ESSAYS · STORIES · OBSERVATIONS
Personal narratives and structural observations drawn from fifty years inside systems that worked, drifted, and failed.
Essays — from the Newsletter
Delayed consequence is not avoided consequence. On what the 100-year cycle actually teaches about why systems fail after long periods of success.
Request this essay →Restraint is not generosity. It is better math. On why the most durable systems were built by people who understood when to stop taking.
Request this essay →A mining camp in outback Queensland. A decision made by three different people. No one had said no at any point. On what accountability without a named person actually costs.
Request this essay →A business decision made in 48 hours that took four years to unwind. On why fast systems depend more on pre-existing maturity, not less.
Request this essay →Stories from a Life at Full Stretch
Buying a pizza delivery business from my uncle. Three trucks with propane ovens. Sixteen-year-old drivers in V8 engines. Then a bread supplier told me about a new chain called Subway.
Request this story →Age sixteen. My mother's signature on the form — forged. The Hinckley drop zone. What the ground looks like from 3,000 feet when you are about to step out of an aircraft for the first time.
Request this story →A Gulf of Mexico diner. Age ten. My mother, Birdy, and a lesson about what it means to serve someone well — told the way Pavlov would have told it, if Pavlov had waited tables.
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