Twenty years of notes
On finally writing for the people I can serve, instead of the people I imagined judging me.
There are twenty years of notes in my phone. Titles for articles I wanted to write. Leading small, high-performance teams. Trying to be a better husband. Being a son, a brother, a best friend, and what each of those roles asks of me. What I noticed on the trips we took. Becoming a father, and how it changed me. Understanding my own temperament, and how it shows up differently at home, with friends, at work.
None of them became articles. I'd write the title, feel the pull of it, and close the app.
For most of those twenty years I told myself the same story about why. I wasn't ready yet. I needed more experience, more proof, maybe a PhD, something official that said I was allowed to be helpful. Twenty years is a strange and round number, and it's had me thinking hard about what was actually going on. Here's the honest version.
The problem was never readiness. The problem was who I imagined reading.
Every time I thought about publishing, I'd picture the people I look up to. The strong leaders I've been lucky to learn from. Peers whose work I admire. I imagined them reading my half-formed thinking and quietly marking it down. So the bar kept rising, the notes kept piling up, and the app kept closing.
What changed my mind was the people I've been lucky enough to mentor, especially over the last ten years. So much of what I shared with them got repeated over and over across many different people. The same guidance, the same stories, the same small course corrections. I watched them grow and do really amazing things with it. And my favorite part came after: they'd take something I'd done, change it to fit their own situation, and then I'd learn from their version and use it in mine. The teaching kept turning into learning, both directions.
Somewhere in there it finally clicked. I'd been imagining the wrong reader all along. The writing is for the person a few steps behind me. The person in the spot I was in ten or twenty years ago, who doesn't need me to be perfect. Useful is enough.
That changes what the fear has to work with. When I thought I was writing for judges, every sentence had to prove something. Writing for someone I can serve, it just has to help.
This fear and I go way back. It was there when I was nervous about becoming a leader at all. It shows up at big family and friend occasions, when the wedding speech is mine to give. It's stood next to me presenting in front of tens of people at work, then hundreds, and once in front of a room full of executives at their offsite with minutes of notice. Publishing is just its newest room.
I want to be honest with you, because this page only works if it's honest. The fear is still here. It's in the room with me this morning as I get ready to hit publish. This is day one of me trying to share to serve instead of to impress, and putting things online is still hard for me. Some lessons are harder to learn than others, and I suspect this one's going to take me a while. The difference now is the fear isn't in charge anymore. It gets to be in the room. It doesn't get to close the app.
That's why this site is launching the way it is. Look around and you'll find empty shelves. No archive, no back catalog, one essay. I could've waited until I had ten polished pieces and a proper library, but that would've been me trying to impress again. Starting with one honest essay felt truer. I'd rather be straight with you about where I am.
Some of those twenty years of notes will finally become the essays here. The small teams. The self-understanding. The stage fright I've spent my life working through, and the passion it turned into: helping people show up better, human to human. My lifelong tinkering with technology that can help unlock what people are capable of. The lessons that came up so many times they proved they were real.
And I have one ask, because I mean it as more than a sign-off. If something here is useful, take it. Change it to fit your situation. Then, if you're up for it, tell me what you changed. I love seeing someone take a lesson, make it their own, and hand it back better. It's my favorite way to learn, and honestly, it's the reason this site exists. I'd love for this to be a two-way dialogue. Does this way of seeing it land for you? I'm genuinely asking.
If you're where I was, here's the smallest version of starting. You've got your own notes app, and I'd bet there's something in it you've been meaning to share for years. Pick one. Share it with one person a few steps behind you. Not to impress anyone. To be useful to someone.
That's what I'm doing today. This is one of those notes, finally written.