16 Things I Learned In 2016
2016 for me, will always be the year I restored my family. At the end of 2015, I was certain to be the patriarch of a broken family. I was pretty much ready to throw it in.Heather and I had done all sorts of things to one another. Our bleak moments, failures had seemed insurmountable. […]
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Why You Should Warm Up Everyday
I spent a season of my life training at Aegis Team Crossfit. It benefited me a lot, and I recommend the coaches there. The biggest lesson I learned was the lesson of the warm up. The lesson of the warm up. Basically, at Crossfit they begin with a vigorous batch of 10 or so exercises […]
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The Truth About “Legacy Issues”
I spent quite a bit of time on Autopsy HQ. The more I read, the more I understood something was happening. Everyone blamed legacy issues. They started without enough money/burn rate too high. The customer acquisition cost was too high. They started with some systemic disadvantage that they couldn’t overcome. (Legacy isuses) And they’ll write […]
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Minimum Viable Impeccability
Be Impeccable With Your Word. Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. -Don Miguel Ruiz When companies make big promises, customers expect big things. Those big promises draw us in, we want to see what it’s like to try that new amazing restaurant. Get the legendary service. Have that emotional experience. That’s what we’re after. These big promises work […]
Read MoreWasted Work
A minor detail that one person – or department – does poorly can screw up the work that the rest of the team does. Imagine going to a hotel. Everything is perfect. Dozens of people work in concert to provide clean rooms, a well lit interior and a great experience. Except one person. A housekeeper […]
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The Push: October 2016
Each month, I post my goals publicly. I don’t promote this blog, so by saying it’s “public,” is somewhat of a misnomer. I entered 2016 a little burnt out (probably even depressed) from making a ton of preventable mistakes (see “failure series” for details, extrapolate to my personal life). Sometimes time simply has to pass, […]
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What To Do When You Hit Rock Bottom
At its nadir, in 1997, Apple had DAYS of cash left in the bank. It was in danger of missing payroll and it had to go to its banks for astonishingly small sums of money. This happened to them. We were in the same boat, but it was easier to fix and on a smaller […]
Read MoreThings that Happen In a Death Spiral
(Part II of IV in the Journey) When you’re failing – as we were- things get fried. First, you don’t apprehend the situation you’re in. It’s A Dunning-Krueger thing, maybe, or it’s a perspective thing. If you’re in a burning house, you don’t know how bad. You have had this business for a long time, […]
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All You Can Sell Vs. All You Can Do
[Welcome to the near failure experience, a 4 part series about pulling back from the worst type of failure] Summer 2015. Our company had a record month. More collected sales and new revenue than we’d ever had before by a big stretch. It almost killed us. It has taken a year to dig out from […]
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Minimum Viable Parenting
If I am to matter at all–if I am to be of use and benefit to humanity it will be through my children. Through teaching them who to be, providing insight, education, example and opportunity. That’s how I matter. And yet, trying to learn how to be a good parent is fraught with absolute insanity. […]
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