The first version of almost anything is an act of discovery. We’re learning in real time, usually without understanding what we’re building. We don’t yet know which parts will matter, which ones deserve less attention, or where the challenges are.
The first version is shaped by assumptions. Some accurate, others incomplete. It’s often held together by optimism and a willingness to learn as we go.
The first generation isn’t meant to be polished or permanent. Its purpose is proof of life.
Does this idea work at all? Do we enjoy pursuing it? Is there something here worth continuing once the novelty fades?
Many ideas never move beyond that first stage. Excitement gives way to routine. Maintenance enters the picture. It’s decision time.
Is this something I’m willing to own, or was I simply exploring an interesting possibility?
If the answer leans toward exploration alone, the idea stalls, usually forever. It never makes the leap from curiosity to commitment.
That leap matters.
William Hutchison Murray said it well, “Until one is committed, there is hesitancy…the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.”
The second generation begins at that moment of commitment.
If we choose to begin version two, everything changes.
We’re no longer experimenting or learning if this idea works. We’re deciding that it matters enough to carry forward.
We’re operating with experience now. We’ve seen where effort was misdirected and where the momentum came from. We understand which details carry lasting value and which ones only seemed important at first.
More importantly, we own it now.
That’s why the second generation feels heavier. The weight of responsibility belongs to us. We know too much to pretend otherwise.
An idea that survives long enough to earn a second version has already passed an important test. It has encountered reality and endured.
The first generation asks whether something can exist. The second generation answers whether it should continue.
From there, our work evolves. Spontaneous ideation turns into direction. The purpose becomes clearer than the feature set. Identity begins to emerge.
This is how we do it. This is what matters. This is what we’re willing to stand behind.
The second generation is the foundation for everything that follows…far more than the first. It establishes patterns, standards, and expectations for what comes next.
Tackling version one takes courage. But finishing that version is only part of the journey.
The deeper test lies in beginning again. This time with clearer eyes, better judgment, and full ownership of what we’re building.
We move from discovering what we could build to owning what’s truly worth building.
Every generation believes it’s living through extraordinary change.
And in a way, every generation is right.
Economic strain, political division, conflict, and rapid technological change appear in different forms, but the underlying tension remains the same.
Ray Dalio describes what he calls the Big Cycle. The rise and decline of nations shaped by debt, money, internal division, and shifting global power. He would say we’re late in that cycle, marked by high debt, widening wealth gaps, and growing competition among world powers.
Harry Dent approaches history through demographics, studying population growth, and generational spending patterns. From his view, today’s economic strain reflects aging populations, slower growth, and the unwinding of decades of expansion.
Different perspectives. Similar conclusions.
Neither claim to predict the future with precision. Debt cycles, demographic waves, generational moods, technological revolutions, and geopolitical tensions move simultaneously. Understanding these forces and their patterns helps us recognize the currents. How we live within them is still our responsibility.
I remember the OPEC oil embargo of the 1970s and gas lines stretching for blocks. I was in elementary school as interest rates climbed above twenty percent. I watched the Reagan Revolution reshape economic thinking and bring supply-side theory into the mainstream.
I lived through the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the taking of US hostages, and the subsequent spread of militant extremism across parts of the Muslim world over the next four decades. I watched an airplane strike the World Trade Center in real time.
I grew up under the shadow of the Cold War, when nuclear conflict felt possible at any moment. I saw the optimism that followed the fall of the Soviet Union and then watched China open to the world after decades of isolation. I remember the theories about how expanding capitalism in China might soften their communist approach to governing.
I witnessed the savings and loan collapse, multiple stock market crashes, the Great Recession, and a global pandemic that disrupted economies, institutions, and families alike. I watched how strongly governments grasp control when certainty disappears.
I saw personal computers and then the internet transform daily life, followed by the digital economy, smartphones, social media, and now artificial intelligence reshaping work itself.
I can think of countless other historical events that have happened in the span of one life. Each moment felt unprecedented. Each reshaped the world, sometimes positively, sometimes negatively.
And yet, life continued.
When history is written, it focuses almost entirely on macro events. The narratives are dominated by wars, collapses, elections, revolutions, and markets. What rarely appears are the countless individual lives unfolding quietly alongside these events.
History does not record families eating dinner together during times of high inflation. Nor does it record weddings that took place during recessions or children born during wars. It overlooks the laughter that survived fear and the quiet courage required to just keep going.
But these individual experiences of life form the definition of humanity.
For every name preserved in textbooks, millions of people were doing what people have always done. They worked. They loved. They raised children. They cared for neighbors. They hoped tomorrow might be a little better than today.
Macro forces shape conditions. They influence opportunity and may narrow our options. They may, unfortunately, end our life or the lives of someone we love. But they don’t define a life.
Inside every macro upheaval exists our “micro” life. The life lived within the headlines rather than dictated by them.
The world may determine interest rates. It does not decide whether we act with kindness. It may influence careers, but it does not control our integrity. It may introduce hardship, but it does not determine how we respond.
Our response is where freedom still lives.
Viktor Frankl understood this more clearly than almost anyone. After enduring unimaginable suffering in Nazi concentration camps, he observed that nearly all external freedoms can be taken from a person. One freedom remains intact. The ability to choose one’s attitude and response to circumstances.
Events may constrain us. They may demand adaptation. They will never own our human spirit.
In my office, I have a wall filled with photographs. Family gatherings. Wedding days. Trips taken together. Beautiful places. Ordinary moments that became lasting memories.
When I step back and look at this wall, patterns appear.
We worked hard.
We made time for one another.
We traveled together.
We celebrated milestones.
We were living out our hopes and dreams, and we still are.
My wall has no charts or financial forecasts. No macro trend lines. But it tells the story of what matters most.
None of these moments waited for ideal conditions. They unfolded alongside inflation, recessions, political change, and uncertainty. The photographs capture lives shaped by ordinary but important choices made amid extraordinary times.
As we traveled, we met families across many countries. Different customs. Different faiths. Different governments. Yet everywhere we went, the hopes sounded familiar. Parents wanting the best for their children. Families striving for opportunity. Communities longing to contribute and belong.
The differences emphasized by the world shrink quickly when people speak about those they love.
Human aspirations remain remarkably consistent.
History changes its outward form. The heart changes very little.
You will live through upheavals of your own. Some will be frightening. Some will be unfair. Some will test your trust in institutions or leaders.
Remember this.
You are not responsible for controlling history. You are responsible for how you live inside it.
You will not choose the history that surrounds you. You will choose the values you carry through it.
You choose how you treat people.
You choose how to adapt.
You choose how you show up for your family.
You choose whether uncertainty hardens you or deepens your compassion.
You choose whether fear leads or faith steadies you.
These are your choices. Always.
Humanity endures because ordinary people continue to build their lives amid uncertainty. They love, they work, they fail, they adapt, and they hope, even while larger forces move around them.
While empires rise and fall, families persist.
That is the quiet march you belong to. Rarely captured by historians yet carried forward by generations.
History happens around you.
Life happens within you.
Live your life well. Love deeply. Work honestly. Stay flexible. Hold your faith. Care for one another.
If you do that, you will live a meaningful life regardless of when you were born.
As I was finishing this post, I found these quotes from George Bernard Shaw. The words come from two different writings of his from the early 1900’s. Together they express something important about what it means to live well within whatever history hands us.
“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. “
“I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatsoever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no ‘brief candle’ for me. It is a sort of splendid torch, which I have got hold of for the moment; and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”
Over the last 15 years, I’ve written a lot of words.
Words shaped by work and leadership challenges.
Words that grew out of quiet reflection or things that caught my attention at just the right moment.
Many of them were also shaped by family, faith, mistakes, and moments that stayed with me longer than I expected.
More than a few people have suggested I start a podcast. They’d tell me it’s a lot easier to listen than it is to keep up with a bunch of new reading assignments each week.
While my mom was still alive and living with significant vision loss from macular degeneration, I gave the idea serious thought. Listening would have been the only practical way for her to “read” my posts.
Unfortunately, that “serious thought” didn’t turn into action in time for her to benefit.
Ironically, for someone who usually believes in starting, then figuring things out along the way, I let all the steps required to set up a podcast get in the way of beginning.
Until now.
So today, I’m launching a new podcast:
Grandpa Bob Encouraging Leadership
This podcast is a series of short reflections on leadership, life, and learning. I’m sharing them first and foremost with my grandchildren…and with anyone else who might be listening in.
The episodes are intentionally brief, thoughtful, and unhurried.
They’re the kind of reflections you can listen to on a walk, during a quiet drive, or at the start or end of your day.
They’re meant to create space, not fill it.
Who it’s for
At its heart, this podcast is for my grandkids.
Someday, years from now, I want them to be able to hear my voice and know what mattered to me.
The things I noticed. What I learned the hard way. What I hope they carry with them as they find their own way in the world.
But leadership lessons rarely belong to just one audience.
So, if you’re listening, as a parent, a leader, a teacher, or simply someone trying to live well, you’re welcome here too.
What we’ll talk about
Each episode explores a simple idea. Here are some examples:
-Showing up when progress feels slow
-Letting go of certainty
-Choosing gratitude over entitlement
-Learning to wait without drifting
-Leading with trust, humility, and patience
-Paying attention to what’s quietly shaping us
There won’t be hype. There won’t be slogans. There certainly won’t be any fancy edits.
I’ll discuss questions worth talking about, and observations a loving grandfather hopes to pass along to his grandkids.
An invitation
You can find Grandpa Bob Encouraging Leadership wherever you listen to podcasts.
Don’t worry if you can’t listen to every episode.
Please feel free to disagree with anything I say. I don’t have a monopoly on the right answers.
If even one episode helps you pause, notice something new, or steady yourself a little, then it’s doing what it was meant to do.
Thanks for listening.
And if you’re one of my grandkids reading this someday, know that I believe in you and I’m always rooting for you.
If you’re listening alongside them, the same is true for you.
We call it Artificial Intelligence, but large language models don’t think, reason, or understand in human terms.
A more accurate description might be Artificial Idea Iteration since these tools dramatically compress the cycles of research, drafting, testing, and revision.
SpaceX didn’t transform spaceflight by having perfect ideas. They collapsed the time between ideas and reality. Failing fast, learning quickly, and iterating relentlessly.
AI creates the same dynamic for knowledge work, letting us move from intuition to articulation to revision in hours instead of weeks.
Engineers rely on wind tunnels to test aircraft designs before committing real materials and lives. AI does this for thinking.
Iteration itself isn’t new. What’s new is the scale for iteration that we now have at our fingertips. We can explore multiple paths, abandon weak directions quickly, and refine promising ones without the time, coordination, and risk that once kept ideas locked in our heads.
When iteration becomes inexpensive, we can take more intellectual risks and shift from trying to always be right to trying to always get better.
It’s ironic that as iteration is becoming cheaper and faster with AI tools, human judgment becomes more valuable. Someone still needs to know what’s worth developing, what deserves refinement, and when something is complete rather than exhausted.
The intelligence was never in the machine. AI simply gives us the capacity to develop ideas, test them against reality, and learn from the results at a scale and speed we’ve never had before.
Photo by SpaceX on Unsplash – when SpaceX proposed the idea of landing and reusing their rocket boosters after each launch, the idea seemed impossible. Now it’s happening about 3 times per week…and they’re just getting started.
One of the best parts of the Iron Man movies is Jarvis, the ever-present AI system that acts as an extension of Tony Stark’s mind. Jarvis is a collaborator. A research analyst. A pattern finder. A problem solver. He handles logistics, runs calculations, surfaces insights, and stays ready in the background until Tony needs him.
Jarvis amplifies and extends Tony’s genius.
Recently, I introduced a friend to ChatGPT. He hasn’t jumped into any AI tools yet, but he can see that people around him are finding real value in them. Like many thoughtful people, his first questions weren’t about features. They were about data privacy. About whether these tools were simply repackaging other people’s work. About what was really going on under the hood.
At one point, he asked a simple question:
Is it like having Jarvis around whenever you need him?
To me, the honest answer is yes.
But it’s also important to realize that Jarvis isn’t perfect. And neither are the AI tools available to us today.
The First Questions Matter. Almost every serious conversation about AI tools begins in the same place.
Is my data safe?
Who owns the output?
Can I trust what I’m getting back?
These are the same questions we ask whenever a new digital tool emerges.
At a basic level, paid versions of tools like ChatGPT don’t use our conversations to train public models. Even with that protection in place, I still guard my data carefully. If I’m asking questions related to finances, health, or legal matters, I use hypothetical scenarios rather than personal specifics. I’m the first line of defense when it comes to my personal information.
In professional and commercial environments, organizations using business or enterprise versions gain additional protections around data isolation, encryption, access controls, and audit logging. At the enterprise level, some platforms even allow customers to manage their own encryption keys on top of the platform’s security.
The tool doesn’t decide what’s appropriate to share. We do.
Who Owns the Output? We do. The tool doesn’t claim authorship. It doesn’t retain ownership of what it produces for you. The output becomes yours because you directed the work, supplied the context, and decided how the result would be used.
But ownership is only part of the story. Responsibility matters just as much.
The tool doesn’t know your intent. It doesn’t understand your audience. And it doesn’t bear the consequences of getting something wrong. That responsibility stays with the human in the loop. That’s us.
In that sense, using AI isn’t fundamentally different from working with many other analytical tools we may have used for decades. The work becomes yours because you shape it, refine it, and ultimately stand behind it.
A Note on Sources and Attribution. Owning the output also means owning the responsibility for its accuracy and integrity. This is especially important when it comes to research and citations.
AI tools can pull together large volumes of information, synthesize ideas across many inputs, and present them in clean, compelling language. That capability is incredibly useful. But it doesn’t remove the author’s responsibility to understand where ideas come from and how they’re represented.
The tool may summarize research. It may surface commonly known concepts. It may produce language that sounds authoritative and polished. What it doesn’t guarantee is proper attribution or assurance that content isn’t too closely mirroring a specific source.
That responsibility stays with the human.
When I use AI for research or writing, I treat it as a starting point. I ask it to surface each source. I follow links. I read original material. And when an idea, quote, or framework belongs to someone else, I make sure it’s credited appropriately. This step also helps catch hallucinations that sound amazingly accurate.
Ownership requires standing behind the integrity of the work to the best of your ability.
Can I Trust What I’m Getting Back? Usually. Only with supervision. AI tools are very good at consuming information, identifying patterns, and accelerating first drafts. They are less reliable when precision, nuance, or real-world verification is required.
They can be confidently wrong. They can lose context. They can blend accurate information with outdated or incomplete details.
AI tools hallucinate regularly, though this tendency improves with each new model release. These aren’t reasons to dismiss AI as a tool. They’re reminders to understand what AI is and what it isn’t.
Trust paired with skepticism is the right approach. AI tools are fast-thinking assistants, never the final authority.
Verification still matters. Judgment still matters. Experience still matters. In fact, the better your judgment, the more valuable these tools become.
Why Memory Changes the Equation. Most people use AI tools like a smart search engine. Ask a question. Get an answer. Move on.
That works. But it barely scratches the surface of what’s possible. The real multiplier happens when the tool is allowed to remember context.
ChatGPT includes a memory capability that lets you intentionally store preferences, patterns, and reference material across conversations. Used well, this transforms the tool from something you query into something you can collaborate with.
Over the past year and across hundreds of prompt conversations, I’ve shared:
-My writing voice and stylistic preferences
-A digital copy of a leadership book I wrote over a decade ago (about 65,000 words)
-An autobiography I wrote for my children and grandchildren (about 90,000 words)
-Hundreds of blog posts published over the past 13 years (roughly 240,000 words)
-How I like to structure projects and approach new work
In total, I’ve trained the tool with nearly 400,000 words of my original content. This began as an experiment to see if I could reduce generic responses and encourage the tool to approach questions from my foundational perspective.
The difference is tangible. Early on, whether I was drafting communication, analyzing problems, or organizing ideas, the tool would produce polished but generic output that required extensive rewriting. Now, it reflects my priorities, uses frameworks I’ve shared, and produces work that feels aligned with how I think. I still edit quite a bit, but I’m refining rather than rebuilding.
Collaboration Requires Judgment. My friend asked me another important question.
Do you still feel like the writing you produce with it is yours?
Yes. Completely.
Every project I’ve worked on with these tools begins with my original content, reinforced by reference material I created long before AI entered the picture. Hundreds of thousands of words written over more than a decade. Clear intent about audience and purpose, using a defined process I’ve established before drafting anything.
The tool supports rather than replaces my judgment. Drafts usually require significant edits, shifts in tone, and sometimes complete rewrites.
Where it excels is in synthesis. In retrieval. In pattern recognition across large bodies of work. In accelerating first drafts that already have direction.
Large projects require constant supervision. Threads get crossed. Context gets muddled. The tool needs redirection, clarification, and sometimes retraining as the work evolves.
This is simply the nature of collaboration.
Why the Hype Misses the Point. There’s a popular narrative circulating that anyone can now write a book, write a complex software application, create a website, start a business, or become an expert with just a few well-written prompts.
This misunderstands both the tools and the craft associated with each of these tasks.
I think of AI the way I think of a great camera. We can all buy the same equipment. That doesn’t guarantee an amazing photo. The quality still depends on the eye behind the lens, the patience and skills to frame the shot, and the willingness to edit ruthlessly afterward.
Ansel Adams once said that asking him what camera he used was like asking a writer what typewriter he used. The tool matters. But it has never been the point.
The same is true with AI tools.
Without intent, taste, and care, straight AI output feels flat and formulaic. Readers will notice. Substance can’t be faked. Depth doesn’t appear by accident.
These tools reflect the discipline of the person using them.
Hitting the Ground Running. For someone just getting started, the biggest mistake is expecting magic. The better approach is to build understanding and training into the process (for you and the AI tool).
Explain what you’re trying to do.
Tell the tool how you think.
Correct it when it’s wrong.
Guide it when it drifts.
Treat it like a junior collaborator. One that’s fast, tireless, and remarkably capable…but still dependent on direction and context.
If you’re looking for a practical first step, try this. Find an article you’ve read recently and ask the tool to summarize it. Compare that summary to the original. Notice what it captured, what it missed, and what it misunderstood. This simple exercise reveals both the tool’s strengths and its limitations in a low-stakes way.
From there, you might ask it to help you draft an email, outline a presentation, or brainstorm solutions to a problem you’re facing. Start with tasks where you can easily evaluate the quality of the output and provide feedback on what the tool provides.
Over time, you’ll notice the quality improves. That’s when the tool begins to resemble the Jarvis we imagined. It isn’t perfect, but it becomes more aligned with what you value most and how you like to approach your work. At the same time, your understanding of its strengths and limitations becomes clearer through consistent use.
AI doesn’t replace thinking. It requires it.
Used carelessly, it produces noise. Used deliberately, it sharpens your insights.
The question is whether we’re willing to slow down at the beginning, set expectations, and engage AI tools with proper intention.
Only then can these tools truly serve us well.
Photo by Chris Haws on Unsplash – photographers often say, “It’s about the photographer, not the camera.”
If this post was helpful, please feel free to share it.
A few days ago, I was listening to Jocko Willink speak about the quiet discipline behind Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I’m not a jiu-jitsu person, but one idea landed for me. It’s a truth I already knew but had never heard spoken so simply:
Always improve your position.
In jiu-jitsu, nothing happens all at once. A submission arrives like lightning, but only to the untrained eye. What looks like a sudden victory is really the final expression of dozens of subtle movements that came before it. A hip shifts. A grip tightens. An elbow gains an inch of space. Most of these moves go unnoticed. Each small adjustment creates a little more room, a little more leverage, a little more advantage.
I’ve always believed real progress works this way. It’s rarely dramatic. It’s quiet and patient. The accumulated effect of showing up, learning something new, adding a bit more care, and preparing a little more than required.
Breakthroughs rarely come from a single moment of inspiration. They come from the quiet work no one sees. The thoughtful practice that sharpens your skills, the trust built over months of ordinary conversations, the time spent learning before making a decision. When opportunity arrives, it looks sudden to others. To you, it feels like the next logical step.
This truth showed up clearly for me after a derecho tore through our property on Father’s Day weekend a few years ago. Ninety-mile-per-hour winds knocked down at least thirty trees across multiple acres. When I walked our land the next morning, everything felt broken and overwhelming. The cleanup looked like a project that would take months. I didn’t have months to devote to it.
But I did have mornings. So, I decided to work for an hour and a half every day before work. I cleared a small section each morning. It was incredibly slow. I dragged branches, cut trunks, chipped debris, split firewood, and made countless trips to our local dump. Small steps, small progress, one morning at a time.
Over the course of a year (maybe more), I worked my way across our entire property. Along the way, I cut in new hiking trails and removed a number of unhealthy trees. What started as a mess became a healthier stand of trees and a network of paths that look like they’ve been here forever.
Out of destruction came a daily habit that changed my life. I still work outside every morning. Clearing brush, trimming trees, expanding trails, building chicken coops, restoring a rustic barn. All in small ninety-minute bites. It’s like a time-lapse video created through countless quiet mornings of small improvements.
The pattern I saw on my land is exactly what Jocko described on the mat. I didn’t need a grand plan or a burst of superhuman effort. I needed to improve my position every day, just by a little.
Improve your position today, even by an inch, and tomorrow becomes easier. Improve it again tomorrow, and the day after that reveals options that didn’t exist before. You don’t need surges of motivation or dramatic reinvention. You only need the willingness to keep moving, always improving.
Careers grow this way. Trust grows this way. Faith deepens this way. Families strengthen this way.
Progress won’t always be linear. Some days distractions will pull us off course, or setbacks will undo work we thought was finished. All of this is part of the journey. Even then, the way forward still comes through small steps. Imperfect, uneven, but the work of always improving our position remains the same.
We improve our position slowly, almost without noticing. That’s enough. Tomorrow, we’ll improve again. Then one day, we’ll find ourselves able to take a step that would have felt impossible a year ago.
Focus on the next inch. The miles will take care of themselves.
Photo by Walter Martin on Unsplash – a great rendition of my early morning work environment for at least a year.
“There is no Frigate like a Book / To take us Lands away.”
Emily Dickinson wrote these words in her quiet room, understanding something I didn’t grasp for decades. The greatest journeys begin within.
I know her poem only because of my 11th grade AP English teacher, Mr. Cox. As a rambunctious and cocky 11th grader, would I have taken any of my “super valuable” time to read poems, sonnets, short stories, even books? No way.
But because of his work (and the work of countless other teachers along the way), I did read. A lot. I learned tons of material and information that didn’t matter to me at the time…but matter a lot today.
My focus back then was simple. Be the best student, get the highest test scores, pass as many AP tests as possible, and earn varsity letters in multiple sports. Mostly, I wanted to beat everyone else, pure and simple. It helped that I was blessed with an almost photographic memory and could recall facts and formulas with ease (sadly, not so much nowadays).
I carried that mindset into college. I loved being the student who defined the grading curve for the class. I was annoyed if I didn’t get every single point on an assignment, midterm, or final. I had an almost uncontrollable drive to outshine everyone…as if that was all that mattered.
I was completely wrong.
On the bright side, that drive and motivation made me a successful student and propelled me into my early career.
On the other hand, seeing everyone as my competition, and less as people, meant I probably missed out on a lot of fun. And lots of friendships that never happened. I was so focused on the destination that I forgot to notice who was traveling with me.
That realization connects me back to Dickinson’s frigate in ways I never expected. She saw the book as a vessel capable of carrying anyone, anywhere, without cost or permission. But what I’ve learned over nearly fifty years since high school is that I was asking the wrong question. It was never “How far can I go?” It was “Who am I becoming, and who’s helping me understand?”
My journey from that hyper-competitive teenager to what I hope is a much more caring, thoughtful, empathetic, nuanced, and life-giving person has been propelled by those same teachers I mentioned earlier, and a longer line of guides who keep showing up at the right time in my life.
I didn’t realize it then, but those books, poems, and teachers were all part of my fleet of frigates. Each one quietly helped me close the distance between knowledge and understanding, between my ambition and wisdom.
My mentors, family, and friends have all been vessels that carried me through changing seas. Some taught me to sail straight into the wind. Others reminded me that drifting for a while can be part of my journey as well. Each lesson mattered, even the ones that didn’t make sense at the time…especially those.
Over time, life has a way of sanding down our sharper edges, revealing something deeper underneath. My focus slowly shifted from being the best at something to becoming the best version of myself.
Now, when I think about Emily Dickinson’s frigate, I picture something far greater than a book. I picture a lifetime of learning, carried by the people who invested their time, wisdom, and patience in me. Mr. Cox, and others who gave freely of their time and wisdom, helped me see that the destination isn’t solely becoming the top of the class. It’s finding a profound depth of understanding, the expansion of empathy, and the ability to see beauty and meaning in small, unexpected places.
If I could go back and talk to that 16-year-old version of myself, I’d tell him the real tests aren’t scored on paper. They’re graded every day in how we treat people, how we listen, and how we show grace.
I’d tell him that the frigate he thinks he’s steering alone has always been guided by grace. The true measure of his voyage will be how much space he makes for others to come aboard.
We’re all learning to sail, carried by the steady hand of God.
There’s a quiet moment in meaningful work when your idea begins to live in someone else. You see it in the way they talk about it. You hear it in their enthusiasm. You notice how they add their experience and their language to it until the idea carries their imprint as much as yours.
It can feel strange the first time it happens. You know the origin, but they suddenly feel the spark of the idea for themselves. That’s the moment you know your idea has begun to grow.
Real success often arrives like this, but we don’t always notice it. People begin to adopt your idea, reshape it, and eventually believe in it with a conviction that can be surprising. They explain it to others in their own voice. They defend it. They improve it. If the idea spreads far enough, some will forget where it began. Your name may fade from the origin story. That loss of attribution can sting if you hold the idea too tightly. It should feel like success instead.
Leaders have a responsibility here. Ideas rarely spread through logic alone. They spread through emotional ownership that grows when people discover a piece of themselves in the idea. When that happens, they carry the idea farther than you ever could by insisting on authorship.
A leader’s task is to create the conditions for this transfer. You offer the early shape of the idea, then invite others to step inside and help build the next version. You ask for their insight, their experience, and their concerns. You let their fingerprints gather on the surface until the idea becomes a shared creation. People support what they help to shape.
As others begin to adopt your idea, they’ll need to feel safety in their new enthusiasm. They need to know they’re not the only ones who believe in this direction. A wise leader pays attention to this. They take the people who have embraced their idea and introduce them to others who have done the same. They form new connections, helping to create a small community where confidence strengthens and courage grows. When people see others adopting the same idea, they feel validated, understood, and ready to act.
This is how ideas gain momentum inside organizations. One person sees the promise. Another begins to shape it. A third begins to feel inspired. Before long, it becomes a shared narrative. It starts with your imagination, but it continues through their belief and conviction.
Once people begin to adopt your idea, you must release it. You may or may not receive credit for it. Either outcome is acceptable.
The goal was never to build a monument to your creativity. The goal was to move the organization forward. When others bring your idea into new conversations without you, your contribution has done its job.
Your attention can return to the horizon. There’s always another idea waiting for you, another possibility that needs your curiosity, another problem that needs new framing.
Good leaders plant seeds. Great leaders celebrate when those seeds take root across the organization.
Inspired by Dr. Michael Levin’s post, h/t – Tim Ferriss
Photo by Alex Beauchamp on Unsplash – a new idea taking root and growing beyond its beginning.
Imagine two managers sitting at their desks, both using the same AI tool.
The first asks it to write the same weekly report, just faster. Three hours saved. Nothing new learned. Box checked.
The second uses the AI differently. She asks it to analyze six months of data and search for hidden patterns. It reveals that half the metrics everyone tracks have no real connection to success. Two new questions emerge. She rebuilds the entire process from scratch.
Same tool. Different questions. One finds speed. The other finds wisdom.
This is the divide that will define the next decade of work.
For a long time, leadership revolved around structure and repetition. The best organizations built systems that ran like clockwork. Discipline became an art. Efficiency became a mantra.
Books like Good to Great showed how rigorous process could transform good companies into great ones through consistent execution. When competitive advantage came from doing the same thing better and faster than everyone else, process was power.
AI changes this equation entirely. It makes these processes faster, yes, but it also asks a more unsettling question. Why are you doing this at all?
Speed alone means little when the racetrack itself is disappearing.
Curiosity in the age of AI means something specific. It asks “why” when everyone else asks “how.” It uses AI to question assumptions rather than simply execute them. It treats every automated task as an opportunity to rethink the underlying goal. And it accepts the possibility that your job, as you currently do it, might need to change entirely.
That last part is uncomfortable. Many people fear AI will replace them. Paradoxically, the people most at risk are those who refuse to use AI to reimagine their own work. The curious ones are already replacing themselves with something better.
Many organizations speak of innovation, but their true values show in what they celebrate. Do they promote the person who completes fifty tasks efficiently, or the one who eliminates thirty through reinvention? Most choose the first. They reward throughput. They measure activity. They praise the person who worked late rather than the one who made late nights unnecessary.
This worked when efficiency was scarce. Now efficiency can be abundant. AI will handle efficiency. What remains scarce is the imagination to ask what we should be doing instead. Organizations that thrive will use AI to do entirely different things. Things that were impossible or invisible before.
Working with AI requires more than technical skills. The syntax is easy. The prompts are learnable. Connecting AI to our applications isn’t the challenge. The difficulty is our mindset. Having the patience to experiment when you could just execute. The humility to see that the way you’ve always done things may no longer be the best way. The courage to ask “what if” when your entire career has been built on knowing “how to.”
This is why curiosity has become a competitive advantage. The willingness to probe, to question, to let AI reveal what you’ve been missing. Because AI is a mirror. It reflects whatever you bring to it, amplified. Bring efficiency-seeking and get marginal gains. Bring genuine curiosity and discover new possibilities.
Here’s something to try this week. Take your most routine task. The report, the analysis, the update you’ve done a hundred times. Before asking AI to replicate it, ask a different question. What would make this unnecessary? What question should we be asking instead?
You might discover the task still matters. Or you might realize you’ve been generating reports nobody reads, tracking metrics nobody uses, or solving problems that stopped being relevant two years ago.
Efficiency fades. What feels efficient today becomes everyone’s baseline tomorrow. But invention endures. The capacity to see what others miss, to ask what others skip, to build what nobody else imagines yet.
The curious will see opportunity. The creative will see possibility. The courageous will see permission. Together they will build what comes next.
The tools are here. The door is open. Work we haven’t imagined yet waits on the other side. Solving problems not yet seen, creating value in ways that don’t exist today.
Writing a song is like fishing, Kenny Chesney once said. Some days you catch something beautiful. The melody, the moment, the truth. Other days, you sit there all day with nothing but frustration and a stubborn belief that it’s still worth being out there.
That kind of wisdom transcends genres. Ernest Hemingway spent his life circling the same idea. That real art happens when we show up. Whether facing a blank page, a marlin that wouldn’t bite, or a battle that couldn’t be won, he believed the only way to live fully was to move, to act, to engage.
His work embodied a simple truth. The shortest answer is doing the thing. For him, wisdom wasn’t found in thinking about life, but in living it. No clever phrasing. No shortcuts. Just the act itself. Simple, honest, alive.
We spend so much of life thinking about what we might do, planning what we should do, waiting until we feel ready to begin. But readiness rarely arrives on its own. The line stays slack until you cast it. The song stays silent until you play it. The story remains untold until you write it.
Sometimes we catch something incredible. Other times, nothing.
Either way, we were there. Present. Awake. Participating in the work and wonder of life.
Maybe that’s the whole point.
A life well-lived must first be lived.
Photo by Shojol Islam on Unsplash – I wonder if he’ll catch something on this cast. Maybe. Maybe not. But, he’s in the game, giving it his best shot and that’s what matters.
Grandpa Bob Encouraging Leadership 
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