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INSIGHTS

INSIGHTS

Insights

16Jun

A Father’s Day Message on Metrics, Identity, and Leadership

I posted this story earlier this week on linkedin as a short post, but it's worth repeating here as an intro to this article. About 15 years ago, I was sitting in my tiny office, staring at numbers that made me feel like a loser. Cash was tight. Stress was high. I was in the early days of building Expio, and it felt like every invoice was a problem, every spreadsheet a judgment. I remember pacing the room, questioning everything— Did I make...

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09Jun

Your AI Isn’t Just Artificial. It’s Human. Are You Paying Attention?

The year is 1940. The British government is losing the war. Nazi U-boats are destroying Allied supply ships. Every plan is being intercepted and decoded by Germany’s “unbreakable” machine: Enigma. So the UK assembles a team of brilliant minds at Bletchley Park to break it. Alan Turing builds a machine that becomes the prototype for modern computing. But the movie (The Imitation Game) doesn’t end there. What most people forget: The machine didn’t win the war alone. A team of people operated...

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31May

The 5 Second Rule Isn’t New—But It’s Still an Awesome Hack

In 2011, Mel Robbins gave a TEDx talk that went viral. In 2017, she wrote The 5 Second Rule and turned it into a best-selling book. The idea? Simple. Count backwards—5-4-3-2-1—and act before your brain talks you out of it. It was marketed as a breakthrough. Branded as her invention. Packaged for the masses. And it works. I use it often in combination with this specific breathing hack. Win the moment, win the day. But let’s be honest: It’s not new. The Real Problem → Reinvention...

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24May

AI Won’t Save You If You Don’t Know Where You’re Going

The future of AI, leadership, and personal development still comes down to a handful of timeless principles. I was home for the summer when I found The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People on my dad’s bookshelf. He didn’t hand it to me. Didn’t mention it. Just left it there—spine cracked, notes in the margins. That was the first real framework I ever saw for how to live, lead, and grow with purpose. No hype. No fluff. It changed everything. That day sparked...

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17May

I Talk to Dead People—But Here’s Where I Draw the Line With AI

I talk to dead people. Not literally—but close. I’ve asked AI to help me think like Carl Jung, Emerson, Teddy Roosevelt, or Peter Drucker. I use AI to summarize old blog posts. Punch up headlines. Tighten strategy decks. So —if talking to a machine trained on the ghosts of the internet counts as talking to dead people, I’m guilty. But there’s a line. And this is it: I don’t let AI write my emotional responses to people. Ever. The Real Problem → Outsourcing the Most...

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10May

How I Got Arrested (and What It Taught Me)

I once got arrested for swimming when I was 17. Not streaking. Not fighting. Not drunk driving. Just… swimming. In a pool. Here’s what happened: It was one of those hot Amarillo nights where your brain melts and you think, “You know what would really solve all my problems right now? Trespassing.” So my buddy and I jumped the fence of an apartment complex pool after hours. No big deal — we were staying with someone who lived there. We made a verbal contract:...

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03May

Stop Pitching. Start Hitting.

In 1914, George Herman “Babe” Ruth entered Major League Baseball as a pitcher. And not just any pitcher—he was elite. In 1916, Ruth posted a 1.75 ERA and won 23 games for the Red Sox. He was one of the best arms in the league. But something didn’t sit right. Because even then, when he wasn’t on the mound, Ruth was crushing balls in batting practice. He knew he had more to offer. Not just as a good pitcher, but as a...

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26Apr

Your Marketing ROI is Confusing. Here’s a One-Page Reset.

"THINK." The word that built IBM's early culture. And right now, it's what small businesses need to do more than ever when it comes to their marketing. A few days ago I finished reading Making Numbers Count by Chip Heath and Karla Starr. The subtitle is “The Art and Science of Communicating Numbers.” Like most people, I don’t naturally love numbers. They feel abstract. Cold. Easy to misunderstand—or worse, easy to ignore. Turns out that's normal. “Numbers are like foreign language. You need to translate...

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19Apr

The One-Word Expectation That Built a Billion-Dollar Company

"Think". One word. No fancy strategy deck. Just a sign. And that sign transformed a dying company into IBM. Sometimes, clarity isn’t just a value—it’s the entire difference between growth and confusion, trust and resentment, momentum and stall-out. And most businesses don’t lose because they’re lazy. They lose because expectations are fuzzy, assumptions are silent, and no one wants to ask the awkward questions. Before returning to the IBM story. Consider this: Misalignment Kills More Deals Than Mistakes Most relationships don’t break because of bad...

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12Apr

Marketing Moves to Make No Matter What Happens in Washington

Blindsided About 12 years ago, a couple of years after starting Expio, I was working on a new marketing campaign launch with a client. Everything was lined up—creative was approved, content scheduled, budget locked in. As a marketing company of barely over a year old at the time this was a large campaign for us. I was naive, excited, and not expecting what happened next. The day before launch, I got a call: “We have to pause. Our packaging and shipping costs just...

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