When You Stop Trusting the Path When the work still matters - but the way you’re chasing it doesn’t. When the destination is clear, but the path is uncertain. I spent at least four hours this week optimizing my home network. It wasn’t broken. It wasn’t even slow. But there I was, buying new mesh nodes, running speed tests, rearranging cables, and screwing with network settings like it was mission-critical work. I also browsed Black Friday sales for things I don’t need and don’t even really...
6 days ago • 5 min read
The Lie Beneath Your Hustle When your motion becomes your mask. How your hustle became your hiding place. You’re addicted to tactics because strategy requires something far scarier: honesty about what you actually want. I know because I was a tactics junkie too. Had my morning routine locked by 5:47am. Read every negotiation book, and got so good at managing up my boss thought I was magic. I got the promotion. Senior executive. The title I’d chased for years. Six months later I was in the...
13 days ago • 4 min read
Driving Blind: Why Your Career Feels Like a Snow Squall When you can't see where you're going, someone else's taillights become your plan. Last week I hit a wall of snow on the highway. It was one of those classic Ontario squalls where visibility drops to fifty feet and every driver becomes a white-knuckled philosopher questioning their life choices. In that moment, I wasn’t “making decisions.” I was reacting. Slow down. Follow the taillights. Hope nothing suddenly materializes out of the...
20 days ago • 5 min read
The Subtraction Myth: Why Less Isn’t Always More Meaning isn't found in what you remove, but what you build. You can’t subtract your way to a positive — only to zero. You’ve read Essentialism. Deep Work. Maybe even Four Thousand Weeks if you were feeling existential. You tried their tactics. Said no to meetings, batched your emails, and protected your calendar like it’s a castle under siege. You subtracted the bullshit, set boundaries, focused on “what matters most.” And yet - you’re still...
27 days ago • 5 min read
Work vs Job: The Distinction That Changes Everything Your job pays the bills. You work changes the world. Know the difference. Your job is the blueprint. Your work is what grows through it. What’s your work? NOT your job title. NOT “what do you do.” Your work. As in, the change you’re trying to bring to the world. Can’t answer? That’s because you think your job and your work are the same thing. (They’re not.) Your Job: What someone pays you to do. You execute someone else’s vision. You do...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
Stop Choosing Between Options. Start Choosing Between Futures. Every choice is a doorway to a different version of you. You’re not picking between offers. You’re choosing who you’ll become next. I was standing in my living room in Northern Ontario, staring at a job offer that made absolutely no sense to take. On paper, it was a bad deal. The pay for the government role in Ottawa was low. It would mean selling our house, leaving a small community where we had friends, roots, and a life we’d...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
You’re Building A Beautiful Life You’re Too Drained To Enjoy You’ve been so busy building a meaningful life that you forgot to make it livable. My good buddy Wade and I taking a break while on our hike. On Monday I went hiking with a good friend. We used to do this all the time. Every few weeks, we’d hit the trails, talk about life, solve the world’s problems, and come back feeling recharged. It was our thing. Then life got busy, for both of us. Bigger workloads. Projects around the house....
about 2 months ago • 6 min read
8 days making bacon (and what it taught me about work) Some things are worth doing slowly. Your best work is one of them. Delicious, hand-crafted smokey bacon. Well-worth the time. I spent 8 days making bacon. I prepped the cure and spice mix. A week of curing, flipping the pork belly in its brine every night. Four hours of smoking. Then slicing it all by hand. I could’ve just bought bacon at the store. Five minutes and done. But that’s not the same, is it? The store-bought version works....
about 2 months ago • 5 min read
Einstein Called It Insanity. You Call It Productivity. Who's Right? You escape your chains by choosing to let them go. Why do you keep doing the same damn things that aren’t working? You’re stuck. So you do more. Einstein called that insanity; doing the same thing over and over, yet expecting a different result. You’re exhausted, overwhelmed, not hitting your goals - and your brilliant solution is to add MORE to your plate. Another course. Trying to add in a new habit, another morning...
2 months ago • 5 min read
The Hidden Force Quietly Sabotaging Your Dreams The familiar feels safe, but it’s slowly killing you. Comfort is the cage. But the door is open - if you choose to use it. You know that person who’s been complaining about their job for years but never makes any career move? That’s not laziness. That’s loss aversion (and it might even be you). “It’s not that we fear the unknown. You cannot fear something you do not know. Nobody is afraid of the unknown. What you really fear is the loss of the...
2 months ago • 3 min read