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I mentioned earlier this week I’m getting ready for a triathlon. A big, scary one: a mile swim, 31 miles on bike, 7 mile run. So, you bet I’ve been getting ready! Now, I’ve always been a strong swimmer. Grew up on swim teams and going to the beach to body surf. But open water swimming for distance is a completely different animal than the kind of swimming I’ve done before. It actually requires some different technique tweaks than your typical sprint swimming. I won’t bore you

Another US athlete fallen from grace. If you don’t know why, it’s because after the US Women's soccer team lost to Sweden in the Olympics, she called their opponents “a bunch of cowards.” There was immediate fallout - even from her own teammates. She’s a brilliant at being goalkeeper, applying appropriate “filter”...not so much. A couple of days ago, I wrote to you about how sometimes the biggest giants we have to overcome isn’t some outside force - society, culture, politici

I decided about two weeks ago I was going to do another triathlon. I did my first tri last September and wrote about in a previous blog post . This year I’ve decided to crank up the challenge factor and do the Olympic distance triathlon. That’s 1600 yards of open water swimming, 31 miles on the bike, then finishing with a 7 mile trail run. Yikes! Why? Because I can. Or, at least I think I can...and what’s more...I need the challenge. I NEED the challenge. You see, I’m the typ

The consequences of Ryan’s “I got attacked by police” lie in Rio caught up with him yesterday. He lost 4 sponsors in just a few hours. Imagine if 90% of your income disappeared in one day. Where would you be? What would you do? Now, I don’t know if 90% is an accurate representation of Ryan’s income loss, but ESPN estimates the loss of sponsorships represents approximately $1 million loss in revenue for the swimmer. Now, the purpose of this missive isn’t to castigate him. Ther

I must admit I didn’t watch near as much of the Olympics as I usually do! We’re usually glued to the TV every evening. Our family has many great memories watching the Olympics. In fact, our oldest son was born right after the summer games in Barcelona. This time around, it was mostly catching up on highlights via nbcolympics.com...and primarily the water sports: swimming, water polo (almost my entire family swam competitively and played polo in HS), and the triathlon (my vice

Are you in a competitive niche? Are there “giants” who have staked out large swaths of territory in your industry? A reader just sent me a brief snapshot his ongoing David & Goliath story...one where a tiny startup keeps taking down Goliaths in one of the most competitive industries on earth: medical. There are few industries as competitive and ever-changing as the medical equipment business. There are multi-billion dollar manufacturers and distributors part of this shark-dom

Since yesterday’s email was rather epically loooong, I’ll make this short. Perhaps you know the name Prince Fielder? Heavy hitting baseball player. Not so good at touching all the bases. In this instance, he missed first, had to go back, which turned a double into a single. I’m not bummin’ because it was against the Giants this happened. (Btw, it’s an even year, so they’re destined to win the world series, right???) This is the kind of thing that can happen in storytelling. Y

Just about every new school year that was me. The “new kid.” In fact our family averaged a move every two years growing up. Gypsies, vagabonds, bedouins. No, my dad wasn’t military. He was a banker...and that’s just how his career arc worked out. Now, there’s some advantages to moving around a lot. Like getting super awesome at packing a moving box and achieving ninja status with a tape gun. Or, being adaptable, flexible, and becoming adept at making “friends’ quickly. There’

I discovered something new about what I’m NOT so good at yesterday. It’s similar to walking and chewing gum at the same time...but different. Here’s how it went down: I was out for a trail run yesterday evening - where it was still 104 at 7:30 pm! Now I usually run with my trusty Suunto sports watch, but the battery was dead, so I was without my “normal” setup. One of the regular parts of my workouts is “hill repeats.” This is where you run uphill for a set period of time, th

Information overload is a real thing. Here’s what I'm doing about it...as an content CREATOR. Maybe you’ve heard the song by Switchfoot “Adding to the Noise…” Where they say, in essence, “Hey, there’s a ton of ‘noise’ out there. If we’re adding to it, turn off this song.” I’ve read that in our information age there’s more information produced in a single day than was produced in an entire year for our grandparents. Crazy. So, here’s what I’m doing about it. I create story tem