Musings
To Protect and To Serve
I noticed a police car the other day. Not that I don’t notice police cars when I see them, but the way I look at them these days is different. I used to see them as potential problems, and my unconscious response was to check my speed. Since I no longer speed and am not…
Read MoreWe Are the Champions
I spent the weekend in Tulsa watching the Big 12 Wrestling Tournament. The Oklahoma State University Cowboys dominated the event and made history several times over. All 10 Cowboys made it to the finals, and eight Cowboys won the championship in their weight. We scored more team points than anyone in Big 12 history, and…
Read MoreToo Little Too Late
In 1985, the US Army selected the Beretta M9 (a version of the 92FS) as its standard issue side arm. On January 19, the Army ended that 30-year relationship when it chose the Sig Sauer Model P320 as its new weapon of choice. If you’re keeping score, that 10-year contract is worth $580 million. The…
Read MoreMediocrity is a Virus, Excellence is the Cure
“Excellence is an art won by training and habituation: we do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have these because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” —Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy Many hundreds, if not…
Read MoreChange When Things are Good
I was watching the first episode of Abstract: The Art of Design, a new series on Netflix, with my son. It has been a fantastic show so far. The featured designer in this episode was an illustrator named Christoph Niemann. During the conversation he was having with us, the audience, Niemann made a statement that…
Read MoreSet Fire to Your Mind, Not Books
I find it sadly interesting that most of the futures we imagine are dystopian. Really, I challenge you to think of a movie or a book about a distant future where the general sense is that things are better, people are more fulfilled, and overall we are happier. Many of these dystopian futures involve a…
Read MoreWhy Worry
Schopenhauer wrote: “If you accustom yourself to this view of life you will regulate your expectations accordingly, and cease to look upon all its disagreeable incidents, great and small, its sufferings, its worries, its misery, as anything unusual or irregular; nay, you will find that everything is as it should be, in a world where…
Read MorePower Does Not Equal Leadership
I received an email this weekend from my assistant, Robert Greenlaw, that I’d like to share with you: I’ve been mulling over this since Friday and decided to write. I watched a couple hours of inaugural ceremonies with my kids on Friday. It was fun to see and talk about the historic monuments and try…
Read MoreDream
Less than six months before I was born, Martin Luther King, Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, on August 28, 1963, and delivered one of the most famous speeches of all time. Many know the “I have a dream…” portion of his speech, but that was the finale. Long…
Read MoreThe Problem with People
I was having a conversation with someone I value. We were discussing an issue in his business regarding someone who had been creative and productive in the past but had since stopped creating value. My friend told me about all the things his company did to try to get the person back on track, including…
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