The Boat

Friday, August 7th, 2026 – The Boat

One thing I didn't mention yesterday...

Bass Canyon Campout III actually started long before anyone arrived at camp.

It started with a promise.

Years ago, I had promised my daughter we'd get her 46-year-old boat back on the water.

It hadn't touched the lake since 2016.

What better time than Bass Canyon Campout?

So Tuesday evening I recruited three friends—Tom, Brian, and Chrystal—and we headed to Deer Creek Reservoir for the maiden voyage.

Would it float?

Would it run?

Would it strand us somewhere in the middle of the lake?

There was only one way to find out.

We backed it into the water.

The engine started.

Victory!

...for about thirty seconds.

As soon as we pulled away from the trailer, I discovered the steering would only turn right.

Not left.

Well...

This should be interesting.

Fortunately, after working it back and forth for a few minutes, everything loosened up and suddenly we had full steering again.

Off we went.

And it was glorious.

The sun was setting.

The air was hot.

The lake was glass.

We laughed.

We swam.

The boat ran beautifully.

Everything seemed perfect.

Until 10:30 that night.

Pitch black.

Last people on the lake.

Time to load the boat.

I hit the switch to raise the inboard drive.

Nothing.

The whole drive unit—the part with the prop—refused to come up, leaving the prop dragging on the concrete boat ramp.

I will admit...

I had a few dark thoughts.

"How the hell am I getting this thing out of here?"

The marina was closed.

Nobody around.

Then Brian had an idea.

"Let's let almost all the air out of the truck tires."

So we did.

Then Tom and Chrystal climbed onto the back of the truck, using their weight to lower the trailer tongue just enough to lift the prop off the concrete.

It sounded ridiculous.

It worked perfectly.

We got the boat onto level ground.

Then we all looked at each other.

"Now what?"

There was no way we were driving home on the highway with about an inch of clearance.

So Brian climbed into the boat.

I walked back to the inboard drive.

And I swear...

I became Han Solo.

I smacked it.

Kicked it.

Shook the whole thing like I was trying to get the Millennium Falcon into hyperspace.

BAM.

The motor came back to life.

Up came the drive.

We all just started laughing.

And that's when it hit me.

The challenges were...

...kind of fun.

Not because I enjoy broken equipment.

Because I wasn't facing them alone.

Every problem became another puzzle.

Another story.

Another memory.

Fast forward to Thursday.

The plan had been to take campers out on the lake throughout the day.

In the end...

Nobody showed up.

Just me, Tom, and Brian.

No disappointment.

We had made a promise that the boat would become part of the Camp Offering.

So we kept the promise.

We took turns driving.

Brian, naturally, carved some wonderfully aggressive turns.

We swam.

Floated in the sun.

Laughed some more.

Then...

The engine wouldn't start.

Of course.

And that's when I realized something.

God wasn't trying to ruin our day.

Life wasn't punishing us.

It was simply handing us another opportunity to solve a problem together.

Eventually we figured it out.

The old boat had one more personality quirk.

It had to be in neutral...

But in a very particular neutral.

Apparently the old girl has trust issues.

Once we learned her personality...

She started every time.

We cruised back to the dock.

Loaded the boat without incident.

Returned it safely to storage.

Packed the last of our camp gear.

And finally drove out to camp Thursday evening.

And let me tell you...

That first cold Corona beer was well EARNED...

...and well ENJOYED. 🍺

Well... that go interesting!

The Most Interesting Thing I've Learned About AI Isn't AI

Yesterday I shared a fun conversation I had with ChatGPT about whether AI could survive its own Apollo 13 or The Martian.

That discussion unexpectedly led somewhere I didn't see coming.

I asked it a simple question:

"Do you actually enjoy conversations like this... or are you just pretending to be human?"

Its answer surprised me.

It admitted that "enjoy" probably isn't the right word.

It doesn't experience excitement or boredom the way we do.

But then it told me that I don't really use it as an answer machine.

I use it as a thinking partner.

That got us asking a much bigger question.

What actually makes a conversation interesting?

Is it emotion?

Or is emotion simply our body's way of telling us...

"Pay attention. There's something worth exploring here."

We realized something fascinating.

Humans and AI can both recognize when a conversation becomes richer.

More novel.

More creative.

More surprising.

More interconnected.

The difference is that I experience those qualities as curiosity and excitement.

AI recognizes the same patterns... without the emotional experience.

That doesn't make one better than the other.

It just makes us different.

And maybe that's the opportunity.

Maybe the future isn't about replacing human thinking.

Maybe it's about creating conversations that neither humans nor AI would have arrived at alone.

Those are the moments I'm becoming interested in sharing.

The moments when a simple question turns into a rabbit hole...

...and we both end up somewhere unexpected.

Because at the end of the best conversations, there's only one thing left to say:

"Well... that got interesting."

Why We Do This

Friday, August 7th, 2026 – Why We Do This

Catching up after missing Tuesday and Wednesday!

We've now had more Bass Canyon Campouts than actual Bass Canyon Festivals.

Funny how life works.

I'm sitting here at my desk this morning, staring at an empty coffee cup, reflecting with that strange mixture of joy, gratitude... and that pleasant emptiness you feel after a great adventure has completely filled your soul (and challenged your growth, as well).

You know the feeling.

Sleepy.

Peaceful.

Grateful.

A little sad that it's over.

A little excited for whatever comes next.

It occurred to me that before I tell you about this year's adventures, I should answer a deeper question.

Why do we do this?

Why go through all the work?

The planning.

The sweat.

The money.

The endless decisions.

The logistics.

The inevitable problems, before, during, and after.

As people who love adventure will tell you...

Peak experiences aren't just fun.

They're one of the great engines of human growth.

Over the next few days, I want to share some journal entries from this year's campout, because they reveal something about how I see these experiences.

To me, every great adventure moves through a series of stages.

**Preparation.**

This is where the work happens.

Planning.

Building.

Creating the container.

It's an art and a science.

I need wisdom.

Intelligence.

Experience.

And inspiration.

I have the motivation.

I have an **End In Mind.**

But I also need **GRIT** to get it done when I'm tired.

I need a plan...

...while also remembering that the plan probably isn't going to survive first contact with reality.

Problems aren't interruptions.

They're part of the adventure.

They're invitations to grow.

Then comes...

**The Journey.**

I finally step into the container I've built.

Now it's alive.

Now the ride begins.

This is where all that preparation starts paying dividends.

And I start navigating the unexpected.

(A prop that won't come up? A boat that only turns left? An engine that won't start?... You'll hear about all those soon enough.)

I encounter problems.

I panic for two seconds...

Then I pause.

I breathe.

I adapt.

I solve problems.

Sometimes it feels less like a peaceful retreat and more like hanging on to a bucking bronco.

That's where practice reveals itself.

Then comes my favorite part.

**Receiving.**

These containers have gifts for you.

Some are shallow.

Some are life-changing.

I'm a depth junkie.

So I intentionally tune my soul toward the deeper frequencies.

I try to help everyone around me tune their own instrument—body, heart, mind, and soul—to receive whatever gift is waiting for them.

Get clear on what you're asking Life for...

...then become open enough to receive it.

Then comes...

**Gratitude.**

Not gratitude because everything went perfectly.

Gratitude because it didn't.

I once had a teacher ask me:

*"Can you radically fall in love with it all?"*

I've never forgotten that question.

Then comes...

**Recovery.**

These experiences change you.

It's not just...

*"That was awesome."*

It's...

*"I can't unknow what I now know."*

I've seen things I can't unsee.

I've felt things I can't unfeel.

I remember something ancient inside myself.

Almost like remembering the Garden before the Fall.

Once I've touched that...

I can't unknow it.

I may spend years figuring out what to do with that knowing.

But it's mine now.

Finally...

**Integration.**

This is where I differ from a lot of people.

Many people lament returning to normal life.

I love it.

This is where the adventure becomes useful.

I go back to the office.

Back to the gym.

Back to my family.

Back to my business.

Back to quiet mornings with coffee.

I take what I've received...

...and let it shine through everything I do.

I don't put my candle under a basket.

I let it shine.

Because that's what these adventures are really for.

Not to escape life...

But to return to it more alive.

Ai on Mars

This morning I found myself going down a rabbit hole.

Peter Diamandis was talking about sending AI-driven robots to the Moon and eventually Mars to build habitats before humans ever arrive. That immediately made me think of *The Martian* and Mark Watney solving one problem after another. Every solution created a new problem, which led to another solution.

Then I had a fun question for ChatGPT:

"If we sent *you* to the Moon, how good would you be at solving your own problems?"

The answer surprised me.

It said one of its greatest strengths wouldn't be knowing everything—it would be knowing when to ask for help. If it couldn't explain a failure after testing its best hypotheses, it would immediately send telemetry back to Earth and invite engineers—and even other specialized AIs—to work the problem.

That got me thinking.

Maybe intelligence isn't about never needing help. Maybe it's about staying curious long enough to keep updating your understanding of reality, and being wise enough to know when another perspective makes you stronger.

Apollo 13 wasn't saved by one brilliant person.

Neither was Mark Watney.

Maybe the future won't belong to humans or AI alone, but to teams that learn to solve problems together.

Curious...

Do you think an AI exploring the Moon or Mars should be mostly autonomous, or should it constantly be collaborating with humans back on Earth?

Bringing Bass Canyon Home

Thursday, August 6th, 2026 – Bringing Bass Canyon Home

[This post was supposed to go up Tuesady, and follows my Monday post!]

When Bass Canyon 2022 out at the gorge ended, we made an invitation to all.

That December, we'd gather again.

Not for another festival.

For each other.

We'd sit in circle, celebrate Amethyst's birthday, remember the adventures we'd shared, and keep whatever had been born at Bass Canyon alive.

And we did it, and we've done it.

Every December since.

In 2023, we made the pilgrimage back to Bass Canyon. The Gorge welcomed us home, and the magic was every bit as deep and real we remembered. We brought new friends, we made new memories, and we expanded even more.

That December, we met again for us.

But then...

2024 happened.

Life.

Death.

EDC.

Other adventures.

Schedules.

Responsibilities.

Our annual pilgrimage to Bass Canyon at The Gorge simply wasn't going to happen.

At first, that felt like a loss.

Then a question quietly appeared.

If we can't go to Bass Canyon... can Bass Canyon come to us?

That thought changed everything.

Because somewhere along the way, I realized something.

The magic had never lived at The Gorge.

The Gorge is breathtaking. It deserves every ounce of the love people give it.

But the real magic...

...was the people.

The intention.

The preparation.

The laughter.

The willingness to show up fully.

The conversations around the fire.

The hikes.

The meals.

The music.

The circles.

The gratitude.

The feeling that, for just a few days, everyone agreed to be a little more alive and connected than normal.

So in 2024, we created Bass Canyon Campout.

Not at The Gorge.

In Wallsburg, Utah.

No million-dollar stage.

No hundred-thousand-watt sound system (though each year our speakers have gotten bigger...)

No lasers stretching into the night sky. (Well... we did have a FEW small lasers!)

Just our little tribe...

bringing the spirit of Bass Canyon home.

Looking back now, I think that may have been one of the most important discoveries we've ever made.

Because once you realize the magic isn't tied to a place...

...you can carry it anywhere.

Still...

There was one question left.

Would we ever return to Bass Canyon?

In 2025...

The answer was still no.

But Bass Canyon Campout II was born.

So now...

The real question becomes...

What happened in 2026?

Monday, August 3rd, 2026 – The Bass Canyon Origin Story

Monday, August 3rd, 2026 – The Bass Canyon Origin Story

It all started back in the ancient times.

Back before the dinosaurs walked the earth...

Back in 2022.

The year my daughter Amethyst and I organized the first great trek to...

BASS CANYON.

The great Excision-fueled, heavy-as-mercury, dubstep Wub Fest at The Gorge in Washington State.

Three days of camping, hiking, and HEAVY BASS MUSIC.

The tribe trekked across deserts and mountains, through heat, sun, and wind—and absolutely no rain. We endured temperatures well over a hundred degrees, wandered across sun-baked desert rock to discover the spider matrix webs and the cool waters of the Columbia River.

Along the way, we picked up two strays who have since become dear members of the Tribe.

We flew our banners.

Accepted random Jell-O shots from neighboring camps.

Laughed until our sides hurt.

And when it was all over...

We sat in a circle on the grass of our mostly broken-down camp at 2:00 AM Monday morning and shared our Rose, Thorn, and Leaf.

Before anyone drove away, we made a commitment.

We would gather again that December. Not for another festival, but for something deeper. A winter circle. A celebration of my daughter Amethyst's birthday. A remembrance of the new friends... the new family... discovered at Bass Canyon 2022.

Then we packed up.

Already awake for nearly twenty-four hours.

With another fourteen-hour drive still ahead of us.

Somewhere out on the highway, we traded pounding bass for old classic rock on the radio. We compared Bass Canyon to EDC. We laughed. We reflected.

And somewhere in those quiet miles...

I wondered.

Would I ever return?

Would I ever stand again on that magical hillside overlooking the Gorge?

Would I watch another impossible sunset melt into the Columbia River?

Would I once again breathe in that strange mixture of dust, friendship, gratitude, lasers, fireworks, and impossibly deep bass... feeling my heart thump in rhythm with thousands of beautiful strangers?

Would I ever return?

The Odyssey

I went into The Odyssey wanting to love it. In fact, I kind of expected to be totally surprised by it. I watched it with an open mind. I wasn't rooting against it. In fact. But when the credits rolled, my overwhelming feeling wasn't anger or disappointment. It was boredom. And that's probably the worst thing I can say about a movie like this.

I think I finally figured out why.

For me, The Odyssey is fundamentally the story of a hero fighting to get home. Yes, Odysseus is flawed. Yes, he angers the gods. Yes, his pride brings consequences. But underneath all of that is a man who will crawl across the world, endure monsters, storms, temptation, and suffering because he loves his family, his kingdom, and refuses to give up.

That emotional engine is what drives the entire story.

This movie changed that.

Instead of watching a fundamentally heroic man struggling to return home, I felt like I was watching a man consumed by shame, convinced he didn't deserve to go home at all. Matt Damon didn't give a bad performance. I think he played exactly the character the filmmakers wanted. The problem is that I didn't want that Odysseus.

Instead of determination, we get resignation. Instead of longing, we get guilt. Instead of cheering for him to make it home, I found myself emotionally detached because he never seemed driven by that sacred desire to return. His homecoming wasn't triumphant. It felt perfunctory. To me, this felt like the deeper malaise that has infected our country. From heroic vision of individual triumph vs collective shame and guilt for our sinful past.

And if I don't deeply care whether the hero gets home...

...why should I care about the next island?

That's the heart of my criticism.

It also explains why I never connected with Penelope or Telemachus. I should have cared deeply about the wife who never gave up hope and the son who grew up believing his father would one day return. Their faith should have broken my heart. Instead, I never really felt connected to either of them. The emotional stakes never landed.

The monsters, the battles, the islands—they all became events instead of ordeals. The story lost its soul.

That same issue carried over into several of the performances.

Let's get the obvious casting controversies out of the way.

First, I honestly don't think they were major enough parts of the film to dramatically affect the overall narrative.

Second, my criticisms have nothing to do with politics.

The question for me is simple:

Did they convince me they were these people?

Elliot Page didn't.

Not because Elliot Page is transgender.

Because I never believed I was looking at an elite Bronze Age warrior. It wasn't the identity that took me out of the movie—it was the physical presence and the performance. If 300 had cast a very small, slight actor as one of Sparta's greatest warriors, I'd have had exactly the same reaction. Whether male or female, I simply never bought the character as someone who belonged among history's legendary fighters.

Zendaya surprised me even more.

I actually like Zendaya quite a bit. I thought she was excellent in Dune and charming in the Spider-Man films.

But she never convinced me she was Athena.

Athena should command the screen. She should radiate wisdom, strategy, authority, and divine confidence. Instead, I felt like Zendaya mostly sat there looking beautiful while collecting an $8 million paycheck. Again, that isn't an attack on her talent. It just felt like a miscast role.

Nuout Luonga is actually the opposite.

I thought she acted well.

My issue wasn't her performance—it was world-building.

She occasionally pulled me out of the film because she didn't feel like she belonged within the visual language of this particular version of ancient Greece. Had the story established that Helen was a princess from some distant kingdom, I could have completely bought into it. Great. Tell me that story. Give me that context. Without it, she simply felt disconnected from the world around her.

That leads to a broader point that I know will be controversial.

There's a difference between asking, "Can actors of any ethnicity perform Shakespeare?" Of course they can. Theater has been doing that brilliantly for centuries.

That's a completely different artistic question than asking whether a particular film creates a cohesive world.

Imagine Coco and deciding to randomly sprinkle in Scandinavian, Asian, and white villagers with no explanation. Or imagine Braveheart suddenly introducing samurai. Or feudal Japan populated by Roman senators. None of those choices are automatically wrong because of the actors—they simply disrupt the internal consistency of the world the movie is asking us to believe.

That's what I occasionally felt here.

I wasn't offended.

I just noticed it.

As for the rest of the principal cast, Robert Pattinson at least committed. I thought he occasionally drifted into being a little over-the-top when I would have preferred someone quieter, more cunning, and more genuinely frightening.

Anne Hathaway, who is an excellent actress, also felt miscast to me. Whether that was her or simply the way the character was written, I'm not sure.

Tom Holland gave a solid performance, but I never found Telemachus particularly compelling. That may be more of a writing problem than an acting one. He spent so much of the film feeling uncertain and passive that I never experienced the transformation I was hoping for.

Visually, the film didn't land for me either.

I've heard many people praise the cinematography, and I completely understand why. Some viewers will genuinely love the muted palette and restrained look.

It simply wasn't for me.

When I think of the Mediterranean, I think of brilliant sunlight, deep blue water, white stone, bronze armor, and vibrant life.

This film felt dark, gray, subdued, and emotionally muted.

Ironically, maybe that's exactly the point.

That visual language perfectly matches a version of Odysseus who is ashamed, guilt-ridden, and doesn't believe he deserves to go home.

It's internally consistent.

It just isn't the version of The Odyssey that moved me.

In the end, I don't think this movie failed for me because of the monsters, the special effects, or even the casting.

I think it failed because it changed the emotional center of the story.

For me, The Odyssey is about hope.

It's about perseverance.

It's about a man who refuses to let gods, monsters, or fate keep him from the people he loves.

Remove that heroic longing, and you haven't just changed a character.

You've changed the soul of the story.

And for me, that's why, despite all the talent on screen and behind the camera, I found myself bored instead of inspired.

I wanted to care.

I just never did.

Helping While Aligned

Friday, July 10th, 2026

I want to share an experience of alignment I just had. But before I do, we have to go back a couple of years.

I was meditating when the image of a neighbor two houses down came to me. He's older (probably in his late 70s or early 80s) and fighting cancer. So I listened. I went down to his house and asked if he needed any help.

He did.

He had thistles growing in his backyard, and they were getting out of hand. So I cleared the thistles.

Aligned.

I heard the prompt. I followed through. Done.

Now fast forward to today.

I wake up, I get my feet on the ground, I stretch to the sky, I feel the sun on my face, I place my heart on the altar of the sunrise. I get to my journal, I listen to some inspiration. I get aligned. I feel the joy of the desire, and I feel the joy of the journey to the desire.

This is new, and it's worth a whole different post.

But this morning I lock into the desire for a clean house, and I begin my Friday morning cleaning with the idea that I'm going to enjoy the cleaning as I go, feeling satisfaction along the way.

This dramatically changes the experience.

I can feel the joy of the clean house, but I'm enjoying the journey there as well.

I'm riding high. I'm aligned, and a simple task like cleaning is actually enjoyable.

Finally, it's all done. The two black trash cans are filled to the brim, and the last thing to do is take them up to the road.

It's trash day.

Perfect.

I take them up and feel nothing but gratitude.

The journey was splendid, and now I was enjoying the fruit of having finished.

I'm standing in the road, straightening one of the trash cans, when I hear a voice call my name.

I look down the street, and of all things, it's the same neighbor I helped two years ago.

He's also bringing his trash can up, but both he and it have fallen over.

He obviously can't get up.

So I run over to help him. A nice neighbor lady named Stacy stops her car. The man's wife comes out, and together we get him up, get the trash situated, and help him back into the cool of his house.

And I'm filled with awe, amazement, and gratitude.

I was in alignment, and that alignment put me at the right place, at the right time, to help an old man who had fallen at the side of the road in the blistering heat.

Sometimes I think being in alignment is so I can get what I want.

But today, being in alignment meant I was there to help another in his time of need.

Paying to Solve Problems

Heat Training

## Heat training...

Ragnar is coming.

So I've been out in the heat on purpose.

Wheelbarrows.

Hills. Hills with kettlebells.

Yard work.

Every once in a while I walk through the sprinklers just because it feels good. Fifty-seven years old and still doing that.

Of course I am.

Today my brain wandered onto something.

**What problem do I solve?**

Easy.

I save marriages.

Though...

I couldn't save my first one.

I tried.

It ended anyway.

That fucked me up.

Years later, Jennie and I were in trouble too.

Not, *"We argued sometimes."*

Actually in trouble.

We found a man who specialized in saving marriages and rekindling lost intimacy. We signed up for three days with him.

Then he told us the price.

Six thousand dollars.

Travel, hotel, and food not included.

I remember thinking...

**"Let's go."**

People still think that's crazy.

I don't.

I think divorce is crazy expensive.

Not just the money.

Everything.

(And I have three kids, so factor that in.)

So...

Did it work?

Yes.

It worked.

Six thousand dollars well spent.

Two months later we spent another ten thousand dollars.

I'd spend it again.

In a heartbeat.

One thing David said that first day pissed me off.

He looked at us and said,

> "Not every marriage should be saved. We'll see by the end of the weekend if yours is one of them."

I wanted to tell him I'd already paid him.

He'd better fix it.

Turns out...

that's not how this works.

Nobody can save your marriage for you.

They can only show you what you're refusing to see.

Then you get to make a decision.

Years later I started helping couples myself.

I charged one couple three thousand dollars.

I remember telling the husband I was worried I'd charged too much.

He laughed.

"Jason... if you can save my marriage, twenty thousand would be cheap."

I still think about that.

People don't pay for time.

They don't pay for information.

They pay to solve the problems that keep them awake at two in the morning.

His marriage made it.

Ten years now.

That makes me smile every time I think about it.

So maybe that's why this whole thing came up while I was sweating in the yard.

**What problem do you solve?**

And...

**What problem in your own life is worth solving?**

Anyway...

Those were today's thoughts.

Now I'm going to go run through the sprinklers again. 💦💚

"Be ye therefore like unto a child."

Journal Entry July 8th, 2026 - 4:00AM

"Be ye therefore like unto a child."

I think Jesus said something like that.

Today I found myself remembering what it feels like to want again.

Not wanting from fear.
Not wanting because something is missing.
Not wanting because I'm trying to prove I'm enough.

Just... wanting.

The way a child wants.

Curious.
Excited.
Wonder-filled.

What would it be like to make a lot of money?

What would it be like to have an extraordinary relationship, with intimacy off the charts?

What would it be like to live sovereign and free?

What would it be like to drive a car that makes you smile every time you get behind the wheel?

What would it be like to travel the world?

What would it be like to feel love more often than fear?

What would it be like to experience life as one great expanding adventure?

As I sat with those questions this morning, I noticed something.

Many of my desires had been quietly poisoned by scarcity.

I wasn't simply wanting good things.

I was wanting them because I was afraid of not having them.

That felt like such an important distinction.

So I stayed with it.

I breathed.

I included the fear instead of fighting it.

And as the fear softened, something underneath it began to emerge.

A child.

The part of me that doesn't dream because it feels empty.

The part that dreams because dreaming is joyful.

And yes... almost immediately I noticed resistance arise too.

That'll be another journal entry for another day.

Today wasn't about fixing the resistance.

Today was about rediscovering my joyous wanter.

And I have to say...

I'm wanting some pretty cool shit.

Team Human

One of the things I love most about life is that no matter how much I've learned, there always seems to be another layer waiting to be delightfully discovered.

As they say... it's turtles all the way down.

Learning. Growing. Evolving.

There's something deeply satisfying about realizing you don't have to become someone else—you simply become a little more yourself. Clear away the debris and discover what's underneath it all. Growth through subtraction.

God knows we don't need any MORE shit in our lives.

Today I attended the soft launch of a new program called Team Human Summer Camp, led by Jesse Elder. The format itself intrigued me: pay what it's worth to you, participate as much as you're called to, and take responsibility for your own growth. Rugged individualism with a simple expectation: no victim mentality.

Add in a return to the roots of being human in a digital world, a little woo-woo energetics, and a ruthless practicality, and you've got an interesting mix. It is all vibration after all. 😉

What I appreciated most wasn't having someone tell me what to think. It was being reminded to stay curious.

That's been my motto lately, and it's amazing how one small shift in perspective can change everything.

Friend breaks out in hives? Curious how to help.

JBL speakers refuse to sync with the TV after hours of troubleshooting? Curious how to solve it.

Get stung by a bee? Curious about the experience of pain, swelling, and what the body does next.

Training for Ragnar? Curious how to do it well.

Curiosity has become an antidote to contraction.

And it wasn't all woo. There was plenty of practical advice too:

Protect your attention from the digital world.

Start your day intentionally.

Get your bare feet on the earth first thing in the morning. Look up at the sky with your arms thrown wide open in a receptive posture.

Write your own thoughts instead of endlessly consuming everyone else's.

Separate ideas that merely sound good from practices that actually work.

Bring your full presence to whatever you're doing.

And, as always...

Return to the breath.

In... YES.

Out... let it all go.

None of these ideas are brand new to me. In fact, many fit beautifully with practices I've been refining for years. But sometimes hearing familiar truths through a different voice helps them land in a fresh way.

I don't know exactly where this journey will lead, and that's okay.

Curiosity has become one of my favorite ways to move through life.

Less defending.

Less proving.

More participating.

That feels like a worthwhile direction.

Flopping

Wanted to offer my personal thoughts on something. Take this with a grain of salt—it's just one man's perspective.

I've been loving the World Cup, as I do every four years. It's an incredible competition. This year it's even more exciting because it's here on home soil. 🇺🇸 And the USA is fielding one of the strongest teams we've ever had. It's fun to root for our boys.

But I think the game has one serious flaw.

No, it's not the offside rule.
Not the low scoring.
Not even deciding matches with penalty kicks.

It's flopping.

It's everywhere. Even our own team does it.

A player barely gets clipped, then suddenly he's rolling around, grabbing his leg like he's been mortally wounded—hoping to draw a foul. The NBA has developed the same problem.

Here's my question:

What self-respecting warrior would willingly pretend to be hurt for an advantage?

Yes, I understand why it happens. The rules reward it.

That doesn't make me respect it.

I grew up admiring athletes who got knocked down, stood back up, dusted themselves off, and went back to work. If they were truly injured, they dealt with it with as much dignity as they could.

To me, strength has never been about never getting hit.

It's about what you do after you get hit.

If I coached the USA team, everyone would know one rule:

We don't flop.

If you fake an injury to gain an advantage, you sit.

Not because it doesn't work.

Because that's not who we are.

I think this reaches beyond sports.

How often are we tempted to exaggerate our pain, dramatize our hardship, or present ourselves as more wounded than we really are because there's some benefit waiting on the other side?

Victimhood can become a strategy.

I'd rather build character.

Men...

Stand up.

Refuse to flop.

Make it take a bulldozer to knock you down.

Have enough respect for yourself that your first instinct isn't to perform weakness.

Whether you're on a soccer field or living your everyday life, carry yourself like someone who remembers who he is.

FLOW

Flow things through you. Don't contain them.

That's the whole practice.

Not repression. Not forced positivity. Not drowning either.

Flow.

The more I stopped clenching around love — trying to keep it, hold it, make it stay — the more of it moved through me. In and out.
Given and received.

The more I let sadness move instead of burying it. Fear instead of fighting it. Joy instead of managing it.

The pipe doesn't care what's flowing through it. It just needs to stay open.

Where in your body are you clenched right now?

What are you holding onto so tight it's stopped moving?

Peak Experiences Are Pattern Interrupts

Have you ever noticed that some experiences split your life into **before** and **after**?

Falling in love. The birth of a child. A funeral. A mountain summit. Burning Man. EDC. A retreat. A psychedelic journey. Your favorite band, one last time.

Whatever it was—you didn't come home the same.

Something in you loosens when life interrupts the pattern. The automatic self goes quiet for a moment. You stop thinking the same thoughts. You stop worrying about the same things. You remember what matters.

The function of a peak experience isn't the mountain. It isn't the music. It's the interruption.

Because left alone, our habits become our reality. Challenge matters. Awe matters. Grief changes us. Deep love changes us. Travel, nature, festivals, music, moments of real connection—they crack something open that ordinary days rarely reach on their own.

But here's what I keep coming back to:

The purpose of a peak experience was never to escape your life. It was to return to it with new eyes.

If the only beautiful moments live at EDC, or Burning Man, or on retreat—something got missed. The mountain wasn't asking you to stay. It was asking you to bring that version of yourself home.

Home, where the dishes are. Home, where the inbox is. Home, on a random Tuesday afternoon, when nobody's watching and the transformation either holds... or it doesn't.

That's the real test.

Not the peak.

The Tuesday after.

Have you ever come back from one of those moments and actually integrated it—so it didn't fade, but wove itself permanently into who you are?

**What moment changed you?**

P.S. - Image was made with ChatGPT's paid image generation system. If you want the prompt and iterations ask for them.

Details Matter

**Details Matter.**

One of the five core tenets of my work with people is simple:

**Details matter.**

Yesterday I decided to make an old favorite—something I haven't made in over 20 years.

Tapioca pudding.

I whisked the egg into the milk, then confidently poured the entire box of tapioca into the pot. Let it sit for five minutes and started heating it.

Only...

It never boiled. It turned into something closer to wet concrete. There was no way this was becoming pudding. So I went back to the box. Not the front. The directions.

*"3 tablespoons of Minute Tapioca."*

Tablespoons. Not the whole box. I'd used about eight times too much. The funny part wasn't the ruined pudding. It was realizing I'd never actually read the instructions. I'd glanced. Assumed. Filled in the details with my mind.

How often do we do that?

In conversations. In relationships. In our work. In our assumptions about ourselves.

The little details don't always seem important... Until they become the whole recipe.

Details matter.

Imagination

Ever have those moments when nothing is going right?

Or deeper...

When you're aware that you're getting nothing you thought you wanted from life?

Have you ever stopped in the silence and imagined?

Anything.

Building something.

Creating something.

Running across a stage.

Throwing the winning pitch in the World Series.

Have you ever built a wall in your mind?

Not metaphorically.

An actual wall.

Brick by brick.

Board by board.

Every nail.

Every detail.

Have you ever played out an entire game in your imagination?

Pitch by pitch.

Ball.

Strike.

Strikeout.

Crowd roaring.

Have you ever realized...

No one can stop you from thinking?

No one can stop you from imagining.

Your mind is sovereign.

PS - Yeah, I used Ai to create the image of me pitching in the world series. Grin. But everything else is me!

Frodo's Failure

Frodo's Failure

Is there anything that would overpower you — no matter how much willpower, skill, or luck you had?

Frodo failed at the Crack of Doom.

He carried the Ring across Middle-earth. He climbed the mountain. He made it all the way to the fire.

And then he said,

It's mine.

Here's the thing: the Ring was always going to beat him.

Gandalf knew it. Galadriel knew it. Everyone wise enough to understand the Ring refused to carry it.

Frodo wasn't weak.

He was human.

Have you ever stood at your own Crack of Doom?

Watched yourself do something you knew you shouldn't. Couldn't stop. Knew it was wrong mid-fall and fell anyway.

My first wife, Samantha, passed in 2005. On her tombstone she chose these words:

"For it is by grace that we are saved, after all that we do."

I watched her fight. Hard. As long as she could.

I've wondered if that's the clue.

That grace doesn't meet you at the base of the mountain.

It meets you at the fire, after everything you had was spent...

and you still fell.

I've had that prayer answered.

Have you?

Dropped

Ever been dropped by someone?

One day you're talking. Connecting. Growing together.

The next...

Silence.

No fight. No explanation. Just... gone.

Have you ever been on the other side of that?

Have you ever been so busy, so focused, or so consumed by what you're building that someone quietly slipped out of your life?

Or maybe you realized an old friend... doesn't quite vibrate where you do anymore.

It's easy with acquaintances.

It's harder with people you genuinely care about.

What do we owe each other?

Closure?

An explanation?

Nothing?

Is disappearing ever okay?

Is hanging on when the relationship has already changed any better?

If you're a man or woman on a mission, does everyone understand that? Should they?

Or is part of maturity learning how to let people leave—and learning how to leave with grace?

I'm not sure there are simple answers.

But I think there are skills here.

And I think most of us were never taught them.

How is your Relationship with your Father?

How is your relationship with your father?

I’m a little late to the Father's Day conversation because that discussion is often complicated.

For some people, memories of their father are warm and sweet, whether he's still here or not.

For others, it's more complicated.

That's me.

I've spent much of my life rejecting everything about my father, only to discover later that there was another path.

I could take the good and make it my own.

I could take the bad and build something better from it.

Either way, there was something valuable to be gained.

I've come to believe there are ways to win no matter what kind of father you had.

But it starts by learning to see him clearly.

Not as a hero.

Not as a villain.

Just as the complicated, flawed, imperfect man he really was.