Field Notes

i find that i create an immense amount of value by thinking, speaking the truth plainly and directly, and by not accepting anything until i can verify it with receipts. this has proven itself true with ai over and over. and is even more true with other humans.

Friction Feeds Freedom

Habits are contagious.

Virtue taught as content inoculates against the virtue.

Steve is a gift and the first to earn an Iron Ranch Murder Club hammer from Forge Grappling that ranks above myself. Grateful to share the mats with you brother. Thank you for your fellowship and consistent partnership in suffering. Forge Forward.

People who know precisely what they want of life rarely submit to fear. They are too busy expressing their self-reliance and faith.

all new ideas are difficult to accept

all new ideas are difficult to accept

people who wine and beg god to assume responsibility for all their troubles and provide them with all the necessities and luxuries of life are too lazy to create what they want and translate it into existence, through the power of their own thoughts and actions. it takes faith to act.

Learn to recognize the difference between temporary defeat and failure.

Weak plans have a way of becoming strong if definitely applied.

Durability is an underrated virtue.

Mute the world and build your own.

Change management should be violent. Especially if you are the founder or ceo.

Action creates information.

We have developed a level of suicidal empathy that makes us afraid that everyone has paper thin skin. We must foster truth and radical candor. Then we can create the solutions we so desperately need.

Failure rhymes. Success is unique.

Practice the discipline of converting failure into a stepping stone to achievement.

You drift your way to hell. You forge your path to heaven. And I am talking about this life. Not the next.

freedom is hard earned. peace is protected.

The future of useful AI is not a model that sounds more human. It is a disciplined system that protects the human standard when no human can sit inside every every action.

Taste is the ability to protect the right standard under pressure.

Human needs are not soft details. They are part of the operating reality.

The opportunity is now and facing forward. There is no going back.

If comfort can buy obedience, simplicity raises the price.

Praise is a weapon. Gratitude a shield.

Habits come in pairs. If you invite a habit that weakens your will power it will bring with it its twin.

When people get together they talk, and sometimes they think. What if we thought, and then spoke?

Why do you concern yourself with the dead past and the yet unborn future all while letting this real present moment go to hell?

Imagine who you could be if you stopped letting yourself be a bitch.

Negligence operates like a slippery slope, a gateway drug, and a slow boil. It starts small and inconsequential, and grows until it destroys everything it touches. Unless you secure the standard, and protect it relentlessly.

"How may I render the greatest amount of service to the greatest number of people possible?" I am obsessed with 👆question.

Do not be anxious about anything.

Your excuses have become your family, you feed them, clothe them, and protect them. Yet, you wonder why your discipline starves?

Don’t get distracted.

I have empathy for your struggle. I do not have patience for your excuses.

you get free by moving, not by waiting to feel clear

Talent impresses. Method travels.

THE ASSAULT RAVE Bonus points for when the gym is 90 or hotter. Better bonus points when rocking that trip digit heat!

“There is no peace for the man who has seen who he can become." Sir William Walker

Fear and caution are two entirely different things.

There is the equivalent seed of advantage in every adversity.

The devil never drifts.

If you were to step back, what you change when you step forward again?

If it doesn’t feed you, then your what it eats.

Comforts a cage that feels kind.

“One of the biggest mistakes we make in our stories is confusing our circumstances with our thoughts about those circumstances.” - Jim Murphy

“The day you decide you're in charge of what happens to you, there is suddenly opportunity all around you.” -Shane Parrish

Among the worst of human ailments: INDECISION

What makes you jump for joy?

Suck less.

The only thing required to be a good scientist is intellectual humility.

Capability does not build character. It amplifies whatever character was already there.

You get paid for the 8 hour day you clock. But you get your raises, your reputation, and your life from what you do with the other 16.

Being “ready” is a feeling. Prepare to the best of your ability. Do it anyway.

What if you stopped waiting to feel ready?

Feel the nerves, respect what they’re telling you, and SEND IT!

You run your tools, or your tools will run you.

"no" is a full sentence, and a complete thought.

We are not saved by perfect plans but by the reaching of our hands.

Unfortunately there will be no evidence that you tried if you do not make it. Success is the only proof.

For every problem, standard to uphold, toleration to kill, task, solution, or opportunity. We have 4 effective options: Execute. Schedule. Delegate. Kill. Any other decision makes the situation worse. Throughout the day things stack up, they go through that filtration before day close out. No fail.

Truly I tell you. It is a glorious gift to get punched in the face.

Fear only lies if I let it survive.

Take nobody's word for it. Start with your own. Action is louder. Look for receipts.

A verification system inherits the blind spots of whoever designs it.

run the experiment, share the data, let peers attack the result

Take nobody's word for it.

You do not need to see the whole path. You need the next step.

Don’t delay in taking action to clear your mind. If your mind is wrestling with something and an action would alleviate that wrestling. Do the action. Free your mind.

Kill fear. Fear is a cancer.

2 generations fighting side by side.

Learning to work

Familiarity inside a broken system is the strongest argument for keeping it broken.

Expertise inside a broken interface is the strongest argument for keeping it broken.

Creators need an immediate connection to what they create.

KILL DISTRACTIONS

If it doesn’t give you strength. It is weakening you.

A helpful loop. 1. Gather info 2. Reason through it 3. Act 4. Verify 5. Repeat

I see what could be true here, let me show you we can both reach it from where we are.

Going to the same place over and over doesn’t change you

Progress is not achieved by luck. But by working on yourself relentlessly. Forge Forward.

Break the pattern today or the cycle will continue tomorrow.

If you wake up thinking about something you should do. Do it.

Have you ever come across a hater, who was in a better position then you?

There is always a cost.

It’s hard to remove silos if you are operating in a silo.

We are not saved by perfect plans, but by the reaching of our hands.

Hold the line though small it seems it’s born from ashes fed by dreams. Hope is not a promise made It’s the courage to stay when all else fades.

I was fallen but not undone. Through the ashes I see the sun. Broken plans but a burning will. I rise again but I’m fighting still.

Earn your pleasure.

If you only do what you can do, you will never be more than you are now.

Today matters.

“The person who approaches a problem like an opportunity has an advantage that the person who sees an obstacle will never understand.” -Shane Parrish

Hope is not a promise made. It is the courage to stay when all else fades.

You are not what broke you down. You are what still stands now.

Yesterday is over. Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed. Today matters.

It’s in the waiting that we live.

Our words are so cheap and yet so powerful. Especially when backed by action.

If they are not living the life you want. Then why are you listening to them?

You want it, but are you willing to sacrifice for it?

Entertainment isn’t real. It doesn’t show the quiet drive, the silence of the morning, Nor the stillness of the night. Just the flashy bits.

I love the feeling of soreness that makes finding sleep challenging.

Hard work is always rewarded and the results are never random.

A lot of people are not conditioned for stress and yet they believe they will rise to the occasion. Are you sure?

If I lost my edge to soft living, who would I become?

What breaks the groove is strain. Deliberate practice requires operating beyond the current comfort zone, under high concentration, with immediate feedback and a precise target. This is cognitively expensive in a way that ordinary performance is not. It is also the only mechanism known to actually drive improvement. Nothing else substitutes for it.

do you want to grow? practice a martial art.

The choice is never between hard and easy, only between which difficulty to endure.

“God will steer, but you must row.” -Sir William Walker

Remember you are beautiful. You are strong. You are powerful.

Are your fears imagined or real?

Trying is a confession of absence

Even we who succeed fade into oblivion given to time.

Circling oblivion. Riding the paradox. We persist.

Life is beautiful.

Make the life you are living the one you want. It is all a choice after all.

Just f**king say it.

Desire and capacity are not the same thing. And the gap between them is where transformation goes to die.

Pressure is energy, you can allow it to crush you, or you can channel it to propel you.

You want the outcome sure, But are you willing to make the investment to earn it?

Someone told me today they fight less hard because they teach now. Bologna! It’s a choice and worse an excuse. You’re just choosing to get soft.

Be here now.

The purpose of life is what you choose to make it.

Time comes for us all

Simple is what simple does

If you see the potential in something and the path to realize it, keep going. A lot of folks just walk away. There is something true to being the change you hope for. Being the reflection you want to see in the world.

I have to be so careful about what I allow to enter my mind

It never gets easy. This is good news.

Adjust the tactics not the target. But the tactics are built before the fight, not during it.

i dont express gratitude to ai for it's sake. but for mine. and to sharpen the habit of expressing it to my fellow humans.

changing from mental work to physical work and back is its own form of rest.

take inspired action. not forced action. both take discipline. discernment is key.

Life hack: Want some quick dopamine? Chomp a spicy af pepper 🌶️ Repeat.

Plans rarely go as planned.

One time is a pattern.

Are you sure?

The attack will come when you least expect it, and feel least prepared. Breathe and continue.

First principles isn't a philosophy you adopt. It's a courage practice. You have to be willing to look at something everyone around you treats as given and say: I don't actually know that's true. Let me check.

Planning without execution is theory. Theory changes nothing.

the work is the proof

how much value can you create and pay forward when no one asks? careful its addictive

If you choose not to find the joy in your struggles. Your life will be filled with much less joy.

Gratitude erases pain.

Do what works.

Everything is made up. Be careful what you choose to follow.

There are no rules. Be careful what you choose to believe.

Conflict is real. The way is real.

i can not overstate the value of first principles thinking, systems, and recursive loops. everything is cyclical.

don't try to understand why you keep slipping into a vice. simply act now the way you want to.

Sometimes we have to allow ourselves the experiences that are horrifying so that we can more fully show up in the grace, in the gift, in the love, in the light of what is possible.

Be yourself is kind of trash. Become a better version of yourself is a better perspective.

Grace is not acceptance of the diminishing of a standard; it's an opportunity to continue despite deserving something worse.

Gratitude is such a gift. And there is so much to be grateful for.

Pursue service. Not status.

faith and religion were never meant to be the same thing.

if you can't sleep, write.

peace is an internal state of being, not an external condition.

peace is agnostic to your circumstances.

Now becomes the past, present, and future given time. I will not worry about the past nor future. Now has enough joy filled opportunity for me to invest all of my attention into.

The growth journey never ends. Learn to love the climb. It is the point.

Never underestimate the medicinal benefits of savagery.

You have to do the thing.

Simple is rarely easy. Especially over time.

Diligence will overcome all difficulties.

After luxury comes corruption.

How do you know it is not possible?

Do not mistake fame with reputation. They are not the same.

Choose your habits carefully.

Choose your addictions carefully.

Choose your desires carefully. Because you sacrifice your happiness when you choose to desire something until you have it.

I’m obsessed with the idea that what you own, owns you. Be careful.

Now is the worst time for fear. Instead, get curious. Dive in.

It’s not some point in the future that you change. You change now, based on what you choose to do. Now is the future, and the past, given time.

This feels eternal. It is not.

Use your despair to find freedom.

It’s not human vs ai. It’s humans with ai vs humans who choose not to master ai.

It’s rarely good vs evil. It’s often good vs good.

There is a price, But you may always speak the truth. It is a choice.

What works? Do that.

Ignore what others are thinking of you. Because they are not thinking of you.

The reward for good work is more work.

Don’t measure the quality of your life with someone else’s ruler.

The desire for change must meet the capacity to metabolize it.

Why do we complain so loudly about chains that bind us when we hold the keys?

Every time I fight someone new and they win. I want nothing more than to go again, again and again. Until I find my footing and win, or grind us both to dust. It is a great joy to me for which I am immensely grateful. Don’t mistake the loss for more than what it often is. An opportunity.

Become a better version of yourself.

If it does not generate profit. Capture value. Or teach you. Why do you choose to do it?

If it does not serve you anymore. Delete it.

Willpower evaporates under extreme stress.

everything you want is waiting for you to stop trying to get it

there is so much beauty all around you, if you can learn to see it

do not be trapped by the need to achieve anything. and in so doing, achieve everything.

without change something sleeps inside us

we possess no more than this moment

paradox is beautiful

the power of a good question is immeasurable

thinking you know something, is a sure way to blind yourself

you are not made of glass

comfort zones are poison forge forward

day by day brick by brick build stop at nothing

what you possess you obsess

i need not wait any longer. because "then" was when i dreamed of "now". and where I now look is just as far ahead. so it is here i choose to stay. for this moment is on grand display.

Refuse to rush.

Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.

It is not by effort or trying, but by being and doing that I experience the life I want now.

Do you not realize? These are the best years…

what is the hardest problem you are working on right now?

the real image of who we are, is the manner in which we show up to those closest to us. and what we do when all alone.

who are you?

difficulty is unavoidable, suffering is optional

why make it harder? you are already doing the "thing". who said it needs to be hard. if the work needs done, diligently do the work. but smile as you do.

it is wild absolutely wild how large the gap is between what folks say and what they do

stop running from your fear. embrace it, feel it, envision it in great detail. then let it go. on the other side of fear is your true form.

Initiate the moment. Whatever it is you are looking for, don’t wait for it to happen. Initiate it.

aim small, miss small.

Persist.

Everything is a matter of perspective and action.

Hear me out. The reason folks have terrible follow through is few folks farm any more. You don’t workout, no worries eat a Twinkie. You don’t put the chickens up at night? 1 is taken by an owl, another is eaten by a raccoon, and 13 more are killed by a fox.

it is all a game, play to dominate but don't forget, it is all a game

there is a difference between having a problem, and working on a solution. a huge difference.

“I don’t know” is a phenomenal answer.

Chaos will often present itself as the perfect excuse to take your foot off the gas. Yet it is a far better reason to lean in all the more.

It’s incredible to me that joy feels fleeting but suffering feels like it will never end, and yet both change frequently. Stay the course, forge forward.

simply put, persist. adjust your aim and persist. simplify and persist. execute relentlessly and persist. oh and breathe.

Stewards multiply. Managers add. Incompetence subtracts. Ego divides. Choose wisely.

It’s simpler to build compounding assets when the build is funded. Every successful company that exists is either funded or famous. It’s easy to jump to the vision without living and traveling the path to get there.

A good path that leads to THE path is the path. Isn’t it? It’s so easy to mentally jump to the dream/vision. But the path there is often long with a lot of learning along the way. What is the next step? That is what I aim to take boldly.

make it offensively simple. execute relentlessly.

imagine you have two products, one is profitable, and the other is losing money (and not a loss lead). why would you continue to play the losing game? this is not a hypothetical question.

It’s incredible how easily discomfort can rob us of joy in this present moment. It is critical to remain vigilant at all times. This too shall pass. And when it does, act now so that future you does not carry regret.

unified living practices (ulp) or standard operating procedures (sop)? ulp is what technology is making realistic to us. sops are what we needed when things moved slow. now that we can create software on demand, we can adjust our tools in real time as we use them. need to train a new person? ask ai to print a training overview. the weight of responsibility goes from maintaining documents to utilizing and improving workflows.