It was never about motivation.
It’s about the choice you make.

You don’t want to go on that run.
You don’t want to coach another practice.
You don’t want to have that hard conversation.

It’s not about wanting to or not wanting to.
It’s about choosing to anyway. 

Motivation eventually hits…
A mile or two into the run.
Four periods into the practice.
Halfway through the hard conversation.

Stop waiting for motivation.

Act anyway.
Motivation will come.

The night before a big game, I like to walk teams through a simple visualization of their gameday schedule.

Wake-up. Breakfast. Position meetings. Walk-through. The bus ride to the stadium. Getting taped. Getting dressed. Warmups. Kickoff.

I tell them to see it all in their minds eye. Every moment. Each conversation. The whole thing.

And once we finish? I invite them to do it again.
Same schedule. Same bus ride. Same warmups.

But this time, I ask them to imagine themselves showing up...

With...

You chase it.
A goal. A milestone. Day 100.

You swear it’s just over the next hill.
A little more effort. A little more grind. Then–arrival.

But when you get there?
It’s gone.

Turns out, “there” was never the point.

The process was.
The showing up.
The noticing.
The courage to care enough to act.
The discomfort of pressing publish.
The quiet joy of impact.

You didn’t cross a finish line.
You built a rhythm.
And in turn, the rhythm built you.

Funny thing about goals:
They’re useful–only if ...

We were taught:
Ready. Aim. Fire.

But that’s not how it works.
Not really.

You don’t know what ready means
Until you’ve shot the ball a few times.
Missed. Rebounded. Adjusted. 
Shot again.

That’s how you get ready.
That’s how you get clear.

So yeah—Stop rehearsing.
Shoot the ball.
Then adjust your aim.
And shoot again.

Eventually you’ll find ready. 

Fire. Aim. Ready.

It's the first question in any coaching conversation.

What do you want?

Not what's next. Not what's expected. Not what keeps the plates spinning.
What do you want?

It's a hard question when you've been head down for so long.
Another day becomes another week becomes another deadline becomes another fire to put out.

So many of us have gone numb. Our impulses aren't even ours anymore. They belong to the systems we serve.

So before anything else, the coach's task is simple:
Cut through the noise.
C...

Most problems aren’t that mysterious.

When someone’s stuck—complaining, venting, circling the same drain—it’s usually one of three things:

Skills. Standards. Beliefs.

They don’t know how to do the thing.
They haven’t decided what they’ll tolerate.
Or they’re telling themselves a story that makes the whole thing feel impossible.

That’s it.
(This is also the simple gap framework we use in nearly all of our coaching conversations.)

So the next time someone comes to you with a problem, don’t jus...

Reading won’t do it.
Another certification won’t do it.
Even clarity won’t do it.

Only action changes you.

You don’t think your way into a new identity.
You act your way there.

Because no amount of thinking creates
What one act of courage can.

ONE STORY

 
(The Brooklyn Bridge. Image by Sam Amil. 2018.)

"Don’t Argue with Fear. Crush It with Proof."

THE PANIC
In May of 1883—just six days after the Brooklyn Bridge opened to the public—panic hit.

A rumor swept through the crowd: the bridge is collapsing. Chaos followed. A stampede. Twelve people were crushed to death.

Confidence in the bridge evaporated overnight. Commuters stayed away. Engineers issued statements. Experts gave reassurances. But no one believed them.

That’s when Ph...

Casting the vision is the easy part.
Big words. Bold dreams. Applause.

But then comes Tuesday.
Then comes complexity.
Then come the good ideas.

Not the bad ones—those are easy to spot.
Easy to decline.

The real test is this:

Can you say no to something smart?
Something profitable? Something popular?

Can you look someone important in the eye—and turn down an opportunity that would look great on paper but pull you off course?

You see—vision doesn’t vanish.
It drifts.

One well-meaning yes at ...

We've worked with head coaches.
First-round draft picks.
Olympic medalists.
Fortune 100 CEOs and their teams.
NYT bestselling authors.
Founders who exited to millions.

Sounds flashy.
Maybe it is.
But here’s the truth:

They’re just humans.
Humans who did the one thing most people won’t.

They refused to stop.

In failure.
With critics.
On the good days.
And on the ones where everything in them wanted to quit.
They refused to stop.

When they didn’t win the starting job. When the launch bombed. When the mar...

For those of us in the storm, the fight, not quite "there" yet—but still believing.

Every pursuit has two signals: inputs and outputs.

Inputs: what you bring—time, focus, energy, intention.
Outputs: what you get—wins, revenue, recognition, results.

We obsess over outputs because they're visible and validating. They let us keep score.

But if you're in the trenches building something that matters, you already know: the scoreboard always lags behind the work.

By the time results appear, they're already h...

ONE STORY

"When Impact Went Invisible"

In the 1960s, NHL teams—including the dominant Montreal Canadiens—had a problem: They were building rosters and rewarding players based on stats that didn't always lead to wins.

Goals. Assists. Penalty minutes. Easy to track—but incomplete.

The players with the most points weren't always the ones who made the team better. Sometimes, the biggest names disrupted chemistry more than they created momentum.

Teams noticed something frustrating: You could los...

Convention is comfortable.

It tells you to wait your turn.
Follow the proven path.
Don’t fix what isn’t broken.

Blend in, improve slightly, and repeat. It rewards predictability. It protects the system. It keeps things running—until the system stops working.

Unconvention, on the other hand, is rarely comfortable.

It’s messy.
Uncertain.
Often invisible at first.

It doesn’t wait for permission. It doesn’t ask, “What’s allowed?” It asks, “Why is this the only way?”

“What problem are we actually s...

Your real work begins the moment you stop asking for permission.

Let me be clear: Doing your work is not the same as going to work.

Your work is personal.
It matters more—and costs more.
It’s the thing only you can give the world.

Let me be clear again: permission is the obstacle.

It’s the invisible barrier most people never question.
We wait for someone to notice us. To pick us.
To validate our idea, our calling, our gut instinct.

But that moment rarely comes.

The truth is—and no one tell...

ONE STORY

Walt Disney wasn’t born into success. He wasn’t handed credibility. And he definitely wasn’t told, “You've got our blessing.”

He was reportedly fired from The Kansas City Star for not being creative enough.

He created Oswald the Lucky Rabbit—only to have the rights stolen and his animation team gutted.

That betrayal? It led directly to the birth of Mickey Mouse. And, again, when he pitched this new idea—a talking mouse with heart—he was told it wouldn’t work.

When he dreamed of Di...

The most powerful voice in your life is the one in your head.

It shapes how you show up—or don’t.
It critiques. It hesitates. It keeps you small.

And it sounds convincing—because it’s well-rehearsed.

But that voice can be replaced.

Not with hype. Not with noise.
With something stronger.

Credible self-talk is a trained voice you trust under pressure.

Here’s how to build it...

1. Find a Reason

A voice without purpose is easy to knock off course.
But when you know what matters and where ...

Fear isn’t the problem.

It’s the moment after.

The hesitation. The second-guessing. The debate in your head.

You see the flaw in the plan but stay quiet—what if you're wrong? The final shot is yours, but you freeze—what if you miss? The idea sits in your head, full of promise, but you stall—what if they don’t like it?

Fear is universal. We all feel it. But what happens next? That’s the difference.

That split second—where you either step forward or step back. Where you take the leap or let f...

You see something others don’t.

A vision. An idea. A way to serve the people around you.

It lives in you—and only you.

But no one is asking you to bring it to life. No one is knocking on your door, insisting you build, create, or share what only you can see.

So you wait.

You wait to feel inspired, to be pulled forward by some external force. You assume motivation comes before action.

But that’s not how it works.

The Fuel Doesn’t Kick In Until the Engine’s Running

Think about it.

The fir...

Leadership loves engagement. Up to a point.

They’ll hold town halls, send surveys, build “open-door” cultures. They’ll tell you they value your input. But only within the lines. Within the system. Within the plan.

Because engagement—real engagement—is dangerous. It leads to ideas. And ideas, by definition, challenge the status quo.

And that’s a problem.

Not for you. But for them.

See, leadership's job isn’t to create a better future. It’s to protect the systems they’ve already built. To mai...

A $3.5 million violin. A world-class musician. And no one stops to listen.

Joshua Bell, one of the greatest violinists alive, stands in a Washington, D.C. subway station, playing for an hour. Thousands walk past. Few stop. Even fewer notice.

Not because the music isn’t brilliant—but because the setting makes it invisible.

It turns out, if your best work gets lost in the noise, it changes nothing.

Culture works the same way.

People don’t respond to what you claim is important. They respond t...

Think about writer’s block. Someone says, “I don’t have any good ideas.” The best response? “Okay, but do you hav...