The Mother of All Initiations

Hold fast to your agency. Grow up. Help bring about the better story — the story of who we might yet become, as true humans. I think a lot these days about AI and whether it is rendering the act – and the effort – of writing pointless. It was a thought that re-surfaced as…

Could you do more by doing less?

Slow is smooth and smooth is fast, say the rangers or the seals or some extreme group of elite soldiers who we pedestal for being the peak of focus and achievement. Also, Nature would suggest, much is accomplished by rest, apparent idleness, and letting things do their thing without you hovering and fussing and tapping your foot… basically, while you’re looking the other way, or on holidays having forgotten about them. What if our analogies for leadership and productivity came from Nature, instead of sports, machines, war and celebrities? Would life just be BETTER?

On the power of pep-talks

Vulnerability, well-met, might be the Universe’s secret connective tissue. And the best way to strengthen it is to ask for, or offer, a word of encouragement, when someone’s courage has slipped away for an unscheduled break.

Seeking outlets for love and rage

I interviewed mountain biker Casey Brown fourteen years ago, and have never forgotten the thing she shared, that her dad taught her, that powered her racing. When you ride, he advised, “Put all your love and hate into it.” The thing that struck me in this Wise-Dad-Counsel was the baseline acknowledgement to his daughter, that:…

Struggle is a keystone habit

Without struggle, there is no growth.

And no high, either.

Why the gym is currently the keystone habit that’s teaching me why and how to keep creating

The Shape of Time

For professional climber Ines Papert and mountain guide Sarah Hueniken, 50 is just a number. “It’s just one day after 49 — and today you’re the youngest you’re ever going to be,” they remind us. What other insights can we glean from two of the most accomplished climbers of our generation?

Tend the Invisible

Jasper, a year after a wildfire burned a third of the town to the ground, felt cauterized, cut off from its own vitality, as though burns had staunched overt bloodshed but left gnarled scar tissue that was hard to look at. It’s impossible as an outsider to know how the fire actually affected the community,…

This is how we Solstice

I never write about horse camp because it’s hard to touch with words, it’s a “you have to be there” kind of experience. But I did write a caption to go along with some photos I shared on instagram and CCO’s media-savvy marketer, Hailey asked “wanna write a blog post?” and so I tried to…