NEWSLETTER

The Shadow Career: Why You’re Succeeding at the Wrong Thing Stop optimizing a life that was never meant to be yours. The fortress you built to protect you is now the shadow that owns you. You’re damn good at your job. And that might be the problem. That professional life you’ve built? The one that pays well, looks impressive on LinkedIn, and uses about 60% of your actual horsepower? That’s your Shadow Career. It’s not a mistake. It’s a defence mechanism. You didn’t stumble into it. You…

When You Stop Trusting the Path When the work still matters – but the way you’re chasing it doesn’t. When the destination is clear, but the path is uncertain. I spent at least four hours this week optimizing my home network. It wasn’t broken. It wasn’t even slow. But there I was, buying new mesh nodes, running speed tests, rearranging cables, and screwing with network settings like it was mission-critical work. I also browsed Black Friday sales for things I don’t need and don’t even really…

The Lie Beneath Your Hustle When your motion becomes your mask. How your hustle became your hiding place. You’re addicted to tactics because strategy requires something far scarier: honesty about what you actually want. I know because I was a tactics junkie too. Had my morning routine locked by 5:47am. Read every negotiation book, and got so good at managing up my boss thought I was magic. I got the promotion. Senior executive. The title I’d chased for years. Six months later I was in the…

Driving Blind: Why Your Career Feels Like a Snow Squall When you can’t see where you’re going, someone else’s taillights become your plan. Last week I hit a wall of snow on the highway. It was one of those classic Ontario squalls where visibility drops to fifty feet and every driver becomes a white-knuckled philosopher questioning their life choices. In that moment, I wasn’t “making decisions.” I was reacting. Slow down. Follow the taillights. Hope nothing suddenly materializes out of the…

The Subtraction Myth: Why Less Isn’t Always More Meaning isn’t found in what you remove, but what you build. You can’t subtract your way to a positive — only to zero. You’ve read Essentialism. Deep Work. Maybe even Four Thousand Weeks if you were feeling existential. You tried their tactics. Said no to meetings, batched your emails, and protected your calendar like it’s a castle under siege. You subtracted the bullshit, set boundaries, focused on “what matters most.” And yet – you’re still…

Work vs Job: The Distinction That Changes Everything Your job pays the bills. You work changes the world. Know the difference. Your job is the blueprint. Your work is what grows through it. What’s your work? NOT your job title. NOT “what do you do.” Your work. As in, the change you’re trying to bring to the world. Can’t answer? That’s because you think your job and your work are the same thing. (They’re not.) Your Job: What someone pays you to do. You execute someone else’s vision. You do…

Stop Choosing Between Options. Start Choosing Between Futures. Every choice is a doorway to a different version of you. You’re not picking between offers. You’re choosing who you’ll become next. I was standing in my living room in Northern Ontario, staring at a job offer that made absolutely no sense to take. On paper, it was a bad deal. The pay for the government role in Ottawa was low. It would mean selling our house, leaving a small community where we had friends, roots, and a life we’d…

You’re Building A Beautiful Life You’re Too Drained To Enjoy You’ve been so busy building a meaningful life that you forgot to make it livable. My good buddy Wade and I taking a break while on our hike. On Monday I went hiking with a good friend. We used to do this all the time. Every few weeks, we’d hit the trails, talk about life, solve the world’s problems, and come back feeling recharged. It was our thing. Then life got busy, for both of us. Bigger workloads. Projects around the house….

8 days making bacon (and what it taught me about work) Some things are worth doing slowly. Your best work is one of them. Delicious, hand-crafted smokey bacon. Well-worth the time. I spent 8 days making bacon. I prepped the cure and spice mix. A week of curing, flipping the pork belly in its brine every night. Four hours of smoking. Then slicing it all by hand. I could’ve just bought bacon at the store. Five minutes and done. But that’s not the same, is it? The store-bought version works….

Einstein Called It Insanity. You Call It Productivity. Who’s Right? You escape your chains by choosing to let them go. Why do you keep doing the same damn things that aren’t working? You’re stuck. So you do more. Einstein called that insanity; doing the same thing over and over, yet expecting a different result. You’re exhausted, overwhelmed, not hitting your goals – and your brilliant solution is to add MORE to your plate. Another course. Trying to add in a new habit, another morning…

The Hidden Force Quietly Sabotaging Your Dreams The familiar feels safe, but it’s slowly killing you. Comfort is the cage. But the door is open – if you choose to use it. You know that person who’s been complaining about their job for years but never makes any career move? That’s not laziness. That’s loss aversion (and it might even be you). “It’s not that we fear the unknown. You cannot fear something you do not know. Nobody is afraid of the unknown. What you really fear is the loss of the…

Why Being Really Good At Your Job Is Now Dangerous Expertise was once your edge. Now it might be your blindfold. Your career is a kaleidoscope. Turn it, or stay stuck in the same pattern. You did everything “right” in your career – climbed steadily, earned the promotions, and built deep expertise in your field. But what if that very expertise is quietly becoming your biggest liability? The most dangerous position in today’s economy isn’t being unemployed. It’s being really, really good at…

Your Dream Role Is Staring You Right In The Face Your dream role isn’t hiding somewhere else. It’s waiting for you to tell a better story – to yourself and everyone around you. Doors don’t just appear. They light up when you decide to walk the path The new role was supposed to be my fresh start. Different organization, different team, different possibilities. Instead, I found myself stuck in the same patterns, facing the same challenges, feeling the same resentment. Damn it. I realized the…

September’s About to Drown Out Your Dreams When the storm hits, will you be building your ship or bailing water? September’s about to drown out your dreams Your gut has been screaming at you for months about what you really want to do with your life. September’s chaos is about to drown out that voice completely – unless you do something radical first. Forget January 1st. The real new year starts after Labour Day, when summer’s lazy haze lifts and that hectic back-to-school energy kicks in….

How I Fell Into One Of The Exact Traps I Help People Avoid Viral meningitis knocked me flat. The lesson I relearned was even more painful. A dramatic chessboard scene lit by golden light, with toppled chess pieces scattered across the board. The fallen pieces symbolize disrupted plans and unexpected chaos breaking strategy. I spent last week flat on my back, fevering with viral meningitis, watching my carefully planned week dissolve into nothing. And I relearned something important I already…

The Voice You’ve Been Ignoring (at Your Own Peril) You’re meant to do something here. And you know it. Don’t do it, and you’ll end up successful and miserable. Your soul’s voice, trying to break through. You’ve obviously mastered the art of optimization, as you’re crushing it in your career. Fancy job title? Check. Investment portfolio? Diversified. Morning routine? Locked in. You’re hitting your KPIs, crushing your goals, and your LinkedIn profile reads like a success story. But something…

Freedom Is Anything But Free. You Willing To Pay? The bill always comes due, and responsibility is the currency. Most people want more power. More freedom. More say in their work. More influence in their lives. But power doesn’t just show up one day; it’s earned through taking on responsibility. Many think that freedom is the absence of responsibility, but this thinking is completely backwards. Freedom is the reward you earn for consistently owning and delivering on bigger outcomes. That’s…

Crossing the Threshold: A Midlife Call to Adventure What if everything falling apart is really just asking you to come back together? There’s a reason your forties and fifties can feel unsettling. It’s the time when the life you meticulously crafted might start to feel foreign, like it no longer fits who you’ve become. And it’s not just you; researchers have confirmed this to be a common occurrence. Psychologists, economists, and sociologists have documented a phenomenon commonly known as the…

How Your Life Got Optimized For The Wrong Outcomes You didn’t write the rules you’re living by, but they’re still running the show. Last week, I made the case that a new job won’t fix what’s broken inside you because what really needs upgrading isn’t your boss, your org chart, or your coffee budget. It’s your operating system. The beliefs. The habits. The mindset. The stories. All that invisible architecture quietly determining how you respond to the world. And this week, I want to take that…

A New Job Won’t Fix What’s Broken Inside You Most people think they need a new job. What they really need… is a new OS. For a long time, I told myself the story that the problem was them. My boss. My department. The bureaucratic bullshit. The endless meetings that could’ve been emails. So I jumped ship. New job. New org. New title. At first, it felt like I made the right call; new faces, unfamiliar obstacles, a different vibe. But eventually, the same old patterns crept back in: Frustration…

The 4 Types of Change (And Why You’re Focused on the Wrong One) The 4 Types of Change (And Why You’re Focused on the Wrong One) You’re not imagining it. The old world is dissolving; quietly, slowly, and then sometimes with a bang and quicker than you expect. Political systems are cracking, institutions are bleeding credibility, macroeconomic stability is wobbling, and AI is rewriting the rules of work and what it even means to be human. A lot of us are sinking into noise overload; scrolling…

Maybe More Willpower Isn’t The Answer After All When working harder isn’t working for you, it’s time to try a different approach. This past week, I noticed the plants in my wife’s garden suddenly burst into life after weeks of what seemed like slow or even stalled progress. Everything seemed to shoot up almost overnight, exploding in vibrant greens. Seeing how quickly this growth happened reminded me of how impatient I can often be with myself, frustrated by the sense that I should be further…

You’re Hitting All Your Goals – and Still Losing You’re so busy chasing success, you don’t realize it’s dragging you further from the life you actually want. If you’re a high-achiever, chances are you’re setting goals, and busting your ass to hit them. Get the promotion. Run the marathon. Save for the house. Launch the business. You know the drill. Setting goals and driving towards them is important. But here’s the problem: Very few people have a mission. Fewer still have a clear vision of…

You’re Probably Ignoring the Most Important Investment of Your Life No, it’s not your index fund. It’s not crypto. It’s not your RRSP or IRA. It’s your ability to do meaningful, high-value work. Most people with a modicum of success spend countless hours researching financial investments, analyzing strategies, chasing returns, and optimizing for growth. But they’re missing the big one, the most important investment of all: investing in themselves to ensure they’re doing the right work. That’s…