Private Tutor

This interview by Patrick O’Schaughnessy of Joe Liemandt on Invest Like The Best (video version here) was so captivating that I listened to it twice so that I could take notes. Liemandt is Principal of Alpha School, a private school that is leaning heavily into generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) to support student learning.

Researchers have long known that one-on-one tutoring is pretty much the best way to teach students. The best homeschoolers among us validate this, I believe. This insight has been kind of meaningless, given that there has been no practical way to achieve this one-to-one student ratio at society-level scale.

But what if a GenAI can accurately assess any student’s knowledge, and help them to efficiently build on that knowledge over time? The scalability of this technology opens up the real possibility of every student having their own private AI-based tutor.

Some benefits of a GenAI tutoring to consider:

No Skipped Lessons: The student catches a cold, has an orthodontist appointment, or simply plays hooky? No problem, the AI simply picks up teaching them right where they left off previously. In the current model, students can fail to absorb key lessons, which makes learning future lessons more difficult.

Staying In “The Zone”: Like any good video game, a well-designed GenAI will keep the student engaged in the “Zone of Proximal Development” - where it is never so easy that it becomes boring, nor so difficult that the student feels overwhelmed. So, student engagement in the process is higher.

Pacing & Outcomes: The AI will allow students to progress through lessons at whatever pace is right for them. And regardless of a student’s pace, every student can achieve the same learning outcomes. (The phrase “No Child Left Behind” comes to mind here.)

Configured properly, this AI-based approach to instruction has a lot of potential.

At Alpha School, students currently only have two hours of AI-based instruction each day, and their standardized test scores are through the roof. This high performance of the students does not appear to be due to coming from privileged backgrounds. Yes, this cutting-edge alternative approach to education has attracted lots of wealthy households, which could skew their results. But Alpha School has plenty of examples of students who come to the school behind their age-based peers, and the GenAI instruction efficiently gets these students caught up to them.

The efficiency and effectiveness of the instruction creates time for the students to engage in lots of other activities. This typically takes the form of content that students love. Examples include Alpha Animation Studio (teaching public speaking and storytelling skills), How To Buy Stuff (personal finance), and Alpha Mad Scientists (emphasis on the meta skill of learning to learn).

The Alpha Model shifts the role of the teacher significantly. Instead of grading papers and writing lesson plans, Alpha’s teachers become more like guides, offering motivational and emotional support to each student. They find what makes their students tick, and create enrichment experiences accordingly. By reclaiming time that students historically have spent sitting at desks, the Alpha School model gives them the time and space to explore things of specific interest to them, fostering a growth mindset and a higher degree of self-directed learning.

I have no doubt that the Alpha School approach is imperfect. But it seems to have the potential to disrupt what I call the “Starting Line” problem that we have historically observed - Children that are born into households that are unwilling or unable to support their early development are left behind the proverbial “8 Ball,” always playing catch-up to learn at the pace of their grade-level peers, typically falling further and further behind.

If GenAI-based tutoring could both allow our brightest children to flourish, while at the same time lifting up the performance floor for students on the other end of the performance spectrum, this would be a massive step forward for humanity.

Sunday Supper

This Labor Day weekend, this Grilled Za’atar Chicken w/ Garlic Yogurt and Cilantro would be great. Or these Hot Dogs w/ Pico de Gallo. Nothing says summer like Zucchini & Corn Fritters.

Sunday Music

This set by Nate Smith + KINFOLK a the NPR Tiny Desk will make your toe tap. This concert by City & Colour is beautiful. This jam session by Toshiki Soejima at POMPOSO will put a smile on your face. Enjoy!

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Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

Forum

I must have referenced Forum in past essays, but I don’t recall ever fully explaining it. The concept of Forum was introduced to me by Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO). I joined the Columbus chapter of EO in the Fall of 2004, and have participated in Forum on a monthly basis ever since.

Forum is a confidential monthly gathering in which 6-10 EO members, led by a trained peer Moderator, share their experiences with each other. It's essentially like having your own personal board of directors, comprised of remarkable leaders who are there to support you through the toughest business challenges and celebrating your victories.

Its structure and format include the following:

• Monthly meetings employing special protocols to support a trusting environment.

• Groups typically consist of 6-10 entrepreneurs from non-competitive industries.

• Led by moderator-trained EO members, not paid facilitators.

• Provides a highly structured and safe environment for members to discuss deeply personal and professional challenges.

Forum is a fundamentally different way of interacting. Sharing experiences rather than giving advice, practicing humility and a beginner's mind, and listening with head and heart. The key principle is that members don't give advice; they speak from first-hand experience, letting you draw your own conclusions on the best manner to proceed.

The Forum practice is central to EO's mission of supporting entrepreneurs not just in business, but as whole individuals, recognizing that entrepreneurship affects every aspect of one's life. It follows a prescribed agenda, which includes everyone sharing a monthly update of their “Top or Bottom 5%” events, and closely examining some combination of the most important and most urgent items in their lives. Life’s most notable events are saved for examination in Forum. We typically can share the other 90% pretty easily with just about anyone.

This monthly practice of reviewing our lives, sharing them with Forum, and being present for my Forum mates to share their experiences has absolutely made me a better person. I have a deeper understanding of myself, I’m a better listener and a better communicator.

I don’t see any reason why this approach to learning and growing can’t work for just about anyone. We all experience the ups and downs of life. Tapping into the experience base of a trusted inner circle greatly magnifies our perspective, allowing us to navigate things more effectively. The willingness of all participants to be open, honest and vulnerable creates trust, which enables depth. I’m happy to share more about the mechanics of Forum if you’d like to explore this concept yourself.

Sunday Dinner

This Swiss Chard, Leek and Goat Cheese Tart looks amazing. It feels a little early for this, but Turkey Chili is starting to sound good to me. This Corn Salad is another great way to bask in the glory of summer sweet corn. And this Blueberry Crumble would make for a wonderful dessert.

Sunday Music

Here is Deep Sea Diver in a recent performance at KEXP. Adam Miller with some Sunday grooves at Studio 606. And here is Gillian Welch & David Rawlings at the NPR Tiny Desk. Enjoy!

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Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

Building Something

This week was so full, so engaging on every front. It didn’t exhaust me, because I managed my sleep well - but the entire 5-day workweek felt like a non-stop gauntlet taking me from one thing to the next…straight into a weekend gauntlet of moving our oldest son back to school in North Carolina.

He and I agreed that “Hotel Bell” has been downgraded to “Motel Bell” - the amenities have slipped since the last time he was a full-time resident here. Rather than fresh-squeezed orange juice and Eggs Benedict for breakfast, guests at our establishment now receive the dregs of the morning coffee pot and some Eggos. This is intentional on the part of the hosts. Why would any little birdie fly out of the nest, if the nest was the Four Seasons? He’ll be glad to return to a domain over which he has complete control, and his parents look forward to the same.

The concept of chaos has been on my mind this week. One reason for this is that I am constantly questioning how I am using my time as I build my EOS practice. I’ve been saying “yes” to a lot of things, using the rationale “This will help me grow my practice.” Of course, the path to my intended future isn’t completely well-paved with clear signage keeping me exactly on-track. As with anything new, we try things, learn and adjust as we build. Our experience with Rosie is exactly the same. Training this sweet little pup the ins and outs of being a Bell takes time, and not all tactics are effective.

On a macroeconomic level, I think we are seeing this with the Trump administration’s massive revamping of our our country’s approach to levying tariffs on imported goods. This is a substantial renovation of the U.S. government’s revenue model, and is hotly debated in terms of whether it will create net benefit for our society.

Starting anything new and meaningful means mucking about. At first, you will never be sure if you are doing enough of the right things. In fact, a great many of them will be the wrong things. But the only way to learn is to take action, then process the feedback. So I’m taking action and adjusting on both the business front and the pet training front. Only time will reveal what is working, and what isn’t.

Creating a “new normal” isn’t a passive exercise. Take action, accept the chaos, learn, adjust - and, eventually, simplify into something that works. I don’t know any other way to go about it.

Sunday Supper

We made these Stuffed Peppers for dinner last night. This Chicken & Zucchini w/ Charred Scallion Salsa looks really good. Cowboy Caviar is a great way to take advantage of the summer’s bounty.

Sunday Music

Andrew Bird, live in Amsterdam twenty years ago. Sturgill Simpson at the NPR Tiny Desk. I’m With Her, live earlier this year. Enjoy!

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Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

Late Summer

The boys are both home. The bounty at the farmers’ market is amazing. The puppy is minding her pees and poos. My personal productivity dropped this week, but these and other factors all merged, prompting me to downshift a bit.

I made this Peach Tart Tartine yesterday. Those Red Haven peaches that John got from up near Lake Erie were as phenomenal as ever. Such an easy recipe - I can’t wait to make it with apples, probably around Thanksgiving.

School starts for the Granville kids on August 20th - just ten days of summer left. Henry is heading back to Durham soon. The transition from Summer to Fall is sneaking up fast. The days are still hot, the evening pavement warm to my bare feet. But the rhythm of life is about to return to “normal.”

Snapping fresh green beans brings my mom back into the kitchen for a moment. The squeak of a porch swing conjures melancholy. So much undone this season. So much that I still intend to do. Staying mostly in the moment, but sense memories sometimes remind me of the past.

Next week I will lay more bricks to build the future. This week was for living in the here and now.

Sunday Supper

This week I share three recipes that lean in to all those cherry tomatoes that are so perfect and available right now. The first is this Slow Cooker Gochujang Chicken & Tomatoes. The next is Dijon Chicken w/ Tomatoes & Scallions. Finally I offer Crispy Halloumi w/ Tomatoes & White Beans for your consideration.

Sunday Music

Big Thief at the NPR Tiny Desk. The War On Drugs, live on KEXP. Death Cab For Cutie, back at the Tiny Desk. Enjoy!

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Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

Summer Fruit

I had forgotten how intense training a puppy can be. That sneaky little Rosie can soil the floor in two seconds if you aren’t paying attention. After a couple initial days of frustration, Lori and I locked into a better operating mode that significantly reduced the number of of “oopsies.” But there is a Rosie Tax - everything that we do right now requires extra energy as we ponder this little poop/pee grenade that can explode at any moment. This sincere focus is how we bond with the dog. I’m not sure the bonding mechanism was ever this clear before.

I recently enjoyed the best nectarine of the year - perfectly sweet and juicy. All the stone fruit are at their peak right now. Tomatoes, too. My friend John is making his annual run up toward Lake Erie to buy Red Haven peaches next week, and is kind enough to pick some up for us. When they arrive I try to drop everything and start baking pies, or at least prep and freeze them for later dessert-making. They’re that good.

In this time of summer bounty, I’m reminded of how fruits are often at their peak just before going bad. This is true for certain other foods, too. But it’s this time of summer when the pattern is most apparent.

Human life might follow a similar arc, at least for some of us. Improving a little each day until life gets really sweet, and then some major health function fails, taking us out. If I could choose, I would choose this pattern for my finite life. So far, so good. Dr. Peter Attia differentiates between “health span” and “life span.” The goal is to enjoy really high function and robustness through most of our life, followed by a brief but definitive loss of function. Perhaps this is where the phrase “ripe old age” comes from - living until we achieve peak sweetness, then quickly devolving to the point where we’re ready for the compost heap. If our decline is the last portion on the Circle of Life, the goal would be to have it be the shortest part of the circumference.

Right now I’m enjoying this really “green” new dog, and all of the perfect summer fruit. Hakuna Matata.

Sunday Supper

With sweet corn coming on, we should definitely consider making some fresh Corn Chowder, or these Fresh Corn Pancakes with Blueberry Sauce. This Cucumber Avocado Salad is always a favorite. These Grilled Pork Sandwiches with Grilled Plum Chutney and Cabbage Slaw seem perfectly timed.

Sunday Music

This live set from more than decade ago features Diane Birch, an artist I only recently discovered. Bruce Hornsby sits in with Goose to jam. The great Keith Jarrett playing Somewhere Over The Rainbow never will get old. Enjoy!

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Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

Back To Basics

Well, you knew it and I knew it. Once I returned to the “doggie dating pool,” it wouldn’t take long for a new dog to make it’s way into our home. Lori found her on Petfinder. She was being fostered by New Albany Pet Rescue. They were calling her Gigi. Part Terrier, part Mastiff, she is a long, slim, brindle-coated girl with a white stripe running down her snout and chest, and four white little socks on her feet.

When we visited her at the foster home, she was a bit tentative, especially with me. She warmed up though, and shared a few tail wags and kisses. On Friday, she visited us, and was more curious and friendly. When Karen offered to let us keep her right then and there, we figured “why draw this out?” She’s a good girl, so now she’s part of our family.

This takes us back to the beginning - the early part of pet ownership. The part where we train her, and she trains us. The part where she is watched by us, every second, so that we can catch and correct any behaviors that need correcting. It is a version of time travel. We are reviewing all past dog training decisions and outcomes, deciding which to repeat and any new methods that we want to employ. Lori and I are collaborating closely, to ensure coverage and consistency. Every dog makes us better at having a dog.

So a fair amount of focus and energy are going to go into this little girl for a while. A return to basics - and not just on the dog training front. We’re going back to basics in many ways. I’ve been running hot, saying “yes” to lots of things which have added complexity to my life. These are good things, but no more additions like this for a while.

We’ll be walking more, to give our girl every opportunity to do her business outside, where we will throw a party every time she does so. (There have been only two weeks in the past year where my average daily step count fell below 10,000, and they have happened since Nova passed away.). I’ll probably have an earlier bed time for a while. When the “baby” sleeps, you better sleep too. Lord knows I’ll be getting up earlier.

While we’re in “puppy training mode,” we’ll keep things simple. Eventually, a new normal will materialize, new routines will firm up. It was quite a week - I shot a personal low 36 on the front nine at Denison Golf Club - the second week in a row of good play (I shot a 40 on the back nine the week prior). It’s been quite a year, actually. Work, play, sadness, joy. Life keeps rolling.

Welcome to Hotel Bell, Rosie. We’ll do our best to give you a good life, and this effort will make our lives better, too.

Sunday Supper

Goodness gracious it has been hot and muggy! After a few more days of rain, the weather forecast is for temperature to drop. In the interim, my focus is on chilled foods. These Green Goddess Chicken Salad sandwiches look amazing. Grilling this Flank Steak w/ Worcestershire Butter will at least keep the heat of cooking outside. This Panzanella Salad would be good, with or without the Lamb Chops (I would grill the lamb chops, again to move the heat outdoors).

Sunday Music

We can’t return to basics without reviewing our ABCs. The guitar playing of Toshiki Soejima is not a bad soundtrack to enjoy while sipping coffee and solving Wordle this morning. These jazz covers of Beatles tunes are another relaxing option this Sunday morning. Enjoy!

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Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

Doggie Paddle

Two weeks ago, in Bergen, Norway, we noticed that all of the dogs being walked by people were especially well-mannered. On our way to the airport to fly to Helsinki, we commented on this to our taxi driver. He said that dog owners were required by law to to get their dogs training, and that this was the reason that all of the dogs are well-behaved. This kind of blew my mind. I don’t know whether this rule was constrained to Bergen, or whether it is something they do throughout Norway, but the end result is wonderful.

When I saw this report from The Reporting Project on Granville’s recently-passed ordinance requiring that all dogs in the village be leashed, it reminded me of what we observed in Bergen. (There is one smart exception to this new rule in Granville - dogs may be off-leash when playing in the front lawn of the Bryn Du Mansion.) No doubt we are all better off when the dogs in our community are well-controlled. Come to think of it, I don’t recall seeing any dog off-leash in Bergen…

It’s been a little more than two months since our dog Nova passed away - the only stretch of time that our household has been dog-free, ever. The day Lori and I moved in to our first home was the same day that we picked up our first dog, a beautiful Yellow Lab named Ella. Soon after, we added a Black Lab mix named Coltrane. Since then, we always had two dogs. So when one passed away, we still had one remaining. When our Chocolate Lab mix Margot passed away July 10, 2019, Nova remained, but we didn’t get her a canine companion.

The day that Nova passed was a whirlwind. I had a number of meetings that day. Doug Wagner’s office was kind enough to get us in first thing that morning. We humanely said goodbye to our girl, and then I went on through my busy day, returning home exhausted that evening. When I got home that night, Lori shared that she found a drop of Nova’s blood on her foot when she returned home from the clinic that day (she had been wearing sandals). Just yesterday she memorialized that little drop by having a small, subtle tattoo inked onto her foot in the place where that drop of blood landed.

So here we are, dogless. Not the normal state of things for us. With the trip to Europe behind us, I’m ready to start meeting dogs that need a home. I’m not sure of the exact traits that we will land on for our new family member. Lori has been lobbying for a smaller animal, but I’m not ready for that yet. We loved the fact that Nova didn’t shed her fur - a trait that we didn’t realize she had when we adopted her. We tend to prefer females, but I’ve met a lot of fun, dopey boys over the years that I know I could love. There are so many dogs that need homes, it kind of cuts both ways. On one hand, with a little patience we should be able to adopt a dog that matches whatever criteria we have, within reason. On the other, there are good, sweet creatures ready to come home with me today.

I’m sure it won’t take long. Soon, we’ll have another dog in our family. I’ll make sure to have a leash, and to schedule some obedience training sessions.

Sunday Supper

We might as well stick with the dog theme this week. These Mexican Hot Dogs, with fresh Pico de Gallo look fun. (The tomatoes at the farmer’s market are really peaking right now - and the sweet corn is starting to come in.). You can never go wrong with a good Chicago Dog. I bet you’ve never had Salchipapa, Peru’s version of tube steak glory, served over French fries. With peaches now in season, finish the meal with a classic Peach Cobbler.

Sunday Music

Let’s start this Sunday with a live performance by Canada’s greatest gift to rock-and-roll - here is Rush performing “Ghost Of A Chance” in Atlanta back in 2008. And here is Khatia Buniatishvili performing Rhapsody in Blue with the National Orchestra of Lyon. Lastly, this performance by Chris Stapleton at the NPR Tiny Desk is wonderful. Enjoy!

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Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

Bergen & Helsinki

We went on a family vacation to Norway and Finland this past week. We flew first to Bergen, Norway and enjoyed three days there before flying to Helsinki and spending time with our former foreign exchange student and her growing family.

There were multiple catalysts for this trip. One is that our firstborn studied Norwegian in college. Another is that our former foreign exchange student had her first child last year, and we needed to meet the little girl. A third is that any chance to have our offspring mostly to ourselves on a globetrotting adventure is always a precious opportunity. So off we went.

This won’t be a Rick Stevesesque triptik detailing our every activity. Despite the fact that I transitioned rather smoothly to the Nordic timezone, somehow I found myself wide awake at 3:30am Thursday evening. Given that we were returning to Ohio on Saturday, I thought I would crank out an early draft of an essay Thursday, in case I became too braindead to write anything coherent by my self-imposed weekly deadline, Sunday, 8:30am. These are in-the-moment broad brush impressions of our adventure.

First, Lori is a master of AirBnB, and navigating air travel. Both apartments that she secured for us were perfectly situated and well-appointed. We were able to cook some meals for ourselves, and experience living in each city, albeit briefly. And when American Airlines abandoned us in Chicago yesterday, she booked us on a Southwest flight that got us home (after an Uber ride from O’Hare to Midway).

Second, trips like this have become the new, adult version of “windshield time” with our children. Back in the day, the car rides to soccer games and robotics tournaments were some of the best times to download how our kids were doing in life. Now it’s on airplanes and in AirBnBs.

Bergen is a natural beauty. Nestled at the foot of seven different mountains, the climate there is considered tropical due to the microclimate created by the surrounding mountains and the warm air from the Gulf of Mexico that flows into the region. It rains more than 200 days each year there. The rain we experienced was mostly a mist - like a heavy marine layer in the morning, that burned off as the sun rose. We walked and walked the hilly cobblestone streets, and enjoyed a boat cruise of the surrounding fjords.

Helsinki’s beauty is different than Bergen’s. It’s more human, more solid. Its architecture communicates strength. It is larger, and more vibrant. I also have to give the nod to Finnish restaurants for how they season their dishes. Our friends treated us to an amazing meal at Natura, which focuses on locally and sustainably produced ingredients. So good. Even better, we got to spoil the new baby of Fanny’s. She is the exchange student who lived with us for the 2011-2012 academic year at Granville High School. She and her partner are great parents, and her own parents joined us for all of our activities. We saw Fanny in New York a couple of years ago, but this was our first time in Finland with her family in 11 years. It was a super-special reunion.

Traveling is so good. It gets us out of our day-to-day world and pushes the mind to think differently, to appreciate how other communities organize themselves, to put the whole world into a broader, richer context. There were so many little design features, from brushes mounted outside of apartment buildings for people to clean their shoes, to unexpected parking rules that make total sense. Other people solve problems differently. Traveling is a great way to remind yourself that there are always alternative ways of doing things.

Schlepping through airports can be a drag, but it is completely worth it. It is productive discomfort. I don’t know what the exact right balance is, but I feel like I need more of it.

Sunday Supper

The salmon in both Norway and Finland was ridiculously good. This simple Lemon Butter Salmon w/ Dill is emblematic of what we ate. This baked Fish & Chips can only be a shadow of what we enjoyed this week, but it will still be delicious. Pairing either of these fish dishes with this Tomato-Watermelon Salad would add a summary accent to the meal. And washing everything down with a Finnish Long Drink will transport me back underneath a big umbrella at Birgitta Hernesaari, protecting our food from the seagulls, watching the boats coming and going across the Gulf of Finland, and just soaking up life.

Sunday Music

The first compact disc I ever bought was actually a 2-disc set, Pat Metheny Group’s 1983 live double album titled Travels. Almost any time that I travel, the title song eventually arises in my mind. This is a distinctive cover of that song. Here is a popular Swedish song (#4 on Eurovision) to listen and dance to when you are taking your next sauna. This cover of Herbie Hancock’s Watermelon Man at the Polar Music Prize celebration for Mr. Hancock is wonderful. And let’s end this week’s musical journey with a performance of the Boy from Bergen, Edvard Grieg - here is a live performance of his piano concerto in A minor, opus 16 by Julia Fischer. Enjoy!

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Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

Rich & Richer

I caught the first few minutes of this conversation that Joe Rogan had with Bernie Sanders recently. In it, Sanders states that it would take the sum total of the net worth of 52% of America’s least wealthy to match the wealth of Elon Musk. So the wealth of the most wealthy man matches the cumulative wealth of the bottom 52% in America, in terms of net financial worth. Bernie sees this as evidence that there is a problem in our society.

Do I think it is “good” that Elon’s relative net worth matches that of the lowest 52% of our society, combined? No. But I don’t think it is automatically bad. I hold this view for two reasons.

First, I believe that the primary driver of wealth disparity is time. The longer that we maintain a relatively peaceful, secure society where capitalists can flourish, the more the “haves” can grow their wealth. I understand that Musk’s wealth was mostly accumulated in his lifetime, which is more an indication of the booming tech industry and his uniqueness as a businessperson.

Second, even though Musk has accumulated more dollars than anyone in history, he is not as wealthy as some of his Gilded Age peers in terms of wealth as a percent of U.S. Gross Domestic Product. With a net worth of $900 million in 1913, John D. Rockefeller’s wealth rose to nearly 3% of GDP in that year. The U.S. GDP for this year is projected to come in around $29.3 trillion dollars, putting Musk’s current net worth of $363 million at just 1.24% of GDP. So, on a relative scale, Musk does not command as big a slice of the economy as some of his predecessors.

The question on my mind is: How does the least wealthy 52% of America live? What is their quality of life? There will always be outliers on the performance curve. I’m comfortable with our society producing high-achievers, but not at the expense of average Americans living a reasonably good life. At this moment, I can’t say that I’ve done my homework well enough to know how well this lower 52% is living, I’m sorry to say.

There are about 10,835 people in America with a net worth of $100,000,000 or greater - 902 of whom are billionaires. As odd as it may sound, someone who has amassed “just” $100,000,000 in their lifetime will typically have done so in what most of us would consider to be the “right” way, in the sense that they’ve paid taxes on that wealth as it accumulated.

It’s the weird edge cases like Musk, whose wealth is mostly on paper and growing so fast, that present a unique challenge, in terms of Musk paying anything resembling his “fair share” of taxes. So long as he keeps his wealth encased in the companies he founded, there will be no “taxable event” that would allow Musks’s wealth accumulation achievements to benefit society at large. Before my libertarian friends point out that any money given to government is money squandered, I’ll simply say that there are lots of things that all of us rely on daily that is best built and maintained collectively through some form of government.

But I can’t help but think about people like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt and Henry Ford. While each had their own philosophy of philanthropy, they seemed to share a greater concern with lifting up people on the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder than the concerns of their present day counterparts. They seemed to understand that if society doesn’t work for most of us, it may not work for any of us.

I worked a shift at Always Forward Crossfit’s booth on the midway at Granville’s July 4th celebration this week. The unifying factor that kept a few people coming back multiple times to swing the sledgehammer and make the bell ring was this: They believed they could do it. They came close on their first attempts, so they wanted to keep trying. We all need to believe that we can make the bell ring in life. And I hope that those high on the economic performance curve take reasonable steps to ensure that more people can make the bell ring because of their successes.

Sunday Supper

This Sunday how about this Lemon & Garlic Chicken w/ Cherry Tomatoes, or this Coconut Miso Salmon Curry? For dessert, I recommend this Peach Cobbler that is accented with saffron and honey.

Sunday Music

This Sunday check out this year-old performance by Thee Sacred Souls at the NPR Tiny Desk. Khruangbin is always a good listen, too. This Reggae Mix is fun as well. Enjoy!

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Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

I’m Bored (With Food)

Cooking has changed for me since the boys have moved out. It’s only by having some time to live in this new reality that something has become clear: When I was feeding my family on a nightly basis, cooking was more than just cooking. It was nurturing. It was actively trying to bring the family joy, to nourish them and make them strong. It was a nightly attempt at serving them just the right food - food appropriate for that day, and those circumstances.

In the transition to cooking for just Lori and myself, I appreciated that my cadence could shift. Instead of being a daily ritual, it has become something done every other, or every third day. And our primary requirement being that the food serve as good, healthy “fuel” - which, for us, means mostly meat and vegetables. This has netted out to me roasting a lot of chicken thighs and vegetables, and making a lot of salads.

These dishes can and should be delicious. But it’s impossible for them to not have some degree of monotony. It was only this past Friday, when we attended a potluck dinner that my enjoyment of cooking perked up. I committed to bringing the proteins (chicken and beef/lamb), and because I was feeling frisky, I also made a batch of hummus as a bonus contribution. Thinking through the logistics of cooking these things, working backward from 6:30pm Friday night and planning when I would make the marinade, form the meat loaves, cook the chickpeas, etc. - this all engaged me in ways I hadn’t experienced in quite a while.

Seeing people positively react to food that I made offers a little hit of dopamine. That’s what I’ve been missing. It’s hard to find that “high” when I’ve been keeping my cooking so bloody simple.

To be fair, I want to keep things simple most of the time - both for my health and for my schedule. I have shifted my use of time away from the kitchen for the time being. So, I’m not moping. But cooking for the most part has become a more tedious, basic chore. This is fine for now. I don’t expect this mode to last forever. In the meantime, just know that if you invite us to a potluck, the answer will be a quick “yes” if we don’t have other commitments on the calendar.

Sunday Supper

The Friday potluck was centered around a Mediterranean theme. This Kefta recipe is not exactly how I made it on Friday, but it’s close. This Shish Tawook Chicken Kebab recipe yields the platonic ideal of the dish, in my opinion. This hummus recipe was a major breakthrough for me in a number of ways: Making the tahini-garlic sauce separate from pureeing the cooked chickpeas, then whisking them together allowed me to really control the flavor balance. Cooking the chickpeas for a long time, and with some baking soda in the water made this the smoothest texture I had ever achieved with this dish. And lastly, this particular brand of tahini was also a game changer. Ingredients matter! If you are serious about your hummus, I strongly encourage you to give this a try.

Sunday Music

Before we get to the music, first you should check out Mo Amer’s comedy bit about making hummus. Man, do I love listening to Lianne La Havas. This Morning Jazz Vinyl set will get your Sunday off and rolling quite nicely as well. Enjoy!

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Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

Seven Generations

I probably shouldn’t write about racism. I’m a white man who grew up in a semi-rural suburb of a Midwestern city, and have never lived in very diverse communities. Someone like me writing about race runs the very real risk of saying something stupid out of ignorance. What are the odds that I can make a meaningful contribution to the reduction of race-based bias and intolerance?

Visiting the National Civil Rights Museum a few weeks ago made a real impression on me. It reminded me of a view I had previously held, but honestly it had drifted due to lack of use. That view has been resurrected, and it is this: It is insufficient to be a non-racist. If we are to move society in the direction of greater fairness and equal opportunity, all of us need to be actively anti-racist. We have to challenge even the most subtle racist acts and let those who propagate them know that it is not acceptable. Living in a suburban Ohio town with little diversity has provided very few opportunities to demonstrate this value.

I can’t fully appreciate what the lived experience of a black person is in today’s America. But I do know that just 200 years ago, White Americans owned Black West Africans as slaves. I know that slavery was abolished by the 13th amendment in 1865, but it was ninety-five years later that young Ruby Bridges needed adult escorts in order to attend an elementary school that up until that point had been exclusively for white students. I have some sense of the blindspot that I possess, because I can read, and think, and empathize with the circumstances in which other people find themselves.

A thought experiment: If we could wave a magic wand and expel all racist thoughts in America, and ensure equal access to good education and job opportunities to every citizen, how long would it take for previously oppressed communities in America to reach socio-economic parity with the rest of our society? I put this question into Claude.ai, and it estimated it would take 3-5 generations.

Of course, we don’t have such a magic wand (and what does Claude know, anyway?). Disadvantaged communities will still be at a relative disadvantage for the foreseeable future. There are still segments of our society that are more than happy to keep piling on such adversity.

From 1865 until today about seven generations of humanity have played out. The current state of affairs must be about as good as it has ever been in America. But the issue is far from resolved.

Even though the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery was ratified in December of 1865, it wasn’t until June 19th, 1866, that the news of slavery’s abolishment reached some corners of Texas. America’s recognition of Juneteenth as a national holiday is considered by some to be America’s “Second Independence Day.” It certainly was a step in the right direction, in terms of honoring the truth expressed in our Declaration of Independence, stating that “All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” A straightforward pronouncement, finally applied to every human being on our soil.

It has taken us seven generations to get to this point. It could easily take seven more before such essays never need to be written again. Please join me in this anti-racist posture. Let’s keep things moving in the right direction.

Sunday Supper

It is officially summer, so let’s light the grill and cook these Dijonnaise Grilled Chicken Breasts along with Grilled Summer Vegetables w/ Tahini Dressing. This cool American Flag Fruit Salad provides a strong finish.

Sunday Music

This Stanley Clarke performance at NPR’s Tiny Desk flat-out cooks. So to does this set by Ezra Collective. Enjoy!

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Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

We Rhyme

We are different. But sometimes when you look in the mirror, you’re going to see me. You’re going to make different choices than I did, and that is proper. We are different people, living in different times.

Some of your wiring, your “mental map” as I call it, got connected incorrectly, through no fault of anyone. The fact is that some mis-wired connections are made during childhood because children can’t process things very well. We all learn “lessons” that are just plain wrong. So you will have some work to do, to scan your wiring and correct for these things.

I made mistakes, too. Despite my best efforts, I probably taught you some things that are wrong, or at least unhelpful. Hopefully this didn’t stick. But you should look out to correct for these mistakes as well.

Though your central core is beautiful and constant, much of the rest of your “firmware” can be updated. You can update yourself. The work of getting to know yourself, and consciously making changes is ongoing. Through fifty-six years so far, I see no end to it.

Who you are is not who you will be. Life changes us. Always for the better, if you choose. Resentment is dead weight. Blaming others, pointless. Owning every cubic inch of your self and your experiences will ensure that you keep getting better.

Of this I am certain: You are capable of far more than you will probably ever ask of yourself. We all are. The vast majority of us dream smaller than our capacity. This is fine. Only stretch for the things that light you up. Just know that everything you will ever need is inside of you already. Accessing it is fun. Trust yourself. You win, or you learn. Don’t beat yourself up. It takes a while to figure things out and get them right.

You are you, and I am me. But every apple falls close to the tree. Your genes will rustle up some ghosts. Let your light shine, everything will be fine. The past won’t repeat itself, but it will rhyme.

Sunday Supper

This year, I’m thinking of the Father’s Day meals I enjoyed when my dad was alive. Simple Grilled Steak, with the Ultimate Baked Potato and a Massive Italian salad. These Homemade Fudgsicles make for a sweet finish.

Sunday Music

The Doobie Brothers’ 50th Anniversary performance at Radio City Music is worth a listen. This John Scofield-led trio from 2023 is wonderful as well. Enjoy!

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Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

Get To Memphis

The past nine days have been a whirlwind of various planning workshops, air travel, car travel, carrying furniture down stairs, and celebrating a long-time friend’s retirement. All of this, while also layering in a head cold in the middle of the week. After posting today’s essay, my Sunday will truly be a much-needed day of rest.

Two Fridays ago, Lori and I flew down to Memphis so that we could attend a day-long personal planning session at the home of Andy Bailey, a fellow EO member who did an excellent, though abbreviated, workshop in Columbus earlier this year. The program is called Boundless, and it honors all of the same principles of EOS, just applying them more to individuals rather than organizations. When I suggested to Lori that we attend, I saw it as an easy way to dedicate some focused time to thinking about our future, in a nice setting (Andy’s farm property is beautiful). And it very much delivered on that vision.

The workshop happened all-day Saturday. Our flight back to Columbus on Sunday didn’t board until around 3pm, so we had a fair amount of time to explore Memphis. We cruised around Beale Street, and took a peak at the recently-closed Comeback Cafe. I discovered Comeback’s coffee sodas in the cooler at Copia Farm a year or two ago, and was instantly smitten. So I started following them on Instagram. They are scrappy, creative entrepreneurs with a great product. Although they did close their café, their canned beverage business goes on. I’m hopeful that by simplifying their business, it will more easily grow. You can order their unique sodas online, so give them a try.

“What about the National Civil Rights Museum?” Lori asked me as we were poking around the internet, looking for things to do before heading to the airport. My first instinct was to resist this idea - it felt too much like doing my homework in grade school rather than enjoying my brief window of time on a Sunday. The reviews of the museum are stellar, which convinced us to check it out, and I’m so glad that we did.

My first instinct was right, in that visiting the museum did require something “extra” of me. It was not just a Sunday in a new town, bopping around. It was heavy. Located in the building formerly known as the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated April 4th, 1968, the tone of the visit was appropriately somber. Touring this museum meant re-absorbing things I had previously learned about the civil rights struggle, and adding so much new information on top of that. For every Rosa Parks, Dred Scott and Thurgood Marshall, there were ten new names for me to learn, of people making similar sacrifices in the effort to fully claim their rights as citizens of this country.

I cannot do the experience justice with my words, but I will say this: Every single American should tour this museum. No matter how much education you have received, visiting the National Civil Rights Museum will take your understanding to a much higher level.

Sharing the emotions that I felt last Sunday are a better way to get at why everyone should visit this hallowed ground. The first emotion was sadness - sadness at the misery experienced by West Africans - kidnapped, forced to row across the ocean so that their entire lives could be spent farming crops and being treated like livestock. The second emotion I felt was shame - shame for every time I chuckled at a racist joke, shame for not calling out the joke-tellers, shame for allowing people to reinforce bullshit stereotypes. I felt immense gratitude for all of the people who have leaned in to the Civil Rights effort, and the way in which they went about their efforts. As an oppressed people, to embrace Ghandi’s nonviolent approach to resistance, working within the U.S. legal system to secure rights that were already codified in our Constitution is nothing short of amazing. Lastly, I felt a fair amount of anger - anger that people had to spend decades working through a legal system to verify that yes, indeed, these rights do apply to everyone. Anger at how our fellow citizens refused to acknowledge these legal rulings even after they were adjudicated.

This experience put the present moment into clearer perspective. It’s easier for me to see how racism still exists in our society, and is working to regain leverage within the legal power structures of America. Get to Memphis. See for yourself.

Sunday Supper

The head cold that both Lori and I have had this week will be graciously escorted to the curb thanks to this Chicken Pho recipe. I’m substituting some fresh veggies from the farmer’s market, as well as some Cajun sausage and homemade beef stock to give it an extra healing kick. This Buttermilk Corn Pasta recipe looks nice, too.

Sunday Music

Memphis is the theme this week, so the Blues is on tap for our music recommendations. This 2011 performance by B.B. King at Royal Albert Hall is definitely a good listen. This 2023 performance by Gary Clark Jr. at the Beale Street Music Festival is really something too. Enjoy!

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Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

Staying Alive

I’ve been reading and listening to the work Dan Sullivan quite a lot, lately. Dan is the founder of Strategic Coach, a popular coaching program for entrepreneurs. In this podcast episode that I listened to this past week, Dan suggested something that had never occurred to me before: He believes that being surrounded by younger, highly-engaged entrepreneurs is slowing his own aging relative to his octogenarian peers.

This is the psychological equivalent (in my mind) of the fact that exposing our bodies to certain types of physical stress promotes higher levels of bone density. I would not be surprised if Dan’s theory some day is validated by scientific research.

At the age of 81, Dan is more than halfway to his stated goal of living to the age of 156. I don’t know how he chose this goal, but it’s obviously ambitious. The nature of his work keeps him surrounded by 30- to 50- year old entrepreneurs, and he thinks this has made a difference in both his mental outlook and his own biology.

I remember my mother warning me during my teenage years to avoid spending time with certain peers - that they would be a bad influence on me. With the benefit of hindsight, she was clearly right. What Dan suggests is that hanging out with older people who have disengaged from life in certain ways could be a biological detriment to anyone seeking to maximize both lifespan and health span.

Could it be that achieving some level of financial freedom accelerates our own demise? That shutting down our hustle, coasting through a life of ease sends a message to our cells that “Hey, this person no longer needs to thrive.” Related to this I think are the many anecdotes we hear of elderly people who care for ailing spouses, only to decline rapidly themselves once relieved of the challenges of caregiving. We somehow rise to the challenges that surround us (to some degree).

This little nugget of an idea is going to stick with me, I think. I’m going to stay goal-oriented, engaged and seeking variety rather than monotony for the foreseeable future.

I don’t expect to live forever, but I do expect to live a lot.

Sunday Supper

Lori and I enjoyed this simple one-pot Miso-Turmeric Salmon and Coconut Rice this past week. This unique way of preparing Lemonade has caught my eye. It reminds me of a drink an Indian friend once prepared for me that was surprisingly refreshing. This Spring Salad looks great, too.

Sunday Music

The Buena Vista Social Club brought their amazing Cuban sound to the NPR Tiny Desk recently. And here is Snarky Puppy, live at North Sea Jazz, 2023. Enjoy!

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Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

Might Ain’t Right

First, an administrative note: This site (my personal website, primarily the home of my weekly essays) has been moved to www.nealbell.net. I have now launched a website at www.nealbell.com in support of my EOS Implementer practice. I recognize that this only makes it harder to find my personal essays, but it made the most sense.

Lately, writing my weekly essays has become more difficult. This is partially due to the shrinking amount of time and energy I am able to devote to this weekly practice. For me, writing these essays is the best way for me to make sense of life as it plays out. I share my thoughts broadly, primarily so that just two people can access them, should they ever wish to do so (my offspring). Having a weekly deadline puts me “on the hook” to make an entry into this weekly journal, and I think it is good for me.

A second reason that writing has become more difficult is because the things that have most been on my mind are things that I really didn’t want to focus on, or share publicly due to the inherent polarizing nature of the topics.

But it is 7:10am this Sunday, and my self-imposed deadline to publish is 8:30am, and the issue occupying my mind is what it is.

Eighty-three weeks ago, I wrote a post titled Remote Control Bullying. In it, I talked about the concept of stochastic terrorism, which is defined as “a form of political violence instigated by hostile public rhetoric directed at a group or an individual. Unlike incitement to terrorism, stochastic terrorism is accomplished with indirect, vague or coded language, which grants the instigator plausible deniability for any associated violence.” That essay from 83 weeks ago cited three specific examples of stochastic terrorism that were playing out across America: voter intimidation at poll sites, the storming of the Capitol building on January 6th, 2021, and the foiled plot by 14 people to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

Since being re-elected to the American Presidency, Donald Trump has taken two actions with regard to the items I wrote about 83 weeks ago. On the first day of his recently-won 2nd term, he pardoned more than 1,500 people convicted of offenses related to the storming of the Capitol on January 6th, 2021. More recently, Trump’s Department of Justice agreed to pay the family of January 6th rioter Ashli Babbitt almost $5 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit. And in this week’s news cycle, recently-appointed DOJ attorney Ed Martin Jr. said that he is going to take a "hard look" at two men who are serving long prison terms for leading a conspiracy to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

The message is clear: Violence committed in support of things that Donald Trump views as positive are no longer illegal. Commit violence on his behalf, then patiently wait in jail for your pardon. If you are killed while committing these acts, your surviving family will be financially compensated.

Donald Trump is America’s President, and the power to pardon people resides with that office. So all of this is perfectly legal. But we should ask ourselves, eighty three weeks since I last addressed this topic, whether this type of “leadership” is going to inspire more violence.

I wish this wasn’t what was on my mind this morning. But there it is. This Memorial Day weekend, as we mourn the loss of our U.S. servicemen and women, I reflect on their sacrifice and this ongoing abuse of leadership.

Sunday Supper

We are enjoying some Korean flavors this weekend. Give this Grilled Gochujang Pork With Fresh Sesame Kimchi a try. These Spicy Cucumbers With Mint, Scallions and Crushed Peanuts are a perfect compliment. And keep the spice rolling with these Gochujang Caramel Cookies.

Sunday Music

I can think of no one better to listen to this Memorial Day than one of America’s greatest musical storytellers, Mr. Bruce Springsteen. Enjoy!

If you know anyone who might like this essay, please share it with them. 

Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to.  Let me know how I can help.

Peace & Love,

Commencement Speech

This weekend was graduation day for many colleges and universities. Yesterday Lori and I made a brief appearance at the grad party of a young man who was in our younger son’s graduating class in high school.

As I was getting cleaned up and dressed for the evening, a simple sentence came into my head to share with the young man when I saw him: “You never have to grow up, but you must always keep learning.” Reflecting on this statement, it does seem to cover a lot of ground.

Looking back to my own graduation, I do recall some degree of dread around entering “the real world.” This meant taking on a certain amount of drudgery, of being geographically separated from my college friends, paying bills, performing tasks at work that were basic, repetitive, perhaps mind-numbing. This daily grind I am describing is summed up by this commercial from the mid-80s.

With many more years down the road, I am pleased to report that even though certain boring, repetitive tasks are unavoidable, we humans are able to master them rather easily. This allows us to get back to horsing around and amusing ourselves much in the same way we would amuse ourselves in our youth. In fact, consciously trying to channel more child-like open-mindedness has become a key to retaining access to my own creativity and imagination over the years.

So, we don’t have to “grow up.” It’s entirely optional.

But we always, always, always have to keep learning. The world is changing too fast to think that we will ever fully know what we need to know. There may have been such a time at the apex of the post-World War II “goldilocks” period, when the charts tracking our prosperity were all moving up and to the right, and the world was relatively peaceful. But that period is behind us. The world is more dynamic and uncertain today, and sadly less peaceful. So we need to keep learning, using our innate childlike creativity to navigate this dynamism.

So there it is - a commencement address in one sentence.

For those of you wondering why I’ve made no mention of our dog Nova thus far, it’s because we had to say goodbye to her last Wednesday. As sad as it was, Lori and I know that we “stuck the landing,” interceding to end our girl’s discomfort quickly, before it became too much to ask (while maximizing our time together). That sweet pooch had an optimal life, given the hand that she had been dealt, health-wise. I hope that we can all be so lucky.

Sunday Supper

The last couple of weekends, I’ve purchased two bunches of beets, prepping and eating them in their entirety - roots, stems and greens. At $4/bunch, this is an amazing value. For eight bucks I can roast a half-sheet pan of the roots, all the while sautéing a big pan of the greens and stems with some onion and garlic, finishing them with a little acid, like lemon juice or some type of vinegar (I like a couple dashes of Tabasco as well). This recipe for Sautéed Beet Greens is a great basic approach to cooking beet greens. These Lemon-Pepper Chicken Breasts are fun. This Spicy Ground Turkey and Snap Peas looks healthy and leans into Spring peas.

Sunday Music

Play this Jazz Piano playlist, and you’ll get an idea of how cool it is to have Lori sitting at the baby grand in your living room. This collaboration between and Dixie Chicks and James Taylor is worth a listen, too. Enjoy!

If you know anyone who might like this essay, please share it with them. 



Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

Iron City Insights

Happy Mother's Day to all mothers who might be reading this! It’s been more than three years since my mom passed, and sometimes I still half-expect to bump into her at Ross’ Market. Time marches on…

Another quick Nova update, since so many of you ask me about our dog: She continues to hang in there, even though the growth on her forehead continues to get more pronounced. Who knows how long this can continue without other symptoms presenting themselves? We’re just loving her and keeping a close eye on her behavior and other symptoms. One day at a time…

I had a fantastic retreat with my EO Forum mates in Pittsburgh this past week. Each time I step away from the day-to-day, I marvel at how impactful it can be to simply take a clarity break - it is then supercharged when we are surrounded by amazing people.

Our first day together was focused on catching up with each other, and thinking big. We visited Fallingwater, the warhol, and Randyland. Soaking in the work of people who are/were so different from their peers was very refreshing.

Day Two we each underwent a SWOT analysis, followed by a Hoshin Kanri exercise to stack rank the various opportunities and determine which warranted our focused effort in the months ahead. We also were blown away by some real-world examples of how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be applied to each of our businesses.

Day Three was all about laying out our plans for the next few months - in detail, with specific, measurable outcomes that we will all be tracking and sharing with each other. It feels great to have so much clarity regarding what I need to do (and why), and some accountability buddies to support each other as we get to work.

We enjoyed great meals at the Monterey Bay Fish Grotto at the top of Mt. Washington overlooking the city, and Senti (which served the best lasagna I’ve ever had at a restaurant). Of course, for lunch one day we had to order sandwiches from Primanti Brothers. The Dog Penn was a super-fun spot for pre-dinner cocktails one night. As luck would have it, CrossFit Athletics was just two blocks from the Southside AirBnB rental we secured for our group, so I was able to work out early to start each day.

Pittsburgh is a great city! I highly recommend a visit. I also recommend taking quarterly clarity breaks. Strongly consider it, even if you think you can’t spare the time. It will yield a net time savings by giving you more clarity and focus. Trust me, I’ve gone through this mental wrestling match. This ritual has proven its value to me.

Sunday Supper

I’m making Lori a wonderful omelet with cheese and mushrooms from the Granville Farmers Market for Mother's Day brunch, along with some roasted fingerling potatoes. For supper, I’m going to prep this great Bolognese sauce (and serve it over roasted cauliflower for a low-carb meal). These Sheet-Pan Sun-Dried Tomato Chicken Bowls also look delicious.

Sunday Music

This performance by the Brad Mehldau Trio is so good. So is this performance/interview with Sierra Hull on World Cafe. Enjoy!

If you know anyone who might like this essay, please share it with them. 



Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

Tenacity & Quitting

First, a Nova note: She is still with us, hanging in there. We are loving every moment we have with our beautiful puppy girl. Thanks to everyone who has sent kind notes regarding her situation.

Not completely unrelated to managing Nova’s declining health, I often ponder the challenge of striking the right balance between staying tenacious and deciding when to abandon a goal.

Media is rife with stories of people who irrationally hung in there, eventually accomplishing something amazing. JK Rowling, who eventually published the Harry Potter book series, making her wealthier than the Queen of England. Harland Sanders and his tenacious pursuit of growing the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant chain (he was in his 60s before it was successful). Steve Jobs being forced out of Apple, only to return and save it from the brink of ruin. Unreasonably tenacious sometimes pays off.

And then there are those whose path to their greatest success can be attributed to strategic quitting. Oprah Winfrey had to leave he co-anchor position on WJZ-TV in Baltimore in order for her creativity to conceive of her talk show. Jeff Bezos had to leave a well-paying job to start Amazon. And Reed Hastings (founder of Netflix) had to sell his successful software business before he would land on the initial idea that made Netflix such a success (no late fees).

Of course, the literal polar opposite of Netflix was Blockbuster Video. They were tenacious - irrationally hanging on to their late fee-driven business model, riding it all the way down to bankruptcy. And Kodak, tenaciously insisting it was in the film processing business rather than photography. Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman lit almost $2 billion on fire, insisting that their short-format video streaming business, Quibi, would be successful before finally pulling the plug. Plenty of people ride their tenaciousness all the way to ruin.

And sometimes we quit too soon. Ronald Wayne had a 10% stake in Apple computer, but got cold feet just 12 days into the venture and cashed out his $800 - which would be worth more than $100 billion today. There was a time in the late 1970s when Ross Perot had an opportunity to purchase Microsoft for something like $6 - $15 million, but decided it was was too rich for his blood, and walked away from hundreds of billions of dollars.

This is all to say that there are examples of tenaciousness paying off, and tenaciousness leading to ruin. Strategic quitting has unlocked major successes, and rendered some people an object lesson in poor decision-making.

Maybe there is no rhyme or reason. Maybe it mostly boils down to luck. I’d like to think these are some decent rules for striking a balance between Hanging In There and Bailing:

• Do your best to clearly define what success and failure looks like for any given project.

• Reflect often - take the time to really review how the project is going. Don’t get caught on the treadmill of doing, doing, doing such that you stop thinking.

• Don’t fall for the sunk cost fallacy. Just because resources have been spent does not mean you obligated to keep spending your way to ruin.

• Opportunity Costs are real, too. What else could you be spending your precious time and other resources on if you shut down the current project?

Signs you should hang in there a while longer:

• You are seeing incremental progress, but its slower than you expected.

• The underlying reasons for pursuing the goal remain valid.

• You haven’t yet implemented your full strategy (give it a chance).

• The obstacles you face are related to execution, not fundamental flaws in your thesis.

Signs it may be time to quit:

• Despite genuine effort, very little progress has been made.

• The landscape has changed that makes your goal less valuable.

• You’ve discovered a (previously unknown) superior alternative that renders your goal moot.

• Continuing would require sacrificing core values or well-being.

There is no path through life that doesn’t continue a few “what ifs.” It’s hard to know when to re-commit to something, versus choosing an entirely new direction. The easiest person to fool is often ourselves - cultivating objectiveness and sometimes brutal honesty with yourself will help you make the tough call.

Sunday Supper

These Potato-Cheese Pierogies w/ Bacon look fun and delicious. Get a jump on Cinco de Mayo with these Chicken Fajitas, or this Mexican Chopped Salad with Cumin Vinaigrette.

Sunday Music

This recent performance by Madison McFerrin at the NPR Tiny Desk is fun - exploratory in ways that make sense when you realize that she is the daughter of Mr. Bobby McFerrin. And here’s a jam from Goose, from last December. Enjoy!

If you know anyone who might like this essay, please share it with them. 



Have a great week ahead!  Offer support to others.  Make good use of this day.  And let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

A Week In The Life

I was not firing on all cylinders this past week. Monday morning I had some minor oral surgery. Afterwards, my mouth felt like I had been forced to eat an entire box of Cap’n Crunch cereal without milk in five minutes or less, followed immediately by eating the hottest slice of cheese pizza imaginable. Thankfully, my mouth feels better today.

Our dog Nova’s decline continues, and it has started to disrupt my sleep. Friday morning, worried that the veterinarian would not be available to us should we need them over the weekend, I made an appointment to have them lay eyes on my girl before the end of the day. I didn’t think we would need to say goodbye right then and there, but I needed their experienced opinion to reassure me that she would make it through another weekend.

When it comes to knowing when the right time is to let them go, my years of living with pets can be distilled into one sentence: “A day early is better than a day late.” So I’m being vigilant. I’ll be surprised if she is still with us this time next week. This sucks, but it has been a joy to have her in our lives, and I know that she has had the best life possible. This is an obligation from which I would never shy away. We’re doing things right.

I spent a few hours in the Denison Biological Reserve Saturday, walking the trails and having some thoughtful conversations with a few good men. The morning started off cool and breezy, warming up by 2pm when we all went our separate ways. All the walking, sun and fresh air made it easy to catch a much-needed nap when I returned home.

Despite my sadness, my lack of rest, my fuzzy mind state, I know what I need to focus on, work-wise in the days ahead. This clarity is reassuring. I may not accomplish as much as I would in a “normal” week, but I will work with focus, accepting the fact that the week will not be normal.

Regular readers of my essays will know that I like to reflect on each week, trying to discern some central theme and drilling into it a bit. Lately the themes have circled around grief and mortality. I feel like I have reached my current limit in examining them, and apologize for their repeated appearance. But Nova has been the star of the show this week.

I was tempted to skip the weekly writing ritual. Nobody wants to hear more of this sad shit from me. But a deadline is a deadline. I believe in showing up, even when I don’t have much in the tank. So here it is. See you next week.

Sunday Supper

My sore mouth was soothed by this soft, smooth Spring Risotto this past week. This Apple and Fennel Salad looks good. And this Thai Hot-and-Sour Coconut Chicken Soup looks distinctive and soothing.

Sunday Music

This morning vinyl/dub set is a good way to ease into this Sunday morning. This cover of Prince’s How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore is so well done. So too is this cover of the Goo Goo Dolls song, Iris. Enjoy!

If you know anyone who might like this essay, please share it with them. 



Have a great week ahead!  Offer support to others.  Make good use of this day.  And let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

Born Again (And Again)

Yesterday I mowed the lawn for the first time this year. The smell of fresh-cut grass a guarantee that Spring is here.

As my Christian friends commemorate the resurrection of Jesus today, I find myself thinking about the many times my life has been renewed over the years.

There was the time when, in grade school, I first stood up to a bully. Or when I first performed on stage. All of life’s early rites of passage: romantic relationships and friendships that run their course. Absorbing lots of knowledge during college, then realizing how much more I still had to learn. Marriage, parenthood, and now empty-nesterhood. Entrepreneurship. They all turned me into a fundamentally different version of myself.

One of the central lessons of my life is the lesson of impermanence. On some time scale, everything here on Earth comes to an end. Anything that is truly eternal is mostly beyond my comprehension, and I am comfortable with this.

Every night we fall asleep, and awake renewed. Every Fall the leaves drop from the trees, Winter sets in, then eventually the trees bud again. The spring peepers herald yet another year of renewal. Our friends and loved ones drop like leaves, each on their own unique schedule.

After a few decades, we begin to notice patterns. And we begin to recognize that we can intentionally revise and renew ourselves. We can seek out specific transformational experiences. We can take on specific challenges that we know will require something new of us. We stop chasing shallow, meaningless things and focus on the most important. This heightens our engagement with life, making every day special, and too brief.

I know that not everyone experiences the full spectrum of the progression I describe. I’m sure that other people might look at my timeline and think “Wow, he really missed out on some good lessons.”

One of the coolest things about this current point in time for me is talking with my adult children, getting a sense of how they are navigating their lives. I try to mostly be a sounding board, asking open-ended questions. Posing “what if” thought experiments. Helping them examine important decisions from as many angles as possible, and expressing confidence in their ability to make the choice that is right for them.

I’ve come to believe that one of the tallest tasks for all of us is to simply develop our self awareness. The more we know about ourselves, what lights us up (and why), the easier it is to make the right decisions for ourselves. If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there. It takes time to figure out what roads we should be traveling.

Early in my life, I think I tended to follow the path of least resistance, and was pretty random in terms of trying different things. Pruning out pathways after finding those that were not right for me. It’s the rare 18-year old that knows exactly what they want to do with their life, and runs straight at it. We tend to bounce around a bit, before settling into something that works for us.

We all start somewhere, and hopefully advance in a positive direction from there. I am immensely grateful for the position I find myself in today - and for the fact that tomorrow can be even better.

Sunday Supper

We’re going to enjoy this Chicken Shawarma on salad greens today, and these Horseradish Deviled Eggs. These Chocolate Easter Egg Nests look like a fun holiday treat.

Sunday Music

Imagine driving through Eau Claire Wisconsin, listening to this interview of Justin Vernon by Krista Tippet and learning that he grew up in Eau Claire. That happened to me this past week. So I had to feature him here - this live performance for NPR is wonderful. This performance by Hania Rani is lovely as well. Enjoy!

If you know anyone who might like this essay, please share it with them. 



Have a great week ahead!  Offer support to others.  Make good use of this day.  And let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,