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Len invested in my startup years the way he invested in everything: completely. I went from janitor to internet marketing consultant under his watch — my first paid client project, executing it, then presenting the work to the client myself. — He gave me a seat at the table on the management team.…
No one has had more direct impact on my self-confidence, professional development, and career growth than Len. — Len has always been like a brother. Actually, he was my brother-in-law for the decade he was married to my sister, Cheri. — I met Len when he started dating Cheri. My first perception of…
Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.
The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.
The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty.
In 1994 my father walked into a bank with an accent, a business plan written in longhand, and no collateral anyone would recognize. Eleven banks had already said no. Mr. Aldrich said, "Tell me about your customers." — My father talked for an hour. Aldrich approved the loan that afternoon. Years…
Make it work, then make it beautiful. But never ship it ugly just because it works.
I asked Dev to cofound with me in 2019. No. Again in 2020. No. In 2021, with a term sheet in hand: still no. Each time he said the same thing: "You don't need a cofounder. You need to believe you can do the first year alone." — He joined in year four — as employee eight, exactly when a person like…
For two years I prayed for a way out of teaching. The grading, the meetings, the invisible progress — I was done. I prayed for a door, any door. — The door that opened was a student named Marcus, who stayed after class to tell me my World History unit was the reason he stopped skipping school. "You…
Twenty minutes into my first portfolio review, Ana closed my laptop. Not aggressively — gently, the way you close a book you intend to reopen. "Everything in here is technically fine," she said. "Now tell me which project you actually care about." — I picked one. She said, "Then that's your…
I was twenty-four, in seminary, and quietly falling apart — because the more I studied, the less certain I became, and I thought certainty was the job. — Gene was seventy, had pastored the same small church for thirty years, and when I finally confessed my doubts he laughed — warmly — and said,…
Three years in, I had a spreadsheet open with two columns: what it would cost to stay open through March, and what I could get for the equipment. The second column was winning. — That week, a regular named Mrs. Okonkwo — she bought the same thing every Tuesday — stopped at the counter and said,…
Walt ran his crew with two rules: measure twice, and never let a man leave a job site embarrassed. I thought the first rule was the trade and the second was manners. Took me a decade of running my own crew to realize I had it backwards. — Wood forgives a bad cut. You buy another board. But a young…