Triple Bottom Line

The best jobs live at the intersection of three values . . . Good economics Good work Good relationships There is no objective definition for those terms. We get to decide. If you’ve been around long enough, you realize how rare a “triple bottom line” is.  When you find yourself loving all three, be sure […]

Plan Like a Pessimist, Work Like An Optimist

We plan, prepare, work, worry, work some more, use our skills, and employ our tactics and strategies, all in service of bringing about a positive outcome. Myriad causes, conditions, and often competitors add to the soup of our intentions. We like to think we have some measure of control over how things will turn out, […]

Learning From People Like and Not Like Us

I have a friend named Peter. His sport of choice is Jujitsu. Peter is a big man training in a gym led by a small man. He’s not small in accomplishment, character, or expertise—he’s just eight inches shorter and 90 lbs. lighter than Peter. At some point, he probably needs to go train with someone […]

There is No Mastery Without Competition

I like to carve spoons. I also like meditating in the morning, reading books, and farming. None of these seem “competitive.” There isn’t a prize or adversary. The premium is on learning, attention, and practice. And yet, they are competitive in that by allocating my time, energy, and attention to carving, sitting, or reading, I […]

Relax. Breathe. Wait.

Today, candidate Harris announced her pick for Vice President. It wasn’t who I was expecting. Why was I expecting someone else? Because the people I read were goofy for someone else. They had a logic.  They are so convinced of it, they called the other person, the Lebron James of the field. This same day, […]

Buy Once, Cry Once

I’ve worked as a carpenter. I’ve renovated five buildings from the bare studs. I live on a farm. I make furniture and art boxes. I own a lot of tools. There’s a saying. Buy high-quality tools, and you cry once (because of the high cost). You’ll (probably) never have to replace them. I have hand […]

Random Things I Wonder

You know those little colored candy bears from Germany?  Are they “gooomie” bears or “gummmy” bears? If something is labeled “recyclable,” and I’m looking at you, plastic, and most of it still goes into a landfill, is it really? I ordered something from Amazon the other day that I no longer want. I’m going to […]

If The App Doesn’t Record it, Did it Really Happen?

I have a device that tracks my sleep. I look at the app every morning, happy when it tells me I slept well, bothered when it says otherwise. Last night the gizmo stopped tracking in the middle of the night. I slept in. Checking the app, it told me I had slept very poorly. I […]

Take Care of Yourself

Our bodies are capable of extraordinary endurance, agility, strength, and sensitivity.  We are capable of feelings and acts of profound sensitivity and love and great insight, inspiration, and intuition. Modern people ask much less of their bodies than they are capable of and yet subject their bodies to all manner of abuse due to poor […]

N+1

How many fountain pens are the right number to own? Seems like a silly, first-world kind of question. The inside joke with pen collectors is, “Just one more.” I’ve heard the same answer from people who are into motorcycles, cameras, lenses, carving knives, and lots more. The same idea shows up in our daily activities. […]