moments, where I’ve been the worst version of myself, by shutting my mouth, opening my ears, and letting things linger a little before I shift into “dad mode.”
They’re smart, good, and capable young men—already. As difficult as it is to let them grow forward, something they might need from me is to stay nearby, with love waiting, but also quietly.
Sometimes, the greatest act of love for them today, and for our future selves where we’re all grown men, is to just shut up.
Exponential Talent Development
What would have to be true for every person to contribute 100% of their potential to the world?
Most of us have a HUGE gap between the impact we actually make and what we are capable of.
Asking myself (and my teammates) this question helps me put it in perspective: How would you rate yourself on a scale from 1 to 100?
A 100 represents making the highest possible impact that your talent and potential allow.
A 1 represents completely wasting the opportunity to positively contribute to the world.
I think most of us, myself included, are much lower on this scale than we realize—maybe a 20 or 30 at best. This realization begs the question: Why is there such a discrepancy, and what can we do about it?
In my experience, there are three reasons we leave vast amounts of our talent and potential untouched. First, we may never be challenged enough to use it. Second, we're not in the right contexts to let our strengths shine. Third, we may not have the support we need to develop the untapped talent we possess.
If we were all fully auto-didactic, we’d have no problem. That's because an auto-didact can fully teach and develop themselves. But none of us are completely auto-didactic; we all need others' help to develop ourselves so that we make our fullest contributions.
Introducing Exponential Skills
The difficulty in fully developing ourselves and others is relevant in many contexts. In professional settings, we call this challenge "talent development." In family settings, it’s "parenting." In community spheres, it's "mentorship" in secular contexts and "faith formation" in spiritual ones. In all domains of our lives, fulfilling and contributing the totality of our potential to the world matters.
The question I like to ask to really push my thinking is: What would have to be true for everyone in the world to develop and contribute 100% of their potential? As I’ve reasoned through this, the only way we get to the point of the world contributing 100% of their talent is through an exponential feedback loop where the number of people helping others to grow and develop increases exponentially.
To make the jump to create a society with an exponential feedback loop for talent development, let me define some terms and introduce some concepts:
We are all contributors who bring our talent and potential to the world. Some of us contribute by making art, others by building bridges, creating knowledge, making cakes, or making decisions. In mathematical terms, think of this as a constant: c.
A coach is a contributor who also helps develop others. Coaches are a big deal because they help others close the gap between their potential and their contribution. Think of this as x(c), where x is the number of people a coach is able to develop.
A linear coach is a coach who also helps develop other people into coaches. Think of this as mx(c), where m is the number of other coaches the linear coach creates.
An exponential coach is a linear coach whose coaching tree goes on in perpetuity: the people I coach become coaches, and then those people create more coaches, and those people create more coaches, and so on. Think of this as (mx(c))^n, where n is the number of generations an exponential coach is able to influence the cycle of creating more coaches.
Visually, I think of it like this:
Barriers To Creating Exponential Coaches
To create exponential coaches, several significant challenges need addressing. These challenges revolve around how we internalize and transmit knowledge, and the intrinsic motivations behind our contributions.
Challenge 1: Recognition Gap — The further you get from a contributor, the less credit you get for your work. This recognition gap can demotivate those who do not see immediate returns on their efforts. Solution: To overcome this, we must cultivate inner motivation and focus on long-term impact rather than immediate recognition. Developing a sense of purpose that transcends acknowledgment allows leaders to dedicate themselves to creating a lineage of coaches, thus prioritizing legacy over accolades.
Challenge 2: Complex Idea Communication — For an idea to spread, the messenger must internalize it sufficiently to simplify and communicate it effectively. This requires a deep understanding of both the intellectual and emotional aspects of the idea. Solution: Coaches need to engage in profound introspection to grasp the nuances of their knowledge and experiences fully. This depth of understanding enables them to articulate these concepts clearly and simply, making them accessible and teachable.
Challenge 3: Teaching to Teach — Teaching others to teach is a complex task that involves not only passing on knowledge but also instilling the value and methodology of teaching itself. This requires a reflective understanding of one’s own teaching practices. Solution: Coaches should introspect on their teaching methods and motivations, understanding them deeply enough to convey their importance to others. This process ensures that the coaches they develop can, in turn, teach effectively, perpetuating a cycle of self-replication in coaching practices.
Mastering these challenges not only enhances our own potential but also multiplies our impact exponentially across our communities and industries.
Where Do We Even Start?
On a personal note, the person I call Nanna is not my grandmother by birth but rather by love; she's my father-in-law's mother. During a trip to England a few years ago, I asked her about the secret to a long and healthy life. Here are the highlights of what she said:
Make time for family, faith, and community.
Stay active; keep your body moving, whether it’s through dancing, walking a dog, or any other physical activity.
Find a way to express yourself—through music, art, writing, knitting, making movies, having a book club, or any other form—because expression is crucial to mental and emotional health.
That last imperative is so deeply intertwined with introspection. Isn’t expression just a word that means exploring our inner world and then sharing it outside of ourselves? We have to express to be sane and healthy.
I know this post is heady and meta. I’ve been thinking about this concept for months, and I’ve only just synthesized enough to share a muddy morsel of it. A fair question to ask is: Where, in the real world, do we even start?
For inspiration on where to start on our own journeys to become exponential coaches, we can take heed from Nanna. She was onto something.
To become an exponential coach, we have to introspect and express. And to introspect and express, we have to find a medium that works for us and allows us to explore our inner world. And once we find it, we have to just practice with that medium, over and over.
For me, that medium is writing. For others, it might be painting, photography, singing, or making pottery. For others still, it might be talking honestly with a good friend, praying, or starting a podcast.
The medium doesn’t really matter, as long as we just do it. As long as we take that time to introspect and express. That’s the first step we all can take to grow toward becoming exponential coaches. Expression is the first step to becoming an exponential coach.
'I'm So Busy': A Signal of Organizational Distrust
‘I’m so busy’ usually means something much different.
I cringe whenever I ask someone “how’s it going” and they reply back with, 'I'm soooo busy.’.
Sometimes, it’s stated sincerely. But too often it’s a humblebrag, a ploy to assert status, or a facade for someone who really isn’t accomplishing much of anything. For instance, a colleague might constantly mention their packed schedule in meetings and emails, yet their actual output barely reflects the supposed busyness.
Almost always, “I’m busy" is not what someone actually means. When I hear, 'I've been so busy…,' I often wonder if what they really mean is something like:
“I don’t know what’s actually most important, so I’m doing a little of everything.”
“I want you to think I’m important, so I’m going to act like I am by giving the appearance that people have asked me to do a lot of stuff.”
“I don’t know how to delegate or coach people, so I’m doing everything myself.”
“Our organization doesn’t value results, just the appearance of results so I have to make it seem like I’m working really hard.”
“Our culture isn’t trusting, and I’m afraid to be transparent and specific with you about my job.”
“I don’t trust you enough or have the time for you now, so I’m making polite small talk about something other than the weather.”
“I’ve given up because no matter how hard I try, my leadership doesn’t make a decision or ever say no to anything.”
“I don’t know what my job actually is so I’m taking shots in the dark to try to put in an honest day’s work.”
“Help.”
I’m quite skeptical of the phrase “I’m just sooo busy.” This phrase often serves as coded language for deeper issues. I avoid using it to ensure my words match my true intentions, and perhaps you should too.
While 'I'm just sooo busy' might seem trivial, it often masks deeper issues of mistrust and miscommunication within an organization. By saying one thing but meaning another, employees reveal a culture that does not support straightforward, honest dialogue. This should concern us all—not just as a nuisance but as a symptom of larger, systemic problems.
Hearing this phrase shouldn’t just pass by unnoticed. It should prompt us to adopt a more curious and compassionate approach, asking ourselves: What is really being said here? And why isn't there room for honesty?
Let’s challenge ourselves and our workplaces to foster a culture where transparency and trust are the norm, not the exception. What would have to be true for your organization to become a place where 'I'm busy' is no longer a common response?
Honoring Love That Can’t Be Reciprocated
Children caring for aging elders is uniquely beautiful, precisely because often the child knows their love can’t be reciprocated.
A parent’s love and a child’s love are different.
A parent’s love for a child is, and ought to be, unconditional. Despite occasionally being angered or critical of our children’s antics, we, as parents, embraced this unwavering love as part of our commitment when starting a family.
I don’t think a child’s love for their parents is necessarily unconditional, nor should it be. For example, if I abused my kids, they certainly shouldn’t love me unconditionally.
What I realized this week, as I’ve observed aging family members up close and from afar, is the concept of unreciprocated love. A child’s love for their elders may be unreciprocated—unable to be returned as those elders age and lose their mental and physical capacities. This unreciprocated love so often shown by children to their aging elders is courageous, thankless, and uncommonly special.
Sometimes, as our elders age—our parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and godparents—they might not have the capacity to love us back in the ways they once did. They may become too weak to hug, kiss, or care for us as they did when we were younger. In the most cruel of possibilities, they may not even recognize the person in front of them who is offering love and care. They may want to reciprocate the love they’re receiving, but there may come a time when our older loved ones simply can’t.
Fourteen percent of the population, equating to 37.1 million people, provide unpaid eldercare in the United States, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). In our culture, and especially in the workplace, the caregiving these people do is invisible. Being a parent, on the other hand, is very visible and at least a little bit supported. Even though the US lags behind the rest of the world in workplace policies related to families, parenting is at least visible and acknowledged.
Adult caregiving is much less visible, supported, or even understood to be a reality that millions of people live with every day. It seems, sometimes, that we often forget that adult caregiving even exists.
In my writing, I often talk about parenting and its immense struggles. I’m a parent, so I unsurprisingly over-index there.
Today, I’d like to put us aside as parents and pause to be grateful for the children, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews who are caring for older loved ones, even though that love and care might be unreciprocated. Even if we don’t celebrate it or value it broadly in our culture, I think we should at least acknowledge and name this very gracious sacrifice of unreciprocated love.
Let us hope and pray that we have the strength to care for someone even when they can’t reciprocate our love. And that we are good enough to our children that they are willing to love us when our love for them is unconditional, yes, but cannot be reciprocated.
How to Avoid Boondoggle Projects
Cut through project complexity with five essential questions that streamline focus and drive effective leadership, ensuring project success without the fluff.
I’ve spent too much of my life on absolute boondoggles of projects. Now, I know better.
To avoid boondoggle projects in any organization or team, these five questions must be clear to everyone (especially to me): who, what, to what end, why, and how.
Here they are:
Who are we serving? Answering this provides clarity on whose needs we really have to meet and who the judge of success and failure actually is. If we’re not clear on who is saying “thank you” at the end of all this, how can we do something magical for them?
To what end do we aspire? This clarifies what a successful mission looks like. The needle has to move on something; otherwise, why are we putting forth any effort?
What are we delivering? This clarifies the tangible thing we have to put in front of someone’s face or into their hands. If we’re not clear on what we’re building, aren’t we all just wasting our time?
Why does this matter? This clarifies the urgency and importance. If this doesn’t matter a lot, let’s respect ourselves enough to do something else that does.
How are we going to get from here to the end? This clarifies the process. If we don’t know how to get this done, will we ever finish?
Answering these five questions is the cheapest, simplest project charter you’ve ever had. If everyone on the team has the same answers to these questions, you’ll prevent the project from becoming a boondoggle.
If we’re part of leading a project, getting the team to clarity on these five questions is our job.
Love Strikes Back
When it seems all we can do is acquiesce to rage and cruelty, love strikes back.
In my mind's eye, one thing I often do is zoom out. I close my eyes, and like Google Earth, I start where I am and move outward.
First, I see our neighborhood, with its densely packed blocks and tree-lined streets. Then, I start to see the Detroit River and the border with Canada, and then the Mitten of Michigan. Soon, North America vanishes into the blue marble of the Earth.
And then, in my mind, I hit a galactic speed and imagine the spiral of the Milky Way, whirling about in front of me. Then our galaxy disappears and becomes a mere point of light, and all of a sudden, what I see in my mind's eye is the totality of the known universe spun in time. I am seeing every tiny thing that has ever lived or ever will live.
When I snap back and open my eyes, the same feeling and conclusion always come to me: we are all on the same team.
But with the widened perspective gifted to me by my mind's eye, the "we" does not just encompass my community, or even just the human race. It's bigger. This view is even broader than our Earth and the tiny planets of our galaxy. This “we” is every tiny, living thing, anywhere in the universe.
I have not encountered any living thing beyond the atmosphere of our pale blue dot. But I feel the faintest, yet enduring, unity with everything, everywhere. Because I cannot believe anything other than that every living thing in the universe shares one common conviction: that we want to live. And that common, universal belief—the desire to live—gives us common ground and puts us on the same team, even if only with the most delicate of adhesions.
As hopeful as this wider aperture makes me, I also weep from it. Because, at times, the world seems cruel and it seems as if nobody on Earth feels a common bond with any other living thing. Not a human, not a plant, nor an animal, let alone the life that may exist beyond our solar system.
There are even some people on this planet who do not even act as if their spouses or children are on the same team as them. Some even seem to deliberately generate distrust and sabotage any attempt at fellowship so they may profit from it. How could anyone choose to profit from breaking bonds of fellowship?
I think in the way our good Uncle Shakespeare put it in Sonnet 65: "How with all this rage shall beauty hold a plea, whose action is no stronger than a flower?"
The Battle
Our hearts have an aperture, just like our eyes. As the rage and cruelty around us intensify, the reflex of this aperture is to close, shielding ourselves from the siege and battery of the universe around us.
But the aperture can also do the opposite, open and widen so that we—the souls we are—can join with the universe around us, shining our love outward and allowing the light of others to come through the pupil and back to us.
Many days, I feel like I am losing the battle for this aperture. Like I am one man, struggling to keep my heart open; trying my best to be a good guy in a stressed out world, as I often say.
And yet, so many days I can’t get through the day without yelling at my kids or I feel the grip of greed and the addiction of ego. My heart closing with every swipe or scroll on my phone or fiscal year that passes.
I am at my most despondent, my absolute saddest, when I am losing the battle for my own heart and I know it. I want so badly to not let the rage out there win, but I so often feel and worry that it is.
Sometimes, even on the hardest days, I start to think about forfeiting and make excuses to relieve myself of this battle. I lie to myself with thoughts like, 'If I sell out and play the game, I'm just doing what everyone else is doing,' or 'There's no way but to fight fire with fire,' or, 'This is how the world works, it is what it is,' or worst 'I need to look out for myself…for the family,'" When these inner monologues hit, I come close to shutting the aperture of my heart—very close.
If you've lived a life like mine, and maybe even if you haven't, you're likely also battling for the aperture your own heart, trying to stand pat and stand gracefully, juxtaposing yourself with the seemingly endless supply of rage and cruelty around us. I think there may be tens of millions of us, battling in this way, quietly. Maybe you also come close to forfeiting sometimes.
But I always seems to get a reminder when I need one—to keep battling—maybe you do too.
Like today, I had a sudden urge to listen to this song, “Joe”, which is the story of an alcoholic who is trying and struggling to say sober…and he’s doing it. The song, as far as I can tell, is fictitious, but it still reminds me: there are others fighting for their own hearts—and winning.
The grace of being forgiven, reminds me too, to keep battling.
If I can blow my top and my sons still forgive me and show it by bringing me a paper to make a plane out of, asking me to play soccer, or offering me one of their grapes as a sign of peace—how can I not keep trying? The grace and forgiveness out of my own sons, who I have wronged, redeems me.
The is the story of the ages, it seems. We try to live, meet our crucible, and we come close to giving up our light. But then, we meet our Mentor, or someone finds love for us and catches us before the citadel in our hearts falls. And then, we find redemption and persist on our quest. Love, it seems, finds a way to strike back.
I honestly wrote this because I have been frayed at all ends and have felt my heart closing. For me, writing is a way to force, even if only slightly, the aperture of my heart back open. When my heart needs to open, I suppose this is what comes out of it.
I don’t have a pithy, triumphant conclusion to this essay. If I had to feign one because it makes for better reading—I’d be lying.
If you’re still reading this, something about this probably resonated with you, you may even be battling for the aperture of your own heart right now. Maybe, even, you feel like you are losing the battle.
That place, feels so lonely. The world we live in is so centered around projecting control and “with-it-ness” it doesn’t feel possible that anyone else is engaged in such a struggle. The battlefield for our hearts feels so lonely - like it’s us against the cruelty and rage of the whole world.
If nothing else, I hope this essay is proof that it’s not.There are so many of us battling to keep widening and opening the aperture of our own hearts.
Despite all this rage, beauty does hold a plea. Because love finds a way to remind us what we are fighting for and that we can win.
When rage and cruelty threaten, love strikes back.
In my mind's eye, one thing I often do is zoom out. I close my eyes, and like Google Earth, I start where I am and move outward.
First, I see our neighborhood, with its densely packed blocks and tree-lined streets. Then, I start to see the Detroit River and the border with Canada, and then the Mitten of Michigan. Soon, North America vanishes into the blue marble of the Earth.
And then, in my mind, I hit a galactic speed and imagine the spiral of the Milky Way, whirling about in front of me. Then our galaxy disappears and becomes a mere point of light, and all of a sudden, what I see in my mind's eye is the totality of the known universe spun in time. I am seeing every tiny thing that has ever lived or ever will live.
When I snap back and open my eyes, the same feeling and conclusion always come to me: we are all on the same team.
But with the widened perspective gifted to me by my mind's eye, the "we" does not just encompass my community, or even just the human race. It's bigger. This view is even broader than our Earth and the tiny planets of our galaxy. This “we” is every tiny, living thing, anywhere in the universe.
I have not encountered any living thing beyond the atmosphere of our pale blue dot. But I feel the faintest, yet enduring, unity with everything, everywhere. Because I cannot believe anything other than that every living thing in the universe shares one common conviction: that we want to live. And that common, universal belief—the desire to live—gives us common ground and puts us on the same team, even if only with the most delicate of adhesions.
As hopeful as this wider aperture makes me, I also weep from it. Because, at times, the world seems cruel and it seems as if nobody on Earth feels a common bond with any other living thing. Not a human, not a plant, nor an animal, let alone the life that may exist beyond our solar system.
There are even some people on this planet who do not even act as if their spouses or children are on the same team as them. Some even seem to deliberately generate distrust and sabotage any attempt at fellowship so they may profit from it. How could anyone choose to profit from breaking bonds of fellowship?
I think in the way our good Uncle Shakespeare put it in Sonnet 65: "How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, whose action is no stronger than a flower?"
The Battle
Our hearts have an aperture, just like our eyes. As the rage and cruelty around us intensify, the reflex of this aperture is to close, shielding ourselves from the siege and battery of the universe around us.
But the aperture can also do the opposite, open and widen so that we—the souls we are—can join with the universe around us, shining our love outward and allowing the light of others to come through the pupil and back to us.
Many days, I feel like I am losing the battle for this aperture. Like I am one man, struggling to keep my heart open; trying my best to be a good guy in a stressed-out world, as I often say.
And yet, so many days I can’t get through the day without yelling at my kids, or I feel the grip of greed and the addiction of ego. My heart closing with every swipe or scroll on my phone or fiscal year that passes.
I am at my most despondent, my absolute saddest, when I am losing the battle for my own heart and I know it. I want so badly to not let the rage out there win, but I so often feel and worry that it is.
Sometimes, even on the hardest days, I start to think about forfeiting and make excuses to relieve myself of this battle. I lie to myself with thoughts like, 'If I sell out and play the game, I'm just doing what everyone else is doing,' or 'There's no way but to fight fire with fire,' or, 'This is how the world works, it is what it is,' or worst, 'I need to look out for myself…for the family.' When these inner monologues hit, I come close to shutting the aperture of my heart—very close.
If you've lived a life like mine, and maybe even if you haven't, you're likely also battling for the aperture of your own heart, trying to stand pat and stand gracefully, juxtaposing yourself with the seemingly endless supply of rage and cruelty around us. I think there may be tens of millions of us, battling in this way, quietly. Maybe you also come close to forfeiting sometimes.
But I always seem to get a reminder when I need one—to keep battling—maybe you do too.
Like today, I had a sudden urge to listen to this song, “Joe”, which is the story of an alcoholic who is trying and struggling to stay sober…and he’s doing it. The song, as far as I can tell, is fictitious, but it still reminds me: there are others fighting for their own hearts—and winning.
The grace of being forgiven, reminds me too, to keep battling.
If I can blow my top and my sons still forgive me and show it by bringing me a paper to make a plane out of, asking me to play soccer, or offering me one of their grapes as a sign of peace—how can I not keep trying? The grace and forgiveness of my own sons, who I have wronged, redeems me.
This is the story of the ages, it seems. We try to live, meet our crucible, and we come close to giving up our light. But then, we meet our Mentor, or someone finds love for us and catches us before the citadel in our hearts falls. And then, we find redemption and persist on our quest. Love, it seems, finds a way to strike back.
I honestly wrote this because I have been frayed at all ends and have felt my heart closing. For me, writing is a way to force, even if only slightly, the aperture of my heart back open. When my heart needs to open, I suppose this is what comes out of it.
I don’t have a pithy, triumphant conclusion to this essay. If I had to feign one because it makes for better reading—I’d be lying.
If you’re still reading this, something about this probably resonated with you; you may even be battling for the aperture of your own heart right now. Maybe, even, you feel like you are losing the battle.
That place feels so lonely. The world we live in is so centered around projecting control and “with-it-ness” it doesn’t feel possible that anyone else is engaged in such a struggle. The battlefield for our hearts feels so lonely - like it’s us against the cruelty and rage of the whole world.
If nothing else, I hope this essay is proof that it’s not. There are so many of us battling to keep widening and opening the aperture of our own hearts.
Despite all this rage, beauty does hold a plea. Because love finds a way to remind us what we are fighting for and that we can win.
When rage and cruelty threaten, love strikes back.
We Yearn For The Next Mile of Freedom
Every generation yearns for that next mile toward freedom. So do we.
Before he died, my father would often tell me he came to this country for a better life. I think one of the things he meant was more freedom. One of his pains in his home country was that of corruption. An honest man like him struggled to live out his potential and make an honest living in his ancestral home.
And so he came here, in search of greater freedom and to live a better life. I have carried that yearning for freedom my whole life, probably because of his influence.
Luckily, in the United States in 2024, we enjoy a great many freedoms. We are not perfect, but much better than many alternatives. Namely, there are rights and liberties enshrined in our Constitution and laws, which outline the requests we may make of the state (rights) and the activities we may do without interference from the state (liberties).
Compared to 150 or 200 years ago, we can speak freely. We can assemble freely. We do have the right to a fair trial. We do have a much higher standard of living, and there are far fewer people living in abject poverty or dying from preventable diseases. These are good things.
However, it seems to me that there are still many constraints that encumber the freedom of regular, everyday people. These encumbrances are not imposed by the state. Rather, I mean the freedoms that are constrained by the way we treat each other or by the second and third-order effects of the way our economic, political, and social institutions are designed.
Here are some examples.
Many couples limit their family size for various reasons. These include financial constraints, limited access to childcare, long work hours, and a lack of support in emergencies. I feel this pressure as a parent, and it does constrain our choices. Is limiting family size based on cost, price, and support – despite living in the wealthiest society in the history of the world – really freedom?
We have tools for communication and affordable travel by road, rail, and air. Yet, we're lonely, depressed, and anxious at high rates. Suicide is a leading cause of death in some demographics and age groups. Sometimes it feels like having a therapist is a basic requirement to live a normal life in our stressed-out world. Is this really freedom?
Consider the workplace. Some of us endure bosses who mistreat us, steal credit, or even gaslight us. If they’re kind, they might still be incompetent, promoted beyond their capabilities. Every day we might endure this drudgery at work because we don’t have other options, or we’ve endured this treatment for so long that we think we are lesser than we are. Does this type of toxicity at work, where we spend thousands of hours a year, sound like freedom to you?
Something as mundane as driving brings its own fears. It's not just an accident that scares me, but the possibility of the other driver being armed and angry. In public, I never really know if a simple mistake or misunderstanding might lead to gun violence. Is this fear of moving about in public the freedom we envisioned?
And then there's the matter of conscience. Sometimes I feel so pessimistic about the prospects of future generations. We face an ecological crisis and a crisis of dysfunctional politics. I feel like every major institution has regular examples of corruption and scandal. I wonder: what kind of world will my descendants live in? Can I, in good conscience, bring children into this world? Is the toll our consciences take evidence of the freedom we were trying to build?
Is this really freedom? Are we really free yet? I don't think so. We have become so much more free in the past 200 years. And yet, this is not the freedom I envisioned.
These freedoms I'm questioning and longing for don't come solely from laws, regulations, and political institutions. There is, to be sure, improvement we can make in our laws, regulations, and institutions. But I wonder if improvements in institutions would suffer from diminishing marginal returns.
I think instead that this next mile of freedom will come not from changing our institutions but changing our character. The next mile of freedom, I think, will come from treating each other better – with more love, kindness, and goodness – which are generally beyond the reach of laws, regulations, and political institutions. Doing the work to trust each other is what I’m proposing, and trust can’t be legislated or litigated.
I am sitting here with greater freedom and privilege than even my grandfathers could have dreamed of as young men for the grandson they hadn’t yet begotten. And yet, I still do not feel free.
I yearn for freedom like I long for water when I’m thirsty or for my family and friends when I am lonely. Freedom, I think, is what allows people to thrive and for human societies to flourish. And despite all this wealth and despite the strength of our institutions and their improvement over the past 200 years, I still do not feel free.
At the same time, I think this is the nature of freedom. With each passing generation, we toil and work and negotiate and soul search to traverse a mile or two. When we are old, we look back, we are more free than where we started.
But as the generation we are eclipsing looks back, those of us up next look forward. We appreciate the distance we’ve come but look at the road ahead.
As I look out at this next mile ahead of us, I see some opportunity to continue the work of making political institutions more fair, perfect, and just sure. But more than that, I see the next mile of freedom as a journey of looking deep within, doing the inner work to grow our characters, purify our souls, and treat each other better.
Our next mile of freedom will be borne of the trust that our inner work creates. And I yearn for it.
This post, like many I write, is the sort of reflection that one would normally find in a personal journal, never to be shared. But I share this one because I don’t think I’m the only one who yearns for it. I think there are more of us that look out at the world in 2024 and think there’s more freedom than this.
Who are you, my friends, that yearn for it? If we want to traverse this next mile of freedom, we can’t just yearn for it individually; we must yearn for it together and openly.
If you also yearn for it, I would love to hear your story of where that yearning comes from and what the next mile of freedom is, as you see it. By sharing, I think we make it more possible that we will traverse this next mile in our lifetimes, in time for our children and our grandchildren, to look forward – to the next miles ahead.
Our Duty as Era-Spanners
Understanding the world before and after a major technological change creates an opportunity and obligation to guide how moral questions are answered.
Those of us that are mid-range millennials span eras. And that is important.
We have one foot in the era that pre-dates the internet. We remember personal computers that weren’t networked – whether it was Windows 3.1, DOS prompts, or Reader Rabbit software we had to install via a floppy disk.
We have another foot in the internet era. We remember that sound of telephone modems and “you’ve got mail” which ushered us into the networked age.
This is the same with mobile phones and social media. Just as we witnessed the transformation from landlines to smartphones, our generation experienced a dramatic shift in how we communicate and consume information. Those of us born within +/- 5 years of 1987 didn't just observe these changes; we lived them. We navigated from the simplicity of phone calls and printed newspapers to the complexities of instant messaging and social media feeds. This journey from dial-up connections to Wi-Fi, from bulky desktops to sleek smartphones, gives us a profound understanding of how these advancements have reshaped society.
Consider the children who are about 10 years old today. They are poised to become the next generation of era spanners, mirroring our experiences but with a different technological frontier: generative AI. This shift is akin to our transition from analog to digital, but for them, it's from digital to AI-driven. As with the journey we mid-range millennials undertook, these mid-range alphas will face even higher stakes. They will navigate a world where AI is not just a tool, but a fundamental part of daily life – shaping how they learn, interact, and understand the world. Our experiences can serve as a guiding light for them, showing the importance of adaptability and ethical considerations in a rapidly changing tech landscape.
The escalating power of technology underscores the critical need for strong moral character. It's not just about the tools we use; it's about who we are as we use them. As technology's reach extends, touching every aspect of our lives, it becomes imperative that those who wield these powerful tools – that's us – do so with a keen sense of ethics and responsibility. Our character shapes how we employ these technologies, whether to create and innovate for the betterment of society or, conversely, to cause harm. Hence, nurturing a well-rounded character is more than personal growth; it's a societal necessity.
Our place between the pre- and post-internet worlds is more than just a quirky fact. It places us in a unique position to understand both worlds. This insight is vital, not just for nostalgia, but for making sense of how we got here and where we're heading. We’re not just observers; we're interpreters, capable of seeing the implications of technological shifts from both sides. This perspective isn't just valuable – it’s essential for guiding the responsible use of technology. It’s about using our understanding to help steer things in a positive direction.
In essence, our role as mid-rangers is much like that of a bridge, connecting two different landscapes. This isn’t just about standing between two eras; it's about actively facilitating the journey from what was to what will be. It requires resilience, a firm understanding of both sides, and the foresight to navigate potential challenges. We’re not just passively spanning a gap – we’re actively ensuring a safe passage into the future. It’s a significant responsibility, one that calls for thoughtfulness and a commitment to guiding progress in the right direction.
Legacy Beyond Life: Introducing the Centennial Obituary Exercise
We can clarify the life we want to have, if we imagine the ripple effect we hope to have long after we’ve gone, to people we’ve never met.
Warren Buffett and others use a technique called the 'reverse obituary.' You write the obituary you want and then work backwards to make it happen. It's a simple yet impactful way to explore our inner world, and I recommend everyone tries it. Have you ever engaged in a reflection exercise like this? What did you discover about yourself?
Introducing the Centennial Obituary
I've been experimenting with a twist on this idea, called the 'Centennial Obituary.' Here's the concept. Even if you’re not a theist, humor me.
Picture this: It's 100-150 years after your death, and you're in God's office. He tells you:
'Neil, it's been over a century since you left Earth and your physical body. All those you loved, and who loved you, have since joined us here. You've listened to the stories of their lives. During your lifetime, you had aspirations to contribute to the world and hoped your actions would create a lasting impact, long after your passing.
[God gestures towards a screen on the wall, which reveals itself].
On this screen, you can see the long-term impact of your life. But there's a catch: You can only see results in three areas. Which three do you pick?'
In the next section, I’ll share my three areas to illustrate how the exercise works. But before I do, give this a think: which three areas would you pick?
Personal Reflections on the Exercise
This exercise is fascinating because it encourages us to think about something bigger than our immediate lives. The way the question is framed forces us to consider what truly matters to us—those things we deem significant enough to influence, even well beyond our own lifetimes and immediate personal connections.
If asked, I would probably respond to God with something like this:
'First, I always hoped that by focusing on reflection and figuring out how to help others explore their inner world, the world would become more thoughtful, compassionate, and courageous. If I was good enough at this, I figured the people I influence might also influence and teach others, fostering a ripple effect of understanding and acceptance. Did my choices help this ripple effect to happen?
Second, I was deeply invested in helping those around me to fully realize their talents and potential. I believed that by leading in organizations in innovative ways, and sharing new approaches to run organizations, these leadership behaviors and systems would proliferate. Consequently, more people would find themselves in environments where they could truly thrive, unlocking their full potential. Did my efforts contribute to this change?
Lastly, I wanted America, particularly Detroit and the State of Michigan, to be places characterized by increased trust. The data which showed declining social trust and faith in government were always devastating to me. I aimed to improve how government served citizens in the hope that it would restore people's trust in institutions and, ultimately, in each other. This, I believed, was crucial for Americans to experience true freedom. Did my actions contribute to this goal?'
Conclusion: A Broader Perspective on Life's Impact
In conclusion, the key distinction between the reverse obituary and the Centennial Obituary lies in the time horizon. The reverse obituary concludes at our death—it's ultimately a measure of our lives. The Centennial Obituary, on the other hand, propels our thinking well beyond our death and the lifetimes of those we hold dearest. This shift in perspective liberates us to envision a broader impact. At the same time, being limited to three domains compels us to become highly specific.
Both the reverse obituary and the Centennial Obituary have their unique places in our toolkit for reflection. The reverse obituary is best for contemplating our lives and the influence we have on those closest to us. The Centennial Obituary, conversely, is ideal for determining the subtle yet intentional ripples we wish to create, hopeful that their effects will resonate long after we're gone.
Both methods differ, and both are valuable exercises in their own right. I encourage you to spend some time today thinking about your own Centennial Obituary - this exercise was very illuminating for me. What three areas of long-term impact would you choose to see? Please do share your thoughts in the comments. I would love to hear about the ripples you hope to make.
The Art of Spotting Bullshit: A Guide for the Impact-minded Professional
Sniffing out bullshit is a priceless skill.
If we’re type of people who care about making a positive contribution - for those we’re serving, for our enterprises, and society - it’s important to sniff out bullshitters so we can surround ourselves with people committed to and capable of making a difference.
Why? Because to make an actual impact I need to surround myself with people who actually are able to accomplish something (and be that type of person myself) rather than people who are all smoke and mirrors. Bullshitters may initially impress with their confidence and eloquence, but ultimately, they leave you facing the consequences alone. So if we want to increase our chances at making an impact for those we’re serving we have to do something simple, but often challenging: avoid bullshitters.
But the problem with a good bullshitter is that they’re good at bullshitting. Moreover, many capable people aren’t good at promoting themselves - precisely because they spend most of their time solving problems and helping people rather than bullshitting.
When you’re in the trenches with someone, day after day, it becomes easier to tell whether they’re a bullshitter or not. But we often have to decide whether to hire someone, promote them, work for them, or partner with them without being in the trenches with them first.
And so sniffing out bullshitters is actually a really important skill. So if you’re the sort of person who cares more about making a contribution than you do about promoting yourself this post is an invitation to you. How do you sniff out a bullshitter?
To get us started, here are some of the techniques that I’ve experimented with over the years:
Ask them, “Can you walk me through it from start to finish, in detail?”
Listen for jargon and corporate-isms which don’t have actual meaning. If someone can only speak in code and with overused corporate cliches, it usually means they don’t know what they’re actually talking about.
Look at how individual contributors - especially someone’s non-managerial direct reports - talk about them. If they can’t tell you specifically why someone is capable, they probably aren’t. People who work on the front lines directly with products or customers have the most reliable radars for detecting bullshitters.
Ask them, “can you tell me what aspects of that accomplishment were luck and which were the result of intentional decisions?” I haven’t asked this question in an interview yet, but I want to. Even bullshitters can accomplish things if they’re lucky - but probably can’t fake intention if no intention ever existed.
Look for complex slides with lots of words or highly complex and ambigious objective statements. People who are able to explain complex things simply have done the work to hold an opinion.
Look for a track record of bouncing around. Bullshitters can’t stick with a job for more than 2 years because once people realize they are bullshitters they know it’ll be easy for them to be laid-off or fired. Anyone can fake it in a job for a year or two. Of course, there are exceptions, especially when the person in front of you has a non-traditional background or extenuating personal circumstances.
Do they gossip? If you don’t have anything more productive to say, spinning stories about others is an effective sleight of hand to distract people from one’s own lack of vision, intellect, or leadership.
These are just some tells I’ve seen as a pattern over the years. What has helped you detect bullshitters?
In closing, I’d like to be fair to a close cousin of bullshitters: storytellers. Storytellers root in the truth and aim to serve collective goals through the narratives they share. Bullshitters in my experience are quite the opposite - I’ve found them to be narcissists who care more about themselves than others.
Telling stories is really important in organizational life because stories help us do things like: make meaning of our work, motivate us to act, and learn from past mistakes. Story tellers matter because telling stories is an essential part of making an impact. The difference is subtle, but important: story telling moves a team or constituency forward, bullshitting only moves an individual person into positions of higher status and authority. Bullshitting is hype without substance, storytelling is substance.
I hope I’m not a bullshitter, I suppose I don’t know that for sure (after all, I do spend a lot of time writing and talking). I do know, though, that I don’t want to be. And I do know that bullshitters often get ahead and get a lot of credit, at least for awhile. And I do know, finally, that I want to leave this world better than I found it.
I figured that by putting a bat signal out on how to suss out bullshitters, we can more easily get the ourselves and others in a better position to make a contribution and at least make it less likely we accidentally hire, partner with, or work for a bullshitter.
I've shared my strategies, but I'm always learning. What are your tried-and-true methods for identifying bullshitters? Share in the comments below.