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Explore insights on leadership, excellence, mastery, and personal development. These articles represent the ongoing journey of pursuing arete and eudaimonia in modern leadership and life.
Plato's most radical leadership idea wasn't about power or position, it was about character. The philosopher king represents the ultimate integration of wisdom, excellence, courage, and transformation. Here's how to stop managing systems and start transforming people.
Most leaders chase happiness and end up empty. Ancient wisdom reveals why: they're pursuing the wrong goal. Eudaimonia, human flourishing, transforms everything about how you lead and why it matters.
Excellence isn't just about individual character, it's about creating environments where excellence becomes natural, inevitable, and sustainable for everyone. Here's how leaders architect the conditions for human flourishing.
The Greeks understood something we've forgotten: excellence isn't something you achieve, it's something you become. This fundamental shift changes everything about how you approach work, leadership, and life.
The glory days trap isn't about memory. It's about identity. Living in the past is a form of self-protection that guarantees self-limitation.
Greene's second law of power tells you to distrust friends and hire enemies. The tactical truth is real: friends can betray you. But the solution isn't strategic isolation. It's wisdom about who to let close.
There's a story people tell themselves about why they haven't succeeded. It sounds like integrity. It's actually fear dressed in virtue's clothing.
Crisis unlocks extraordinary performance. But needing crisis to access your best means your best isn't really yours. It belongs to whatever circumstances happen to arrive.
Greene's first law of power tells you to never outshine the master. The tactical truth is real: insecure leaders punish excellence. But the solution isn't dimming your light. It's knowing when to deploy it. The Greeks called it kairos.
Authenticity has become a personal branding buzzword. The Greeks knew better. True authenticity isn't about expressing your real self. It's about refusing to fragment into different versions for different audiences. Wholeness, not performance.
You're not anxious. You're unclear. The mind that hasn't decided what it wants will constantly point out what's missing. Clarity isn't a luxury. It's the foundation.
Everyone optimizes their actions. Almost no one optimizes who they're becoming. The obsession with tactics keeps people trapped while the strategic question goes unanswered.
You don't have an ambition problem. You have a payment problem. Everyone wants the dream. Almost no one wants to pay what it actually costs.
Three miles from anything, my calf seized. No Uber. No shortcut. Just pain and the choice to keep moving. AI is removing that choice from everything. And that might be destroying us.
Everyone fears failure. Almost nobody fears comfort. The ancients understood why that's backwards. Comfort doesn't protect dreams. It suffocates them slowly while you're too numb to notice.
The person calling discipline 'for losers' is watching masters and missing the decades of discipline underneath. What looks like obsession is hexis. The discipline came first.
The modern confidence industry sells shortcuts that produce fragile leaders. Real confidence follows the ancient sequence: courage first, then competence, then confidence.
The best thing you can do for your team is stop rescuing them. Every problem you solve for them is capability they never develop. Coaching builds warriors. Rescuing creates dependents.
I watched a man fail his resolution in an ice cream shop parking lot. Not because he ate ice cream. Because he was already negotiating with Monday. The timing was wrong before he started.
Everyone treats their personal best as an objective measurement. But what if it's actually a prophecy? What if the limit you keep hitting is the limit you keep expecting to hit?
Leadership is not just influence. It is load. If everything becomes your emergency, the system is broken. Fix it with decision clarity, steady presence, and practical restraint.
Most people stay mediocre not because they lack talent, but because they refuse to give up anything. The hardest cut isn't the bad work. It's the good work that's in the way.
We expect excellence to look impressive. But the most exceptional people spend most of their time doing things that look completely ordinary. Here's the boring truth about how mastery is actually built.
Everyone tells you to be grateful for what you have. To find contentment. To appreciate the journey. But the people who achieve lasting greatness share a trait most call unhealthy: they're never satisfied. And that's exactly why they succeed.
The instinct to defend yourself is older than language. But in the modern world, this instinct has become a trap that drains the energy you need for your actual work.
Want in one hand and shit in the other. See which gets fuller faster. Working-class America didn't read the Stoics. They lived them.
The conditions you train in are the conditions you're prepared for. Every voluntary struggle is a deposit against the involuntary battles life doesn't schedule.
I thought I might need the ER after my first CrossFit workout. Turns out I'd just forgotten what building muscle felt like. That's how bad it had gotten. It was the best thing that ever happened to me.
The loud fear of failure drowns out the quiet fear of never knowing. But only one of those fears creates wounds that heal.
The difference between extraordinary achievement and constant restarting isn't talent or luck. It's whether you've built a momentum machine that runs even when motivation dies.
The best coaches figured this out decades ago. Saban's Process. Belichick's expectations. Cignetti's explicit no-captains policy. When you designate leaders, everyone else stops leading.
Progress doesn't arrive gradually. It accumulates in silence, then announces itself all at once.
Everyone's chasing brilliance while tripping over obvious errors. The uncomfortable truth about success isn't that you need to be smarter. You need to stop being dumb.
You've been designing habits for the version of you that exists after good sleep, full of motivation, in ideal conditions. That version shows up maybe 20% of the time. Here's how to build for the other 80%.
Everyone knows someone who seems impossibly lucky. Right place, right time, every time. What looks like fortune is actually something else entirely. And it's available to anyone willing to see it.
Everyone's competing for the spotlight. Meanwhile, opportunity waits in the tasks everyone avoids. The dirty work doorway isn't just a path to success. It's the only path that isn't crowded.
Everyone celebrates good intentions. 'At least their heart was in the right place.' But intentions aren't neutral. They're a sophisticated form of self-deception that lets you feel virtuous about dreams you're not actually building.
Your pursuit of excellence isn't neutral. It's an act of rebellion against every force that profits from your weakness, distraction, and mediocrity.
Happy couples don't fight. That's the story we tell ourselves. Then we watch peaceful marriages end without warning. The truth? Antifragile bonds are forged through navigated conflict, not polished harmony.
The myth of 'work on your weaknesses' has created generations of well-rounded mediocrity. What if the thing that comes easily to you is exactly where your leverage lives?
Pay them well and they'll stay. Pay them more and they'll work harder. It sounds logical until you watch your highest-paid people leave for less money. The myth of compensation-driven loyalty is destroying teams.
Social media has convinced us that visible virtue is real virtue. Aristotle knew better. Character is the pattern of what you do when no one's watching, not the highlight reel you curate for strangers.
Most people defend positions they never chose. Socrates understood that repeating something doesn't make it yours. The unexamined belief is just someone else's script running in your head.
Nobody eulogizes your revenue growth. The metrics that feel urgent today will be irrelevant the moment you're gone. The people you developed will carry your impact for decades.
Preparation is the most sophisticated form of procrastination. It feels productive. It looks responsible. And it keeps you exactly where you are.
You tell yourself the backup plan is smart, responsible, prudent. The Stoics knew better. Prohairesis, moral choice, is singular by nature. Every escape route you build is a promise to yourself that when things get hard enough, you'll quit.
Andy Weir posted chapters of The Martian to his blog for 10 years. 3,000 readers. No validation. No proof it mattered. Then the breakthrough. The separator isn't talent or work ethic, it's tolerance for uncertainty.
The Greeks understood something we've forgotten, true wisdom reveals itself through simplicity, not complexity. Intelligence is finding the simple truth, not creating elaborate frameworks.
The ancient Greeks understood something we've forgotten—every difficulty is training when you ask the right question. The shift from 'why me?' to 'what's this teaching?' changes everything.
You can build a craft or you can build an audience. Both require time and energy. But they require opposite orientations. And trying to do both simultaneously guarantees you'll fail at the one that matters.
Everyone got the marshmallow test wrong. They turned it into a success predictor. The Stoics understood the real truth 2,000 years ago: delayed gratification isn't about outcomes, it's about character.
The ancient concept of paideia required both challenge and care. High expectations without support breaks people. High support without expectations keeps them small. Real leadership integrates both.
You think success is about the win. It's actually about what the attempt makes you become. The goals you miss build more character than the ones you hit.
Your problems aren't proof you're failing. They're proof of where you've climbed. Each level of success doesn't reduce difficulty, it upgrades it.
Your fitness, your bank account, your relationships, your opportunities right now aren't revealing your identity. They're showing you what you've been doing for the past 30-90 days. That's not philosophy. That's physics.
Every minute you spend resenting someone is energy you're not using to build your life. The Stoics knew what we forgot: forgiveness releases you from the prison, not them from consequences.
The more directly you pursue happiness, the more it evades you. Kant knew what we forgot: happiness only arrives as a byproduct of living virtuously, not as a target to optimize for.
Job security is dead. The people who recover fastest from layoffs aren't the ones with the best titles, they're the ones who built skills that travel. Here's what autarkeia teaches us about real security.
Work-life balance won't save you from being consumed. Everything significant consumes you. The question isn't whether work will consume you, but what you're becoming through that consumption. Choose the fire that forges you.
Epictetus was a slave and chose philosophy. Marcus Aurelius was emperor and chose duty. Excellence is owed regardless of circumstances. Your advantages don't create the obligation. They just eliminate every excuse for avoiding it.
Good vibes only doesn't protect you from negativity. It protects you from growth. Every time you positive-think your way past difficult emotions, you're training yourself to be weaker.
Every moment you spend obsessing over others' achievements is a moment not creating your own. Envy doesn't just feel bad, it actively steals the fuel you need for your own work.
Modern self-care culture produces people who need more support to handle less challenge. Rest is only restorative when preceded by genuine exertion. Without the depletion, there's nothing to restore.
When teams nod along in meetings, we celebrate alignment. But what if everyone's privately disagreeing? The Abilene Paradox shows how silence becomes performative agreement and why andreia (courage) matters more than consensus.
What looks like exceptional talent is usually exceptional attention. The people crushing it aren't more gifted, they've just built the character discipline to ignore everything except what matters most.
Your inner critic isn't the enemy. But letting it judge while you create guarantees mediocrity. Excellence requires opposite mindsets—and knowing when to deploy each.
Nobody chooses bureaucracy. But every approval layer you add is proof you chose fear over trust, rules over judgment, and protecting yourself over building excellence.
Grandma's cast iron pan lasted 60 years with daily care. My 'lifetime warranty' pan died in 18 months with neglect. Excellence isn't owned—it's rented. And the rent is due every single day.
You can spend another year waiting for flow to happen, or you can spend the next 12 weeks training it like the ancient Greeks did, systematically, progressively, relentlessly.
Every feature you add slows every decision. Every process you maintain steals focus. While everyone accumulates complexity, strategic subtraction creates unfair competitive advantage. The lighter you are, the faster you move.
Mediocrity spreads like wildfire once you signal it's acceptable. Leaders who tolerate good enough from one person send a message to everyone that standards are negotiable. Excellence demands eliminating compromises at the source before they become cultural norms.
Your people are already telling you what they need. They're showing you where the problems are. But you're not hearing them because listening requires something you don't want to give: your certainty, your expertise, your agenda, your ego.
Your kids don't learn character from perfect attendance. They learn it from watching you demonstrate what's worth pursuing. Stop apologizing for your ambition. Start showing them what commitment looks like.
Your focus app was never designed to make you focused. It was designed to make you dependent. Real focus comes from training attention like a muscle, not from tracking every distraction and optimizing dashboards.
Passion is self-focused and fleeting. Excellence through service is other-focused and enduring. The Greeks never told anyone to follow their passion. They built character through craft. Here's why that matters for your work.
You know exactly what you should do. You've known for months. So why aren't you doing it? The ancient Greeks had a word for this: akrasia, acting against your better judgment. And they understood it's the ultimate killer of excellence.
You built the conditions. You trained your attention. Now stop trying so hard. The excellence you're forcing toward shows up when you allow it to emerge.
You don't need more hours, you need cleaner attention. When you defend attention, deep work shows up and the needle finally moves.
Real competence emerges when comfort dies and stakes are real. The professionals who thrive in crisis weren't trained in safe environments, they were forged under pressure.
Flow doesn't show up when you beg it. It shows up when you remove what blocks it. The people who hit flow states most aren't gifted, they're disciplined about building the right conditions.
Most companies aren't consciously choosing mediocrity. They're living in a complete fantasy about their own capabilities while demanding breakthrough results from infrastructure designed for average performance.
The leaders who command the most respect don't need your applause to do the work. And that's exactly why you can't stop watching them.
Perfectionism isn't high standards—it's fear management. Strategic imperfection creates more progress than perfect ever could.
Working with organizations on AI adoption feels like deja vu. The same resistance patterns I saw during the waterfall-to-agile transformation. What made agile successful wasn't better processes, it was establishing clear values. AI transformation needs the same thing.
The brutal truth about freedom: it's not the absence of constraints, it's the wisdom to choose the right ones.
Most leaders want AI transformation results without undergoing the leadership metamorphosis it requires. Here's what AI-first leadership actually demands.
Your willingness to risk your reputation for someone else's growth reveals everything about your actual confidence in your leadership.
Culture doesn't just eat strategy for breakfast. Culture will devour your AI transformation, shit out the bones, and ask for seconds.
Most people spend their lives as victims of circumstances they created. Here's why accepting that you're both the source and solution to your problems is the ultimate advantage.
Scaling AI First isn't 'more tools for more teams.' It's mode discipline, runnable playbooks, and iteration systems that make capability compound across functions.
Most leaders add AI tools to human workflows. The breakthrough is designing collaboration architecture where human judgment and AI capability compound each other from the ground up.
True greatness cannot be evenly distributed across all areas of life simultaneously. Excellence requires strategic imbalance, knowing when and where to concentrate your full intensity, and having the wisdom to let other areas temporarily receive less attention.
The real AI revolution isn't about the technology. It's about who you become when you stop fighting it and start forging yourself in its fire.
The $366 billion leadership development industry teaches techniques before character, skills before being. Here's why 70% of programs fail and how character-based leadership endures.
Most 'servant leaders' are just weak managers who've convinced themselves that avoiding difficult decisions is virtuous. Real servant leadership requires character strength.
The madness of excellence has two faces: seeing what others can't and doing what others won't. Both will get you called crazy. Both are required for greatness.
The fundamental mindset architecture that separates AI leaders from AI laggards. Three core shifts with practical implementation frameworks grounded in ancient wisdom.
When smart engineers choose the safety of understanding over the risk of adaptation, they're not avoiding debt, they're accumulating it. The compound cost of caution might be the riskiest strategy of all.
Prosoche, the Stoic practice of disciplined reflection—transforms raw experience into actionable wisdom. Part 7 of The Greatness Flywheel series shows how systematic reflection accelerates excellence by preventing repeated mistakes and compounding learning.
Output (Arete) is where internal mastery becomes external transformation. Discover how to bridge personal excellence to world-changing impact through systematic application of ancient wisdom.
You don't have a knowledge problem. You have a craft problem. Most people understand excellence intellectually but lack the embodied competence to execute it consistently. Techne bridges the gap between knowing and doing.
I chose government safety over startup fire, and it didn't just stall my career, it eroded my soul. The trap of 'practical' choices that kill excellence.
Jason Fried's knife-maker defense sounds reasonable, stay in your lane, perfect your craft, ignore the pressure to build battleships. But what if your 'disciplined focus' is just fear dressed as virtue? Aristotle had a test for this.
You consume endless information but produce mediocre results. The problem isn't what you know, it's how you process what you know. Smart people excel at input but fail at transformation. Time to build your Processing Engine.
Most people consume information like they eat at a buffet, grabbing everything that looks appealing without considering nutrition or purpose. Then they wonder why their thinking is sluggish and their decisions are poor. Greatness requires intentional information architecture.
Real curiosity isn't about asking smart questions, it's about pursuing the brutal ones you've been avoiding because they might change everything.
Excellence isn't a destination you arrive at once and maintain through willpower. Excellence is a flywheel. The six-stage cycle that transforms ancient Greek wisdom into systematic excellence methodology.
Most people disguise cowardice as prudence. Here's the single question that cuts through all self-deception and reveals what you're really running from.
Most people think discipline means forcing yourself to do things you don't want to do. This fundamental myth keeps people trapped in cycles of failure and self-recrimination.
The fundamental difference between position thinking (comparing to others) and trend thinking (tracking your own trajectory). Why your direction matters more than your location.
Most people torture themselves pursuing goals they don't actually want. The framework for distinguishing authentic desire from sophisticated self-torture.
Plato's most radical leadership idea wasn't about power or position, it was about character. The philosopher king represents the ultimate integration of wisdom, excellence, courage, and transformation. Here's how to stop managing systems and start transforming people.
Trail running exposes the magic pill trap poisoning all growth: Want endurance? Embrace sustained discomfort, no hacks allowed.
The Greeks understood that lasting change requires complete transformation of mind, heart, and character. Most organizational change fails because leaders try to change everything except themselves. Here's the ancient solution.
Why brilliant strategies fail and how ancient Greek wisdom provides the solution through integrating theoretical and practical wisdom.
You don't have a motivation problem. You have a completion problem. Every unfinished project is evidence that you can't trust yourself to follow through. Here's how to build the character that finishes what it starts.
We turn personality tests and strengths into excuses for staying small. 'I'm just not that kind of person' sounds authentic but kills growth. Here's how to stop bullshitting yourself.
Your word is your bond, including the word you give yourself. Every broken promise to yourself erodes your confidence. Every kept promise builds it. This isn't productivity, it's character work.
You're not struggling with willpower. You're not lacking the right system. You're protecting the disease by treating the symptoms.
How to tell when leaving is strategic wisdom versus fear-based avoidance. The uncomfortable truth about when running away is the courageous choice.
How to tell when resistance is teaching you versus when you're using your intelligence to avoid what needs to be done. The uncomfortable truth about sophisticated avoidance.
How intelligent people use optimization as sophisticated avoidance, creating elaborate systems to avoid simple transformations. Includes the 5-question diagnostic framework.
Most people track what's easy to measure rather than what actually drives excellence. Learn how to audit your metrics and ensure you're measuring character development, not just performance theater.
Most productivity advice forces you to fight your authentic rhythms, creating internal conflict and unsustainable systems. Here's the Natural Rhythms Integration Model that honors both authenticity and growth.
Intelligence can become a barrier to growth when it creates sophisticated comfort zones. Here's how to recognize when your optimization becomes elaborate avoidance, and what to do about it.
The ultimate test of leadership isn't what you accomplish, it's what continues after you're gone. Here's how exceptional leaders create legacies by developing other leaders who develop leaders.
True independence isn't the absence of structure—it's the mastery of structure. Here's why the most free people are often the most disciplined, and how to build systems that create authentic freedom.
The Greeks understood that courage isn't the absence of fear, it's the commitment to excellence despite uncertainty. This ancient virtue transforms how you lead through risk, change, and the unknown.
The greatest challenges require the greatest safety. Great leaders understand this paradox: the more psychological safety you create, the more difficult challenges your team will tackle. Here's the framework that makes it work.
Most leaders create followers. Great leaders create leaders. But the rarest leaders create character—and character creates everything else. Here's how authentic leaders systematically develop character in others.
Most leaders chase happiness and end up empty. Ancient wisdom reveals why: they're pursuing the wrong goal. Eudaimonia, human flourishing, transforms everything about how you lead and why it matters.
Your meetings aren't just boring. They're killing the ideas that could transform your company. Ancient Greek wisdom about questions reveals why most conversations extract information instead of developing breakthrough thinking.
Most one-on-ones are glorified status updates disguised as leadership development. The DIALOGUE method transforms individual conversations into systematic leadership multiplication, creating leaders who create more leaders through structured excellence.
Companies obsess over team size while ignoring the fundamental truth: transformation happens at the leader level, not the team level. Size is a symptom, leadership is the cause.
Your circumstances will change. Your duty will not. Discover how ancient Stoic wisdom provides unwavering guidance for modern leaders when everything else shifts.
Discover how B.F. Skinner's revolutionary insights into pain and pleasure can engineer unstoppable motivation. Learn the five-method framework that turns behavioral psychology into practical productivity mastery.
The most indispensable people aren't those who avoid problems, they're those who actively seek them out and solve them effectively. Here's the framework for building that rare and valuable skill.
The future belongs to leaders who can build teams that don't just use AI tools, but think AI-first. This requires a fundamental transformation in how we hire, develop, and structure technical teams.
The phone book to Google transition was about efficiency. The Google to ChatGPT shift is about quality of understanding. That's the difference between incremental improvement and categorical transformation, and it requires metanoia.
Just as literacy transformed society, AI fluency is becoming the fundamental skill that separates those who thrive from those who struggle in the modern workplace. It's not about coding, it's about thinking.
Excellence isn't just about individual character, it's about creating environments where excellence becomes natural, inevitable, and sustainable for everyone. Here's how leaders architect the conditions for human flourishing.
The Greeks understood something we've forgotten: excellence isn't something you achieve, it's something you become. This fundamental shift changes everything about how you approach work, leadership, and life.
The most liberating realization: those people you're trying to win over aren't worth winning over. Energy spent seeking approval is energy not spent building excellence. Time to break free from the validation trap.
You don't need another course. You need to start doing. The journey itself holds every lesson you need to learn. The internet gave us infinite information and infinite excuses.
The self-help industry got fear completely wrong. Every person operating at excellence has learned to dance with fear, not defeat it. Fear isn't your enemy, it's your compass pointing toward what matters most.
Your 5-star vacation restaurant would get 2 stars at home. Context isn't an excuse for mediocrity, it's a test of your standards. The Disney Churro Effect is killing your judgment, and you don't even know it's happening.
Most of your learning is actually entertainment in disguise. Here's why information without action is intellectual hoarding, and how to transform from consumer to creator through practical implementation.
Perfect plans are usually perfectly wrong. Here's why imperfect action creates better results than perfect planning, and how to build the execution advantage through courage and rapid iteration.
Most leaders try to control people. Great leaders design environments. Here's why environmental design is the ultimate leadership leverage and how to create conditions where excellence becomes inevitable.
The social media mythology of entrepreneurship sells a comfortable lie: that anyone can bet on themselves and become a millionaire working a few hours per week. The reality is far more terrifying, and far more rewarding for those with the courage to accept it.
Your mind is either your forge or your prison. The Stoics knew what modern neuroscience confirms: mental state determines reality. Here's how to forge mental excellence through the Four Furnaces framework.
In the AI age, your expertise might be your biggest liability. Here's why flexibility beats depth, and how to build your adaptation advantage before it's too late.
The ancient Greeks had a word for the leadership skill we desperately need today: phronesis. It's not about having all the answers, it's about acting wisely when you don't.
The most influential people don't have the biggest titles. They have something more powerful, the authority of example. Here's how to lead through character, not position.
I'm a motorsports enthusiast who loves manual transmissions. So why do I hate driving rental cars now? The rental car experience taught me something uncomfortable about human nature, and why we resist the very technologies that would improve our lives.
The Greeks had a word for the kind of courage we desperately need today: andreia. It's not about being fearless, it's about being fear-full and acting anyway.
In the moment between letting go of one trapeze and grasping the next, there's a space where everything depends on trust, timing, and practical wisdom. For leaders navigating AI transformation, this moment isn't a crisis, it's where excellence is forged.
Every breakthrough begins with a breakdown. Resistance isn't blocking your transformation, it's forging it.
The speed at which you can absorb, process, and apply new information becomes the ultimate edge in today's fast-paced world.
When you see others achieving 4-minute miles with new tools while you're stuck at 8 minutes making excuses, you don't have a tool problem, you have a skill issue.
The mountain had other plans. What started as a simple run became a journey back to who I've always been—buried under survival, responsibility, and the slow drift of adulthood.
Clean test output isn't just about aesthetics, it's about developer productivity, debugging efficiency, and maintaining code quality. When your test suite runs quietly and only speaks up when something's wrong, you can focus on what matters: building great software.
Everyone wants greatness until they realize what it demands. The edge isn't found in comfort, it's in the obsession, discipline, and relentless focus that transforms potential into reality.
It's not about the run or the miles. It's about returning to the place where your resolve gets sharpened, your personal forge where growth happens through resistance.
Everyone's racing to build Model Context Protocols, but they're solving the wrong problem. You're not building for operators—you're building for agents that interpret, decide, and act.
You're in the file. You see the broken code. If you walk past it without fixing it, you're not just part of the problem, you are the problem.
Pain is not punishment. It's preparation. Whether you're a fighter or a leader, how you respond to resistance defines your growth and impact on others.
The people around you influence your mindset, shape your habits, and often determine your trajectory. And the right ones don't just support you—they sharpen you, steady you, and accelerate you.
In the quiet hours when decisions weigh heaviest, leadership can feel like a solitary journey. But it's in these moments that both leaders and their teams can transform pressure into power. Here's how to keep the flame alive.
They're relentlessly positive. They say yes to everything. They talk about collaboration constantly. But underneath the performance, real execution never happens.
In fast-moving tech cultures, dissent feels like friction. And friction feels like delay. But a team that agrees too easily is already halfway to failure.
Your test looks fine. The records match. But sometimes it passes, sometimes it fails. Uncover the hidden gotchas of comparing ActiveRecord Relations in Rails tests.
Your best ideas are vulnerable to creativity hit jobs. Learn to guard your spark, select the right team, and keep innovation flowing despite the critics.
First principles thinking strips away the bullshit and starts with what's undeniably true. It's how leaders transform organizations and build the future.
Frustration comes when we judge ourselves by a single moment. But true growth—true excellence—comes from trusting the work, not the moment.
Most teams are trained to dodge the mess—great leaders dive in. True leadership is built in the climb, not at the summit.
AI isn't a code monkey. Treat it like a thinking partner, not a servant. Here's how to navigate AI-assisted development without micromanaging.
The best leaders don't micromanage every note—they create the groove and let their team play. Here's how to lead with rhythm, trust, and improvisation.
Most people wait for struggle to humble them. The best train for it. The Reset Walk is a simple practice to build resilience before stress takes over.
Speed isn't the goal—winning is. Learn how the fastest teams avoid wasted motion by solving the right problem before they execute.
Leadership is a high-stakes game where the cards are rarely all face-up. Learn how to read the room, filter the noise, and make winning decisions.
True success isn't about external achievements—it's about mastering yourself. Learn how to integrate Areté and Eudaimonia into your daily life for deep fulfillment.
Every decision creates ripple effects. Learn how to see beyond the immediate impact and think like a master strategist to build long-term success.
Discover how AI-driven, adaptive learning is reshaping education. Parents no longer have to wait for change—they can take charge today.
Tech debt isn't just about cleanup—it's about discipline. If a team is still making the same mistakes, they're not solving the problem, just hitting reset.
Cleaning up old messes is meaningless if you're still making new ones. The best teams don't ask for permission to fix tech debt—they stop creating it in the first place.
Great teams don't avoid conflict—they process it efficiently. The key to success isn't eliminating conflict, but resolving it quickly and productively.
The biggest AI problem right now? A lack of imagination. The chatbot era was training wheels—it's time to take them off. If AI isn't rewiring how you think, you're not using it enough.
Most developers spend years learning these lessons the hard way. You don't have to. Master these principles now and take control of your dev career.
AI isn't coming. It's here. The teams that master AI-native development now will define the future of product delivery. Learn how to navigate this shift and accelerate your team.
Struggling with imposter syndrome as a new software engineer? Learn why you're more ready than you think, and how to build confidence through action and learning.
Dive into the world of private class methods in Ruby. Understand their purpose, implementation, and when they're the right choice for your code.
The path to true excellence isn't found in quick fixes or surface, level achievements. It's discovered through the ancient wisdom of arete and eudaimonia, principles that have guided the greatest minds for over 2,000 years.
Struggling to decide between concerns and service objects in Rails? This guide dives into the pros and cons of each approach, helping you choose the right tool for clean, scalable, and testable code.
Discover how ChatGPT is changing the landscape of education and tutoring, while understanding the unique value that human tutors bring to the learning experience.
As ChatGPT reshapes the digital landscape, learn how to evolve your SEO and marketing strategies to stay ahead of the curve and maintain your competitive edge.
Master the art of legacy code refactoring with a practical five-step approach that helps you modernize your codebase while maintaining stability and reliability.
Discover the art of mental switching - how to activate and deactivate different aspects of your personality and skills to excel in various contexts.
Dive into the world of personal responsibility and team success in software development by distinguishing between reasons and excuses. Explore the vital role of accountability, examine real-world examples, and uncover five effective strategies designed to help you and your team conquer excuses and take command of your professional journey.
Discover three game-changing daily habits that can significantly boost your productivity and help you achieve more in both your professional and personal life.
Product managers need to be proficient in three key areas: technical skills, data analysis, and empathy for customers. Neglecting any one of these areas can lead to difficulties in successfully managing a product. However, a well-rounded product manager who excels in all three areas can drive success by delivering innovative products that meet customer needs, are technically sound, and supported by data-driven decision-making.
Explore why the pursuit of perfect balance might be holding you back, and learn how embracing strategic imbalance can lead to extraordinary results.
Learn why the path to greatness lies in competing with yourself rather than others, and how this mindset can transform your personal and professional growth.
Discover practical approaches to balance daily responsibilities with innovation initiatives, ensuring your organization stays competitive and forward-thinking.
Explore the crucial roles of enforcers and nurturers in team dynamics, and discover how their complementary strengths create high-performing teams.
Discover how Price's Law explains the distribution of knowledge and productivity in organizations, and learn how to leverage this understanding for better team management.
Discover how to harness pressure as a catalyst for growth and achievement, turning challenging situations into opportunities for success.
Discover practical solutions for maintaining a balanced schedule by effectively syncing your work and personal calendars.
Learn why maintaining a sense of humor is crucial for processing criticism constructively and using it as a tool for personal growth.
Discover how to recognize and fix common code smells, making your code more maintainable, efficient, and easier to understand.
Explore a curated selection of biographies that provide powerful lessons in leadership, resilience, and success through the lives of remarkable individuals.
Discover how to train your mind to overcome physical barriers and unlock your true potential through mental conditioning.
Discover practical approaches to make accountability visible and actionable within your team and organization.
Explore the advantages and challenges of both live and recorded product demos, and learn when to use each approach effectively.
Learn about the critical changes and challenges organizations face during different growth stages, particularly when doubling in size.
Discover how high-performing product organizations balance team autonomy with organizational alignment to consistently deliver the most impactful work.
Understand the risks of pushing too hard too early, and discover how to pace yourself for long-term success.
Discover how strategic sacrifices can give you the edge you need to excel in your personal and professional life.
Explore how software development differs from intense physical training programs, and what we can learn from these contrasts.
Discover why your mind often gives up before your body does, and how to overcome these mental barriers to achieve more.
Discover the profound impact of your social connections on your personal and professional development.
Discover the importance of creating the right environment for effective learning and skill development.
Learn how to strike the right balance between giving teams autonomy while maintaining high performance standards.
Discover how accepting and working through challenging situations can lead to significant personal and professional growth.
Are you looking to make self-improvements in your life? These 10 questions can help guide your reflection and introspection to better understand your values, strengths, weaknesses, and goals. From identifying what led to your biggest achievements to examining your responses to challenges, these questions can help you better understand yourself and your path towards personal growth. Take a moment to ask yourself these questions and discover what you can learn about yourself and your journey to self-improvement.
Discover why traditional daily standups might be holding your team back, and how to make them more effective.
If you are an introvert like me the last thing you want to do is spend time "networking". Even if you are an extrovert your time is valuable and just mingling isn't going to cut the mustard if you want to get any kind of meaningful results. So what is the best strategy when attending an event with intention of networking?
Building an idea is hard. Turning it into a business is even harder. Scaling that business is another level of hard. This is a list of tips to help you get there.
I struggle with what level of disclosure to give in public forums, because vulnerability is a hard. I don't care for writing and know a path to getting better at something is to do a lot of it. At least that is the excuse I hide behind when it comes to sharing more freely. A while back during a long period of seeking self awareness it became apparent that I didn't really believe in myself very much. Other people believe in me. I believe I am able to get results, but I haven't been able to really believe in me. I was smacked in the face on this topic looking in the mirror and seeing myself over 250 pounds and utterly out of shape and control.
Dealing with trolls is an art form. Being on the internet requires you master it.
MailChimp knocked it out of the park with stunning Christmas gift.
The Decider Protocol is the fastest path to get immediate and unanimous team decisions.
How redeeming my El Pollo Loco birthday reward points revealed powerful life principles through exceptional customer service.
The difference between influence and manipulation can be pretty subtle. However, the outcomes they produce can massive. How are they different to you?
What about asking for help is so difficult? What expectations do we put on ourselves and others that could be avoided if only we asked for help more frequently?
Dealing with hybrid work environments where some one is remote full time.
I see a lot of new teams search endlessly for the best process for to use. They tend to ask what is best for us? Which usually devolves into Scrum vs Kanban. I am firm believer in experiencing them to understand, but one could argue you have to start somewhere. For those seeking here is a very brief quick side by side view.
Using metaphors to describe being booted with the Core Protocols.
Six ways to improve your scrum planning meeting.
What does exceptional service at 10,000ft look like?
How to estimate everyday things.
The future we want has to be created by us. Creating the Arizona we want.
The future we want has to be created by us. Creating the Arizona we want.
AZ Art Project Influx AZ coming to Chandler, AZ.
Looking to build your connectivity on Linked In? Increase your followers on Twitter or Friends on Facebook? Chances are you already communicate with a lot of people via e-mail, but you haven't taken the time to connect with them elsewhere.
Open Spaces always tend to amaze me. They really are the right people in the right place at the right time. When we kicked off Agile Open Southwest, I was a little bit nervous about what might come out. As always, I was left absolutely amazed. It was great seeing old friends and meeting new ones. Finding everyone was a different place on their journey yet still able to be find common ground and learn from one another.
If you read a lot of digital content, you should share a lot. The problem is that you probably read in spurts. If you shared in spurts, you would probably annoy your friends. Buffer helps fix that problem.
If explaining an activity in a retrospective takes more than a minute or two it probably isn't very effective. Don't fall into the trap of making things too complex. Activities shouldn't be complicated they should be fluid. Giving participants too many options and being unclear with instructions makes it difficult to fluid with sharing thoughts.
As a ScrumMaster when you are "running" a retrospective it is easy to fall into the trap of actively participating in it. It is extremely difficult to do this well (if not impossible), because your role should be as a facilitator not a participant. The minute you start participating you are no longer neutral and severely impact your ability to effectively facilitate.
A young man was bitten by a pitbull when he was 10. Ever since then every time he has noticed a pitbull it is barking, snarling and threatening to him. He is now 35. He believes that pitbull's are a vicious breed and that they should not be family pets.
I am a proponent of pairing (not just for programming). Anytime I introduce it to a new team I get a number of objections. The most prominent is that pairing slows me down (because I am so awesome and everyone else sucks so bad).
Clay Shirky enlightens us in Cognitive Surplus that, the organization of sharing has many forms and that those forms have varying output values. He gives us a way we can identify four essential points on the spectrum
Sometimes when Getting Things Done, you need a little more power in your inbox than the default. Boomerang for GMail is the extra horsepower you need.
Gangplank is a community of creators that fuses family life, civic life, creating and earning a living into this unique blend where anything is possible. The support and tenderness offered is counter balanced by a gruff and forceful exterior making participation daunting to most.
People need to be understood that they matter. We are wired to belong. It doesn't matter if it is your spouse, child, employee or coworker every relationship you wish to maintain requires your attention. Most people consider attention to be measured in time. Time is in short supply and high demand in our connected and fast paced world.
Names are funny. Tone and inflection can make all the difference. Most people don't even bother correcting people when their name is said incorrectly. Close enough is good enough. However, sometimes people get their name so wrong they don't even go by their own name.
Going to cross-functional teams for product delivery is always interesting, but DevOps seems to be particularly loaded in it's meaning. How to tell if your DevOps relationship is failing you?
Talking to science educators about collaboration. How can we better organize and enact polity that leads to greater innovation.
Changing a community is slow work. Paying attention to the details and working with discipline over time with patience is required to get real results.
Abraham Maslow made the concept of hierarchies of progression in systems popular via his work on a hierarchy of needs. Here is a theory about the hierarchy of different types of readers.
Be the best parent you can. Prepare your children for the future.
Planning events is difficult. The hardest part is starting. Here is a quick 10 step guide to get you planning for that perfect event you have been dreaming about.
Consumption is rampant. What does is it mean to create?
I love Arizona. It's natural resources are one of it's greatest assets. I have been encouraging people to get out and ExploreAZ. If you didn't know our State Parks have become seriously under funded and need our help. So how can you help?
Resilience refers to the ability of a person to effectively cope with and recover from adversity or stress. This concept has been studied in psychology and neuroscience, and various strategies and techniques have been developed to build resilience, such as mindfulness, cognitive reframing, and social support. Building resilience can help individuals better handle life's greatest challenges and maintain their mental and emotional well-being. Here are ten ways to increase your resiliency.
In Andre Agassi's Open he shows the authentic and human side of himself. He talks about giving a friend named Frankie the money he needs to put his children through school. He reflects on it in the following way:
I generally keep voice memos or written journals around as outlets for my thoughts when I am not regularly able to connect with people to share what is on my mind. I try to purge them into a digital format fairly quickly to prevent clutter. I don't recall why I recorded this segment, but I ran across it today and it made me smile.
In a blog post, Mark Turner has responded to the claim that Ruby is just a bunch of tools by stating that it is actually about making developers happy. I believe that the Ruby community is too focused on creating tools and lacks creativity and true innovation. Regional Ruby events have become more about showcasing tools and less about sharing cutting-edge ideas.
So back in 2009 I talked about starting ExploreAZ tweetups. I did get the RV out one time in 2010 shortly after that post to Catalina State Park outside of Tucson. After putting some money into the RV and getting it operational again considering starting this back up. So I have booked two trips.
I have always liked Unix because of it's mentality that lots of small tools chained together could be more than an opaque larger tool. In this instance. I mean Rubyists are a bunch of Tools not of the useful kind. Maybe Zed is right an Rails is a Ghetto.
Governer Jan Brewer announced the new AZ Commerce Authority Board today. It is no surprise that it is full of Land Developers, Sports/Tourism and Manufacturing. All industries that were leaders of the OLD economy.
Whatever our exact ritual, the social act of eating together is important; it reunites us with our tribe. Transforming us from solitary beings to members of a group.
Notes from Brian Cole talking about economic development strategies at from Arizona's 96th Town Hall on Building Arizona's Future: Jobs, Innovation & Competitiveness.
Notes from Joe Kalt talking about Arizona's economy from Arizona's 96th Town Hall on Building Arizona's Future: Jobs, Innovation & Competitiveness.
Random notes from the Arizona's 96th Town Hall on Building Arizona's Future: Jobs, Innovation & Competitiveness.
If you are listening. A lot of people are talking about a "new norm", a "reset" or a "shift". Largely this discussion is around economics and growing concerns of debt. In reality it is about a lot more than that.
The benefit about working on a high performing team is that everyone expects excellence. There is always a drive that it could be better. Nail a perfect 10 and then ask how it could be an 11.
Why do we keep doing 1950 economic development? Capital first, then innovation and then people. Yet, companies wanting to be here say that it's lack of skilled people that keeps them out. What are we doing to invest in people? Keep and attract the best and brightest?
The basis of the 'Sharing Economy' operates on principles. How are you seeing them applied in the world around you? What can you learn from them? How are you applying them?
I am a fan of great service. When I see it exemplified I try to share it. For example, QuikTrip does a great job #winning. Another company that has always impressed me is Discount Tire. They always greet me right away. They fix my tires for free when repairable. They give me a free air check when my tires are low. All of this even on tires not purchased from them. WOW! They never give me problems when I need tires rotated or tires replaced under warranty that I did purchase from them.
A woman and her son were entering the Subway as my daughter and I were getting out of the car. My daughter uttered, "Hoochie Mama" under her breath. I chastised her for being inappropriate. Her response to me was, "Well she is." Granted the woman was probably in her late forties, had on 5 inch heels, booty shorts and next to nothing for a top with her adolescent son in tote. Sadly, my daughter was right.
When talking about Gangplank I always struggle to consider it to have anything to do with coworking. After doing some reading on collaborative learning vs. cooperative learning, I believe I can better articulate the difference between collaborative workspaces and coworking spaces.
Desert Code Camp has opened it's call for suggestions. This is a great FREE event that brings together technologists of all kinds together at a single location to learn (while feeding them breakfast and lunch) new technologies, improve on existing technology or share your favorite technology. There has been a good dynamic languages track in addition to a strong Microsoft track. There has been a track for kids (Gangplank Jr) and even sessions on sales or running a business.
The Greater Phoenix Economic Council released a report touting that Skysong actually is exceeding expectations and has been underestimated. Citing a $113 million impact which is largely calculated using salaries of people that have worked there over the last five years.
The University of Phoenix announced a 42% decline in enrollment with forecasts that next quarter will see another significant dip. The number one reason cited is a change in rules affecting for-profit-schools that restricts paying admission counselors based on how many students they enroll.
It is no secret, I love books. One of my favorite things to read is autobiographies. I enjoy them because I love to hear the authors reflect back on how they got started. A glimpse of what made them who they became.
I see a lot of new technology. Not very often am I impressed. Microsoft has a winner on their hands with Kinect. I completely ignored it at launch. Gangplank even had Kinect setup at the Chandler Block Party with tons of kids playing it. It looked stupid to me. The Wii had already won my heart.
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