Most writing about habits frames them as productivity tools. Build the right habit, do the thing, become the more efficient version of yourself. The vocabulary is discipline, willpower, accountability, consistency. That’s not why I built mine. I built mine to give my brain somewhere to go when it would otherwise reach for food, wine, or … Continue reading The Beauty of Routines
What I Wrote in 2018
In July of 2018 I sat down at a keyboard and wrote a post about communication. I had just come through chemo and surgery to clean out my lymph nodes — my second time with cancer, the first having been in 2004. I was on short-term disability. I was waiting to go back to my … Continue reading What I Wrote in 2018
Communication, Negotiation, and Capitulation
I just finished Charles Duhigg’s Supercommunicators. The book teaches a set of techniques for understanding people — listening so they feel heard, matching their conversational mode, building enough trust that real exchange becomes possible. The techniques are real and they work. What’s missing from the book — and from most communication writing — is a … Continue reading Communication, Negotiation, and Capitulation
AI: Abdication or Augmentation
Yesterday a 22-year-old developer named Austin Kennedy posted something on X that has been viewed over a million times. “I’m 22 years old and Claude Code is deteriorating my brain. Every single day for the last 6 months I’ve had 6 to 8 Claude Code terminals open, waiting for a response just so I can … Continue reading AI: Abdication or Augmentation
The Song That Outgrew the Woman I Wrote It For
It must have been 2013. We were at our Toastmasters club, and our mentor — a woman who had been in the organization a long time, the kind of presence who leads by example without announcing she’s leading — stood up to give a speech. She titled it Watch Me. I don’t remember every word. … Continue reading The Song That Outgrew the Woman I Wrote It For
