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
What the Scale Wasn’t Telling Me
For about six weeks, the scale stopped moving. I’d been showing up every day. At least thirty minutes of exercise on regular days, an hour or more on 7-40 Challenge days. I’ve gone through two pairs of running shoes this year — the kind that are supposed to last four to five hundred miles each. … Continue reading What the Scale Wasn’t Telling Me
Drive-Through Talking
It had to have been the early 2000s. My bride and I were sitting in a church auditorium listening to Kevin Leman speak, and the phrase he kept using made me chuckle every time I heard it: drive-through talking. I kept mistakenly calling it drive-by talking in my head — which, as I’d later realize, … Continue reading Drive-Through Talking
