Later

You don’t start believing you’re a runner. You put on your shoes a few mornings in a row.

You don’t believe you’re patient. You pause once when you normally wouldn’t—and nothing breaks.

You don’t believe you’re confident. You speak up, your voice shakes, and the world keeps going.

You don’t believe you care about your health. You go to bed earlier twice in the same week.

Belief doesn’t lead.

It follows.

It shows up later, asking for credit.

So stop waiting to believe.

Act.

Your beliefs will catch up.

They always do.

Same words, different room

You finish explaining the plan.

Heads nod. No questions. Someone says, “Sounds good.”

The meeting ends early.

That’s one version.

Here’s another.

You explain the plan. Someone pauses. Another person asks, “What happens if…?” A third says, “Can we try this instead?”

The meeting runs long. People lean forward. Someone takes notes they weren’t asked to take.

Same agreement. Different room.

One of those rooms is quiet. The other is alive.

Quiet feels efficient. Alive feels risky.

Managers often choose quiet because it looks like control.

But quiet usually means people are protecting themselves.

Alignment doesn’t show up as silence. It shows up as friction.

Questions. Pushback. Care.

You can’t demand it. You can’t rush it. And you can’t fake it.

Here’s the test:

If people agree and the room goes flat, you got compliance.

If people agree and the energy rises, they’re taking it with them.

The words might be the same. The future won’t be.

If every “yes” makes the room quieter, don’t celebrate.

You didn’t bring people along. You taught them to stand down.

Indispensable

Leaders say this as a warning:

“Nobody is indispensable.”

It’s a mistake.

The people doing the minimum didn’t hear it. They were already gone.

The ones who hear it are the ones who care.

The ones who step in before they’re asked. Who take responsibility without demanding authority. Who move the work forward and give credit away. Who act like the business actually matters.

That sentence doesn’t make them humble. It makes them careful.

So they stop stepping in early. They stop owning what isn’t assigned. They stop carrying more than required.

The work still gets done. But the edge disappears.

If losing someone wouldn’t hurt, something’s wrong with how you’re building the team.

Tell people they don’t matter long enough, and they’ll believe you.

Worth wanting

The fastest way to lose credibility is to chase it.

There’s a slower move that works better.

Instead of asking what the prize gives you— the title, the applause, the access— ask what you’re willing to give the prize.

What would it take to raise the bar? To defend the bar once it’s raised? To make the thing itself matter more?

That choice changes the work.

You stop optimizing for visibility. You start defending meaning.

Access gets tighter. Expectations get harder to meet. Shortcuts stop paying off.

Not everyone stays interested.

Good.

Here’s the part that surprises people:

When you elevate the status of the prize, your own status rises anyway.

Not because you claimed it. Because you made something worth claiming.

Status is borrowed. Meaning compounds.

Before the year turns

What just happened?

What reaction followed?

Did it arrive automatically?

Where did I learn this response?

Whose rule am I following right now?

Where is my attention going by default?

What am I assuming will happen next?

What future is that assumption preparing me for?

Is that the future I actually want?

Who has authority in this moment—me or the past?

What would choosing look like instead of reacting?

Wishing you a 2026 you actually chose.

People like us (Part 2): the plan

Once you accept that culture is shaped by patterns, not slogans, the work changes.

You stop asking what should we say? And start asking what will we decide—again and again?

Culture needs a plan. Just not the kind most people write.

Not a rollout. Not a training calendar. Not a list of values.

A culture plan is a decision plan.

It’s a deliberate choice about which behaviors will win this year—and which ones will quietly stop winning, even if they’ve worked in the past.

That’s where leaders hesitate.

Because planning culture means committing in advance:

• to specific tradeoffs

• to real spending

• to decisions that will feel uncomfortable before they feel right

If innovation matters, it shows up first in budgets and calendars. Time is protected. Experiments are funded. Learning is allowed to cost something.

If accountability matters, leaders take on the hard conversations early. Issues are addressed instead of postponed. Exceptions become rarer.

This is the counter-intuitive part.

When culture starts to change, performance often feels worse before it feels better. Old shortcuts stop working. People test the limits.

That’s not resistance. That’s feedback.

Culture doesn’t change because people finally understand it. It changes because the environment makes the old way harder to repeat.

So if you’re serious about culture, plan accordingly.

Plan for leadership time, not just programs. Plan to spend money where you want behavior to repeat. Plan for friction before alignment.

Because culture isn’t what you hope will happen.

It’s what you’re willing to decide, fund, and defend long enough that “people like us” don’t need to ask anymore.

People like us (part 1)

“People like us do things like this.”

That’s culture.

Not what’s written. Not what’s announced. But what gets repeated.

People learn culture by watching what works.

What gets praised in meetings. What gets promoted. What gets funded. What gets copied.

If you say you value innovation, people don’t listen to the word. They watch what happens to the last person who took a risk.

Did the idea get airtime? Did it get resources? Did the person get backed—even when it didn’t work?

Or did everything quietly return to normal?

That answer teaches faster than any slogan.

The same mechanism works in reverse.

People also notice what keeps happening without consequence. The shortcut that delivers results. The behavior everyone sees and no one names.

Reward and tolerance aren’t opposites. They work together.

Culture forms where repetition meets reinforcement.

If you want a different culture, don’t start with language. Start with patterns.

What behavior will be repeated here? What behavior will quietly stop working?

Because “people like us” are already paying attention.

And they’re learning exactly how this place really works.

Today

There’s something you’ve already decided to change.

Not publicly. Not formally. Quietly.

You’ve circled it. You’ve adjusted around it. You’ve promised yourself you’ll get to it “soon.”

That’s the move most people make.

They don’t say no. They just keep saying later.

Later when there’s more time. Later when it’s less awkward. Later when it feels safer.

But later isn’t a plan. It’s a delay with good manners.

You don’t need a full roadmap. You don’t need certainty. You don’t need January.

You need one action that makes going back harder.

Send the message. Have the conversation. Change the routine. Cancel the thing that keeps you stuck.

Today isn’t special. That’s why it works.

Most real decisions are made on ordinary days, without witnesses, without announcements.

They don’t feel dramatic. They remove the option to go back.

Espejitos

In Mexican culture, espejitos were small mirrors and shiny objects. They looked valuable. They caught the eye.

They were cheap.

They worked because the surface impressed before the substance could be tested.

That’s why espejitos are tempting.

They convert attention into money fast. They reward the seller immediately. They feel clever.

But espejitos don’t fail because people are fooled.

They fail because time keeps score.

You might fool some people for a while. But patterns repeat. Promises meet outcomes.

And reputation doesn’t forget.

Here’s the part most people miss:

Espejitos don’t just fool buyers. They trap sellers.

Once you start selling mirrors, you can’t slow down. Depth exposes the trick. Silence lets the truth catch up.

So you keep going. Shinier. Louder. Faster.

Until reputation stops being something you manage and becomes something that follows you.

Real value compounds quietly. Espejitos compound noise.

And then they reverse.

The danger isn’t that espejitos don’t last. It’s that by the time they stop working, everyone knows what you’ve been selling.

Permission

Most things don’t change us. They just happen.

A crisis. A failure. A sentence in a blog post.

We notice it. We nod. We move on.

Change isn’t automatic. It requires a decision.

Nothing crosses the line unless you let it.

And once it does, something else can’t stay.

You can live through years of experience and stay the same. Or you can let a single sentence, moment, or failure reorder how you move through the world.

That choice is quiet. No one sees it.

But without it, nothing changes.

Before the moment

The moment isn’t the moment. It’s what came before.

If you worry at the moment, it’s already too late. If you live everything for the moment, you miss it too.

Good moments aren’t planned. The conditions are.

You don’t show up ready. You show up as you already are.

That’s why Christmas works.

Because it isn’t built in a day. It’s built in the days before.

Merry Christmas.

The second-best time

“The best time to start was years ago. The second-best time is now.”

People say it like permission.

It isn’t.

Starting late isn’t neutral. It’s heavier.

Waiting doesn’t keep options open. It closes them quietly.

Others build history. By the time you start, history already belongs to someone else.

The second-best time is now. Just don’t pretend it costs the same.

The distance between dots

Busy feels like progress. It isn’t.

Placing dots far apart feels smart. Each one stays safe. Each one avoids judgment.

Nothing connects. Nothing compounds. Nothing becomes visible.

Meaning doesn’t come from motion. It comes from proximity.

Dots placed close start to argue. They reveal patterns. They create a stain.

A stain is how others know what you’re doing. It’s how you know too.

Scattered work stays interesting. Dense work becomes legible.

People don’t follow ideas. They follow patterns they can recognize.

If no one understands what you’re building, check the spacing.

The worst decision

Not deciding is also a decision.

It’s the decision to keep the product vague. To keep the market broad. To keep the strategy reversible.

It looks harmless.

“We’ll see.” “Let’s wait.” “Let’s keep our options open.”

But while you’re not deciding, the work stays soft.

Nothing sharpens. Nothing commits back to you. Nothing pushes forward.

Choosing closes doors. Not choosing keeps you busy in the hallway.

And hallways don’t build anything.

Not deciding is a decision. And it’s usually the worst one of all.

Farmers, hunters, wizards

Every organization needs different kinds of work.

Some people maintain and grow what already works. They protect what exists. They make tomorrow predictable.

Some people chase. They move fast. They bring back what’s new.

Some people reframe. They see patterns. They change how the game works.

When all three are present, progress compounds.

The problem isn’t talent. It’s perspective.

Farmers see hunters as reckless. Hunters see farmers as slow. Wizards see both as stuck in the system.

And each is right — from where they’re standing.

Most people lead with one of these and carry a strong second.

That’s not the issue.

The trouble starts when one worldview gets mistaken for the worldview.

When maintenance is judged by exploration standards. When exploration is judged by farming standards. When insight is dismissed because it doesn’t look like effort.

Teams don’t stall because they lack skill. They stall because they lack respect for how others see the terrain.

You don’t unlock potential by winning the argument. You unlock it by seeing the whole field.

Counting cattle

There are two kinds of people out here.

Some look over the fence to count how many head you’ve got.

They’re not checking on you. They’re checking themselves.

Others look over the fence to see if one’s missing. If the gate’s loose. If you need a hand before sundown.

Same pasture. Very different instincts.

You can feel the difference fast.

One kind makes the land tense. The other makes it work.

Pay attention to who shows up when things get thin. And pay attention to who you become when they do.

The empty polis

The polis isn’t politics.

It’s the space where a city — a society — decides things together. Beyond the family. Beyond the job. Beyond personal comfort.

It’s where promises stop being private and start carrying weight for people you don’t know.

For a long time, growing up meant moving outward.

First, you learned to keep promises at home. Then, you learned to keep promises at work. And eventually, you were expected to keep promises in public — to show up, take responsibility, and accept tradeoffs for something larger than yourself.

That step is the one we’ve been skipping.

Not because people don’t care. But because comfort made it optional.

We learned how to protect our private lives. How to optimize our careers. How to curate our opinions.

But we stopped practicing responsibility that doesn’t pay immediately, doesn’t feel safe, and doesn’t come with applause.

So the polis feels empty. Dysfunctional. Someone else’s problem.

The polis doesn’t empty itself.

The polis is empty because people stopped taking responsibility beyond themselves.

It doesn’t come back through outrage. Or opinions. Or voting once every few years.

It comes back the same way it was built:

When enough people decide to carry a promise that doesn’t benefit them immediately.

Who owns this?

Consensus used to mean alignment. Now it often means insurance.

If everyone agrees, no one is responsible.

That’s the quiet deal.

Put enough names on the slide. Enough logos on the deck. Enough voices in the meeting.

Now the decision is “shared.” Which really means unowned.

This is why modern consensus feels slow, polite, and hollow. Because risk gets spread thinner than insight.

So we add one more review. Not to choose. To soften the consequences.

Most ideas don’t fail. They get diluted.

Real progress starts when someone is willing to say: “This is my call.”

If no one owns the decision, don’t expect it to lead anywhere new.

Let it marinate

Flow is a liar.

It turns one direction into the direction. It turns momentum into certainty. It turns speed into truth.

That’s how good ideas lose their balance. Not by doubt. By locking in too early.

Marinating is the counterweight.

Not procrastination. Not perfectionism. A pause long enough to see what you missed while you were pushing.

Because the zone is great for making. Terrible for judging.

The trap is obvious: a pause can become a hiding place.

So the rule matters.

If I’m marinating, I’m still moving. I’m just moving slower than my adrenaline wants.

Ship too fast and you ship the wrong thing. Wait too long and you ship nothing.

Marinate the decision. Execute the direction.

Easy to replace

If it works, that’s expected.

If it’s polished, that’s fine.

If it’s efficient, good.

But none of that makes it chosen.

The world is full of things that work. Most of them disappear quietly.

What’s missing isn’t quality. It’s a point of view.

Years ago, someone reframed MVP. Not the product part. The personality.

Just enough spine to stop sounding like everyone else.

Without it, you’re a stranger. And strangers get compared on price, speed, and convenience.

Friends don’t.

Friends get forgiven. They get talked about. They get another chance.

You don’t need more features. You don’t need louder marketing.

You need one clear reason someone would miss you if you were gone.

Otherwise, you’re easy to replace.