Centering

With so many projects shuttering how can you not love the community built around the @ERC725Account? Loyal Innovative Resilient True believers. That’s what it takes to have a chance in today’s highly competitive marketplace.

I apologize in advance, but this is a good outlet for me. Think of it as a public journal. Maybe you find value in these thoughts, maybe you don’t. I’m not offended either way. It is simply my internal world made visible to others, in the hope that perhaps you might reflect on your own thoughts and find that you share some of these feelings. I’ve been reflecting on this past summer. I coach highly competitive travel softball, and I can’t shake the feeling that I need to be better as a coach. Not necessarily in the human aspects. Not in the motivation, the relationships, or the reasons I do it. I mean in the details of preparation. Too often, I make excuses for why we can’t do something. Maybe attendance is inconsistent. Maybe we don’t have enough time in practice. Maybe there are other constraints that make it difficult to get everything in. But then, in the heat of a semifinal or championship game, those details matter. And sometimes, the difference between winning and losing is simply the things we didn’t prepare for well enough. It may not be apparent to everyone watching. Most people would probably never notice. But to me, in the days and weeks that follow, those details stand out. I replay them. I recognize the moments where better preparation could have changed the outcome. And I need to be better at making sure those details are taken care of... always. I’ve also had to come to grips with the fact that I received an ADHD diagnosis later in life. My wife tells me I skew more AuDHD, and honestly, I understand why she says it. I have a strange relationship with details. Sometimes they are all I can think about. I can become completely consumed by them, going so deep into the weeds that I lose sight of everything else. Other times, I miss them completely while my brain is already searching for the next problem to solve, the next challenge, or the next hit of dopamine. I think coaching has exposed that contradiction in me more than anything else. Because at this level, details aren't optional. The little things become the big things when the game is on the line. And maybe that realization extends far beyond softball. I’ve spent a lot of my life thinking about big ideas. About how things could be better. About how people could work together differently. About how you take an idea that exists in one person's head and turn it into something that other people believe in, participate in, and eventually make their own. I’m beginning to understand that a movement isn't really built any differently than a championship team. You need a vision big enough to make people care. You need a culture strong enough to make people stay. You need standards that don't change when things get difficult. And then you need to obsess over the details. Because the big idea is only the beginning. The difference between an idea and a movement is execution. It is the thousands of seemingly insignificant decisions that reinforce what you say you believe. It is showing up when nobody is watching. It is preparing when there isn't a game tomorrow. It is building systems that make excellence repeatable instead of relying on inspiration to show up at the right moment. That may be the lesson I’m taking from this summer. I don't just want to have good ideas. I want to become better at building them. I want to build things that people feel compelled to be part of. Things that give people a sense of purpose, belonging, and possibility. Things that make someone look around and realize they aren't the only person who believes that something could be different. But if I'm serious about that, I have to get better at the details. Because maybe that's where movements are actually built. Not in the moment when everyone finally believes. But in all the preparation that happened before anyone was watching.

If I have learned anything over the last calendar year, it’s that health is wealth. That phrase was first given to me by a woman who sat beside me one afternoon, watching the sunset in Lahaina on Maui. At the time, I was simply enjoying a beautiful late afternoon. For her, though, she was enjoying the end of a long life. Somewhere in the course of our conversation, she told me that she had terminal cancer. She also told me something I’ve never forgotten: despite everything in her bank account, there was no price she could pay to see more sunsets. There were only a finite number of them. That conversation changed the way I think about wealth. Money can buy comfort. It can buy experiences. It can buy a lot of things. But it cannot buy time, and it certainly cannot buy back the health necessary to enjoy that time. At the time, I understood what she meant. Over the last year, I’ve started to understand it differently. At my lowest point last year, with questions about my wife's long-term health eroding my own physical and mental well-being, I chose to begin strength training. That first day in the gym was the inflection point. I am almost 9 months into training now, and things are looking 🆙. Don't take your health or the health of others for granted. The moments we have with our loved ones are not unlimited. Spend them wisely.

I am overjoyed with the amount of resilience that LUKSO builders have shown despite extreme market challenges. You are all legends.

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I tend to agree with this ⤵️

Black Orchid Books in the Making!