That’s because the real change didn’t happen at the moment of achievement. It happened on the way there. The sacrifices. The resistance. The problems you had to solve. The moments where quitting would have been easier. That’s where the growth happened.

By the time you reach the goal, you are already a different person, which is why you immediately start reaching for the next one. That’s why goals shouldn’t be treated as endpoints. They’re better understood as mile markers on a much longer journey.

Even Scottie Scheffler, the number one golfer in the world, has spoken about the emptiness that can exist at the peak of the mountain he spent his entire life climbing. In a recent brutally honest, yet refreshing interview, he said:

“This is not a fulfilling life… Why do I want to win this tournament so badly? I don’t know. If I win, it’ll be awesome for about two minutes.”

It’s a modern King Solomon moment, the realization that fulfillment doesn’t come from the achievement itself, but from the struggle, discipline, and growth required to get there. The challenge, not the trophy, is what changes you.

I’ve always pictured vision, mission, values, and goals using a road trip analogy.

Your vision is where you’re going. It’s the north star. You may never fully arrive, but you know the direction. And that’s the point. Once you believe you’ve “arrived,” growth stops. Stagnation sets in. To me, stagnation is death.

Your mission is the road you take to get there. It’s your purpose, your why. Like any road, it comes with detours, construction, and unexpected, and my times uncontrollable, obstacles. The route may change, but as long as you’re still moving toward your vision, the journey still matters.

Your values are the guardrails. They exist in the most dangerous parts of the road: tight curves, bad weather, low visibility. Ownership. Accountability. Resilience. Hard work. Values keep you on the road when conditions are bad and quitting would be easy.

And your goals? They’re the mile markers. They tell you you’re making progress. Without them, it’s easy to lose hope, or worse, to sit stalled on the side of the road for years without realizing it.

The analogy goes further.

The vehicle is your tasks and objectives. The gas pedal is your motivation, intrinsic or extrinsic. Your GPS is mentors and guides who help keep you oriented. Your dashboard and speedometer are your metrics and KPIs. Your headlights are clarity and communication. Your rearview mirror is reflection, useful, but dangerous if stared at too long (sorry metaphor overload).

You’ll pick up passengers along the way. That makes the journey better, or at least more enjoyable. You’ll break down sometimes. That’s when the tools in your trunk, your skills, matter. But skills are only built by doing. Watching a video isn’t the same as turning the wrench yourself.

That’s why direction matters. In Alice in Wonderland, Alice asks the Cheshire Cat which way she should go.

“That depends on where you want to get to,” he replies.

“I don’t really care,” she says.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”

Driving without a destination will get you somewhere, but there’s no guarantee it’s somewhere you actually want to be. We all drive different cars. We move at different speeds. We face different detours. Comparing yourself to someone else’s vehicle, pace, or destination is pointless. What matters is knowing you’re on your road, headed toward your vision.

That’s what makes the trip worth taking in the first place.

Check out the podcast I did talking about my journey in this week’s episode of Game Plan.

Don’t get captured,

Connect with Zach

Twitter • LinkedIn • Youtube

Provide Feedback

Leave a comment

Quick life update. My son just wrapped his baseball season. They lost in the second round of the playoffs, but they finished as the top team in their division. Watching him get better each season has been a gift. I also took a step back from coaching this year. That was harder than I expected. I wanted to jump in, tweak his stance, fix his swing, offer one more tip. Instead, I tried to shut up and let other coaches work with him. His skills took a noticeable step up (I didn’t completely accomplish this but I’m human). Parenting lesson buried in there. At some point you have to trust other people with your kid’s development. Teachers, coaches, employers, mentors. You are not supposed to be every role forever. Letting go is good for them, and it is good for you.

The same idea has been playing out in my entrepreneurship class. For a few semesters I was guilty of the lazy professor move. Recycle last year’s slides. Tweak a date. Change one example. Call it a day. The feedback kept saying the same thing: less theory, more practical work. So this semester I finally listened. I rebuilt parts of the course around one core belief.

Entrepreneurship is mostly sales. I often joke that Entrepreneur is a french word for Salesman. You are always selling something. Your vision to early employees. Your product to customers. Your story to investors. Your sanity to yourself at 2 a.m. when everything is on fire. So I decided my job was not to give them a cute definition of sales. My job was to make them sell. This semester I stacked a series of “asks” that got progressively harder. Think of it as sales weight training.

Challenge 1: Ask for an interview

In teams, they had to leave the classroom and find a stranger to interview about problems or pains in their life. Zero pitch. Just questions. The point was not customer discovery slides. The point was to get used to walking up to a human and starting a conversation. If you cannot do that, you are not validating any idea. You are guessing in a spreadsheet. If you do not understand someone’s real pain, you cannot design the right solution, product, or MVP. This challenge is a softball, but it gets them used to asking for something valuable: someone’s time and attention.

Challenge 2: Ask for a discount

Next, they had to go to a coffee shop and ask for a discount. No coupon. No student deal. Just ask. This one feels cringe at first. People hate hearing “no,” and most of them have lived their whole life trying to avoid it. But what actually happens? Either you get the discount or you pay full price and drink your coffee. That is it. Some students came back with stories of free drinks or big discounts. Others got shut down. The real win was not the coffee. The win was rewiring how they think about rejection. Entrepreneurs hear “no” constantly. From investors, customers, partners, employees they want to hire. If “no” breaks you, the game will chew you up. You need reps.

Challenge 3: The Paperclip Game

Then we played the paperclip challenge. I hand them a paperclip and give them 20 minutes to trade up to something “bigger and better.”

Rules:

• No trading personal items.

• No trading with the same person twice.

• No trading money.

• No trading anything illegal.

The point is not the paperclip. The point is resourcefulness under constraint. Every semester a few students figure out they can borrow high-value items to use as trading chips: laptops, AirPods, even a Rolex once. That is exactly what you do in a real startup. You survive on borrowed resources: space, code, people, credibility. The students who see that pattern early tend to think like founders later.

Challenge 4: Ask for money

This is the one that matters. I split the class into 10-person teams, handed them lemonade or iced coffee, gave them cups, ice, and some markers, and told them they had 15 minutes to plan, 30 minutes to sell as much as possible.

They had to decide:

• What is our price?

• How do we package this?

• Where do we stand?

• What do we say?

They went out onto campus and got to work. In about half an hour, the class brought back roughly 400 dollars in revenue. About three times the cost of the supplies. The dread on their faces when I gave the assignment was replaced by big smiles, louder chatter, and that wired energy you only see when people realize, “Oh, we can actually do this.” More important than the money were the patterns that emerged.

Lesson 1: Pricing is not theoretical

On paper, pricing strategy sounds like a consulting slide. Penetration pricing, premium pricing, value-based pricing, and so on.

In the wild, it looked like this:

One team tried “free” with donations.
Another set a fixed price per cup.
Another adjusted price on the fly based on how people reacted.

Donation teams learned something fast. “Free” sounds too good to be true for a lot of people. If your sign says “free,” some people assume there is a catch and keep walking. When they reframed it as “donation based” and tied it to a cause, things picked up. Fixed price teams learned that most people do not blink at a clear, simple price. Two dollars. Three dollars. Done. But even they found customers who voluntarily paid more when they understood the challenge and wanted to help. The best groups did both. Clear anchor price, with permission for people to pay more if they wanted to support the class. Pricing is not a spreadsheet problem. It is a conversation with a human who has ten seconds before they cross the street.

Lesson 2: Location and traffic patterns matter more than your sign

The teams that camped out in areas with built-in foot traffic did better. Some went where student orgs were already tabling, others found spots near busy walkways. A few tried to stand in one place with a sign and wait for the world to come to them. That rarely works. You are one more piece of visual noise. People learn to tune you out. The strongest teams treated location as a variable, not a constraint. If a spot was dead, they moved. If people were rushing to class, they shifted to pre-poured cups and a faster pitch. They stopped worshiping their original plan and started following the data in front of their face. Entrepreneurship is iteration in real time.

Lesson 3: Your pitch is probably about you, not them

The first instinct for most students was “Lemonade?” or “Want to buy coffee?” That is not a pitch. That is a yes or no question with no context.

The better pitches gave people a reason to care:

“Hey, we are in an entrepreneurship challenge and trying to beat the other teams. Would you help us out and grab a lemonade?”

“It is for our class project. You will help us win, plus you look like you need caffeine.”

“We are donating the profits to [cause]. Want to support it?” (We are donating some of the money)

What changed? They stopped leading with the product and started leading with a story that invited participation. People do not buy lemonade. They buy a chance to help, to be part of something, to feel noticed. The lesson: Nobody is thirsty for your product. They are thirsty for a story that makes sense to them.

Lesson 4: Not all customers are equal

The teams quickly figured out that professors were gold. Professors understand assignments, love seeing students stretch themselves, and usually have cash handy. They also get pitched less often than undergrads on the speedway, so their “ignore” filter is lower. Some teams got real-time coaching from a professor who refused to buy until they tightened their story. They adjusted their pitch and immediately saw better results. They also learned that certain signals mean “do not bother.” Headphones in, fast walk, zero eye contact. That person is not your customer. Move on.

Great founders are great at selective effort. They know who to chase and who to let walk.

Lesson 5: Adaptation beats the perfect plan

Before they left the classroom, every team had a neat little plan. Pricing, location, roles. It all looked good on the whiteboard. Then they stepped outside and reality punched it in the mouth.

The quote I use from my Army days is, “No plan survives first contact.” The point of planning is not to follow it exactly. The point is to know what you are trying to achieve so you can adjust without losing the plot.

The best groups:

• Changed prices in real time.

• Swapped locations when a spot went cold.

• Shifted from “stand and wait” to walking with customers.

• Tightened their pitch after a few awkward reps.

The weaker groups clung to their original idea even when it was clearly not working. That is how startups die. Not from bad ideas, but from stubborn execution.

Lesson 6: Asking for money is a muscle

This is the part everyone tries to avoid, and the part that matters most. It is one thing to ask for an interview. People can be generous with time. It is another to ask for a discount. That feels edgy, but the downside is small. It is different when you look someone in the eye and say, “Will you give me your money?” Their money represents hours of their life at some job they may or may not enjoy. It is not just a transaction. It is value flowing from their effort to your idea. Most people feel a knot in their stomach when they ask. They talk too fast. They apologize. They discount before the customer even reacts.

By the end of this challenge, that knot was smaller. They had asked dozens of people for money, survived all the “no’s,” and realized they could do it again. That is the real assignment. Because here is the uncomfortable truth. If you do not get comfortable asking people for money, entrepreneurship is not your game. That does not mean you are a bad person. It means you should probably choose a role where someone else owns the ask.

But if you want to build something, you need this skill.

Why this matters beyond class

My son is getting better at baseball because I stepped back and let other coaches push him in ways I could not. My students are becoming real founders because I stopped lecturing about customer discovery and made them talk to strangers, negotiate discounts, and sell products in the wild.

And all of us, myself included, need regular reps asking for things that matter. Time. Help. Feedback. Promotions.

Here is what all of this builds:

1. Talk to people instead of guessing.

2. Ask for what you want without apologizing for it.

3. Adapt to reality faster than your competition.

So if you want a small challenge for yourself this week, try this:
Ask for something that makes you a little uncomfortable. A discount. A warm intro. A pilot customer. An upgrade. Do it on purpose. Notice that you did not die. Then do it again.

Entrepreneur is not actually the French word for salesperson. But it might as well be.

Don’t get captured,

Connect with Zach

Twitter • LinkedIn • Youtube

Provide Feedback

Leave a comment

Related Articles:

Most entrepreneurs are sellers. They sell their product to customers, their idea to investors, their vision to recruits, and their credibility to partners. Great entrepreneurs are almost always great at selling.

Then you have the designers like Steve Jobs. Design is an agent for change. Great designers don’t accept the status quo; they see what could be and pull the rest of us toward it. Design often comes down to taste, which makes it hard to teach.

Next are the hunters like Warren Buffett. He’s made his fortune on just a dozen big investments. Hunters don’t chase every deal. They wait, watch, and strike when the odds are stacked in their favor.

Finally, the builders. Elon Musk. Jeff Bezos. Jensen Huang. Builders fascinate me most. It’s inspiring to see where they start, then watch what they turn those fragile beginnings into. That’s also what I love about teaching.

Being around smart, passionate builders at the earliest stage keeps me energized. One of my students, Jack, runs a YouTube channel called More Than Mise where he interviews chefs. No crew, no editors, just him, and the quality is TV-level. Another student, Cole, is building a platform called Phenom that connects youth sports programs with top creatives for video, photography, and design. And Ava is developing a 3D-printed modular shoe and is already pursuing a patent. Watching them build reminds me why I do this work and pushes me to keep building myself.

Teaching and managing people means I get asked a lot of questions. Most I can answer on the spot. But the best ones force me to stop, think, and write my way through them. A friend recently asked me this:

“I’ve been the general sales manager for a dealership for a year and a half. We’re one of the best in the region, but I’m noticing weaknesses that could hurt us. I’ve earned respect as the leader, but my managers don’t have that same respect from their teams. They don’t always hold staff accountable or lead in ways that inspire people to do the small things. How did you handle this dynamic with your NCOs in the military?”

One of my favorite leadership quotes is from President Eisenhower:

That’s not manipulation. It’s art. And the art gets even harder when you’re leading leaders.

As a new military officer, your first job is leading a platoon. That means working with a Platoon Sergeant and multiple Squad Leaders, all of them seasoned NCOs. They had more leadership experience than I did, but I was still the boss. It’s tough to replicate that kind of pressure early in a career, but it teaches you fast. Here are a few lessons I carried forward:

Do the small things

Everyone’s watching. Culture is built on the behaviors leaders show and tolerate. If you want punctuality, don’t show up late. If you want discipline, don’t cut corners. Hypocrisy kills morale. Credibility comes from consistency.

Include your leaders in decisions

Accountability sticks when leaders help define what they’re accountable for. That’s why offsites matter: time to align on values, priorities, and execution. Dictating works for compliance. Co-creating builds commitment.

Reward and coach

Once values are set, reinforce them constantly. Praise the right behaviors. Confront the wrong ones quickly, before they calcify. Growth requires discomfort, for the person giving feedback and the one receiving it. Avoiding tough conversations builds losing teams. I often say everything you want is on the other side of sacrifice. That sacrifice is usually your comfort.

Model restraint in authority

The temptation to grab the wheel is strong, especially when progress stalls. Resist it. If you keep stepping in, you’ll suffocate initiative. Let your leaders run their lanes, even if they trip. Step in when the mission is at risk, not when your patience is.

Build a chain of trust

Titles can demand obedience, but only trust inspires loyalty. Back your leaders in public, coach them in private. That’s how you create a team that fights with you, not just for you. Influence often matters more than authority, especially in business where you need support from people who don’t report to you. Influence comes from credibility and from showing you’re serving a mission bigger than yourself.

None of this is easy. Leadership never is. Sometimes it means realizing someone on your team isn’t aligned with the culture and having the courage to let them go. Firing is brutal, but sometimes it’s the right move for the organization and for the individual.

What inspires me most are the people willing to try. Whether they’re building companies or building teams, their effort pushes me to be a better leader. Often, leadership isn’t about learning something new. It’s about being reminded of what you already know, and doing it anyway.

When I think back on my students’ projects, or my friend navigating his leadership challenge, I’m reminded that building, whether it’s a startup, a team, or yourself, is never finished. What matters most is the willingness to keep going.

Don’t get captured,

Connect with Zach

Twitter • LinkedIn • Youtube

Provide Feedback

Leave a comment

Related Articles:

The first time I traveled, really traveled, was at 23. I was in France for a summer project with two other cadets and an advisor. The work itself didn’t feel like travel. That came after, when the project ended and I still had two weeks before my next assignment at West Point. I stayed in Europe alone. Up to that point, I’d never lived alone. Joining the Army right after high school ensured I wouldn’t for years. I craved it, even if only for two weeks. I wanted to be forced out of my comfort zone and grow up a bit. I had to make friends with strangers from other countries who weren’t classmates or company-mates. I wanted discomfort. I wanted to suffer a little. That was travel.

Since then, I’ve had my share of trips, both vacations and real travel. But that first experience still stands out as a turning point toward adulthood.

Fast forward to this weekend. I went with a few friends to Big Bend National Park. The plan: hike the South Rim, camp overnight, then hit the East Rim and head back to Chisos Lodge. Five and a half miles up, nearly 2,000 feet of elevation, with 35-40 pounds of gear on our backs. The next day, eight miles mostly downhill. A late-30s, early-40s (me) dad trip.

At camp, we dropped our packs and decided to tack on another six miles along the East Rim. That’s when the storm hit, right at the farthest point from shelter. A Texas desert downpour. No rain gear, no shelter. I had flashbacks to Ranger School in Georgia and Florida, soaked and shivering. But this time we laughed. Huge grins, splashing through mud, slipping on wet rock. It was the challenge we’d come for. Comfort had been the enemy.

The rain cleared, we ate, and watched the sun set over Mexico. The next morning, more rain. We waited it out, then hiked the eight miles back, tired, sore, but alive.

Here’s what I know: when you suffer with people, the bond changes. I saw it in the Army, sports teams, and in my career. I’ve seen it with old friends growing up. The hard times, not the easy ones, are what weld people together.

Championship teams remember the grueling practices, not the victory parties. Founders romanticize about the nights coding until dawn, broke in their parents’ garage, or sleeping on a friend’s couch. Those were the times they suffered the most.

This weekend reminded me of that truth. I didn’t need a vacation. I needed a bit of pain from my travel. And so did my friends. Which is why, before we even made it home, the question was already on the table: “What’s next?”

Don't get captured,

Connect with Zach

Twitter • LinkedIn • Youtube

Provide Feedback

Leave a comment

Related Articles:

Here were the top five posts this past year:

The Hardest Battle: Changing Yourself

From Zero to Seventy-Eight

The Good Old Days

Networking with a Service Mindset

Five Lessons from Five Years at Apple

This week's post comes from a book I pulled off my office bookshelf at UT. The shelves are filled with leftovers from professors before me: leadership books, consulting manuals, management texts, and entrepreneurship guides. One caught my eye, Credibility by Barry Posner and James Kouzes.

If you've followed my writing, you know my definition of professional success: impactful change. To create that kind of change, I believe you need three things: initiative, credibility, and resources. I've written a lot about initiative. I teach frameworks for gathering and deploying resources. But credibility? I've mostly defined it as "delivering what you say you will, consistently." Turns out that's the tip of the iceberg.

The authors break credibility down into six disciplines, not rules, principles, or traits. Disciplines come from the Latin discere, to learn. That framing matters. Credibility isn't something you inherit or fake. It's something you earn through deliberate practice and learning. Here's their breakdown, with a few of my own takeaways mixed in.

1. Discover Yourself

You can't lead others if you can't lead yourself. This starts with getting clear on your own beliefs and values. If you don't live by your own credo, no one else will take you seriously. People can tell when your principles are flimsy or borrowed. Self-awareness is a foundation to credibility.

2. Appreciate Constituents

This one's about growing the people around you. Not just knowing your values, but investing in others so they grow too. It reminded me of Kim Scott's Radical Candor. If you challenge without caring, you're just obnoxious. If you care but don't challenge, you're stuck in "ruinous empathy." But when you care deeply and push people to grow, they trust you enough to follow you, and they'll thank you later.

3. Affirm Shared Values

You can't assume alignment. You have to talk about it. Get clear on what matters to the team, the community, or the family. When people see you stand for something they believe in, trust grows. If you're trying to build influence, start by finding common ground.

4. Develop Capacity

This one's often overlooked. Your credibility depends on others becoming more capable. Equip them. Teach them. Coach them. If your team's not growing, neither is your leadership.

5. Serve Purpose

People trust you more when it's not just about you. Credibility increases when your "why" points to something bigger than personal ambition. If your work serves a broader mission, others will lend you their time, trust, and effort. Nobody rallies behind someone else's self-interest.

6. Sustain Hope

The final one surprised me. Being a credible leader means helping others believe in a better future, even when the present is hard. Optimism, when it's grounded in reality, becomes contagious. Be the fuel for others' motivation by sharing your vision.

After reading the book, I realized credibility goes way beyond hitting deadlines. It starts with knowing yourself, caring about others, and staying true to shared values over time. The better you get at this, the more doors open to make real change. Maybe even changing the world.

Don't get captured,

Connect with Zach

Twitter • LinkedIn • Youtube

Provide Feedback

Leave a comment

The question I heard most at the event was: “What did you get from your graduate program at UT?” I had a few answers.

The first was business acumen. Even if you don’t end up in accounting or marketing, you start to see how everything in a company ties back to one fundamental goal: create value. I thought I had a solid grasp from work experience, but sitting with brilliant professors and classmates from diverse backgrounds and wildly different industries forces you to think at another level. Sure, you can find the content online, even through AI now, but you can’t replicate the growth that comes from being surrounded by people with real stories. Their failures, successes, and detours all shape your own perspective.

The second was expanding my capacity for what I thought I could handle. Working full-time while grinding through grad school takes discipline, grit, and sacrifice. It stretched my framework for how much I could take on while still trying to succeed in everything I do. I still fall short plenty, but as long as I know I’m giving everything I can and making a difference, the sacrifices are worth it.

I recently heard on a podcast about a lesson Warren Buffett learned from his father: internal scorecards. The idea is simple. Would you rather be the best, but have everyone thinks you’re the worst, or be the worst but have everyone think you’re the best? Only you know whether you’re truly doing your best or just putting on a show. Social media throws gasoline on the comparison fire, making us compete with peers, friends, and strangers who've mastered the art of false realities.

The last thing I mentioned was my teaching role. A couple of former students from last year stopped by my office this week, not for grades or extra credit, but just to bounce business ideas around. Having students reach out long after their grade is secured and the course is finished feels incredibly rewarding. It means I've built some kind of trust and credibility that they want me to continue being part of their career journey. When previous students tell me how much they learned and appreciated the knowledge passed down, it makes it worth all the sacrifices of juggling work, teaching, and family.

I’ve written before that happiness isn’t the best metric for life. It’s too volatile. You can be happy with your morning coffee and miserable five minutes later with a speeding ticket. Instead of chasing a fleeting and ever-changing emotion, fulfillment is the better measure. Are you fulfilled with what you’ve done? The impact you’ve made? The effort you’re putting into future impactful change?

At the end of the day, your internal scorecard is the only real measurement of fulfillment. It doesn’t care about your highlight reel, your social media likes, or anyone’s opinion of you. It only cares about whether you used your time and energy to do something meaningful, whether you grew, contributed, and mattered.

Don't get captured,

Connect with Zach

Twitter • LinkedIn • Youtube

Provide Feedback

Leave a comment

Big week around here. First full week of school for the kids. Here they are on day one:

Sage started baseball season and piano again. My daughter Brynn has started gymnastics. Jackie is two weeks away from launching classes in the new Art House. You can follow her business here: Saplings Studio and read about her journey here: Overnight Success.

A few friends got promoted in jiu-jitsu at the gym. It’s always great to see people you’ve trained with for years level up. Rodrigo, our head instructor, said something during a black belt promotion that stuck with me: most black belts can smash anyone on the mat, but a true black belt helps everyone they train with to improve. They see the holes in other people’s games and work with them to fix them.

That’s true everywhere. At work, it’s tempting to keep doing things yourself because you’ll do it faster or cleaner. But real leadership is letting go, digging into what others are producing, and giving feedback that makes them better. Praise in public, coach in private. Let people make mistakes they can grow from. I want to be that kind of black belt: in parenting, marriage, teaching, work, and eventually on the mats too.

Another milestone this week: I had an offer accepted for a new hire on my Apple team. Exciting to bring in fresh energy and skills, and frankly, someone I’ll learn from too. Hiring has a hard side too. Someone I respect didn’t get the job, and telling him was brutal. No amount of “you were close” softens that blow. I had to own the decision. It sucked. Hopefully, I’ll get the chance to work with him again down the line.

And next week, I’m back in the classroom with a fresh title. I am no longer a Lecturer; I’m now an Assistant Professor of Instruction. Also, there are about 70 fresh names and faces to remember. This is my sixth semester teaching, and oddly, I get more nervous now than when I started. Maybe it’s because the beginner’s confidence fades and imposter syndrome creeps in.

Imposter syndrome doesn’t get talked about much because people are afraid to admit it. But it hits high achievers the hardest. You climb the ladder, then suddenly wonder if someone made a mistake in trusting you with responsibility. I feel it every time I stand in front of students, because in my head, I’m still a student daily.

The truth is: imposter syndrome usually means you’re growing. The more you learn, the more you realize you don’t know. It’s the opposite of the Dunning-Kruger effect, where people with a little knowledge think they’re experts. The deeper you go, the more humbling it gets.

That humility drives growth. A PhD might feel like they know less than a beginner because they’ve seen just how infinite knowledge really is.

So if you’re wrestling with imposter syndrome, take it as a good sign. It means you’re stretching, trying things that matter. Don’t waste energy fighting it. Use it. Get a little better each day. That progress adds up.

And when you finally become who you thought you were chasing, you’ll just set new goals anyway. That’s the point. Life isn’t the result. It’s the pursuit. Hopefully for something great.

Imposter syndrome isn’t weakness. It’s proof you’re exactly where you should be.

Don’t get captured,

Connect with Zach

Twitter • LinkedIn • Youtube

Provide Feedback

Leave a comment

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” - Winston Churchill

Burkeman’s latest piece, on the different kinds of scrolling, hit home. There’s reading scrolling, watching scrolling, and “hoarding” scrolling, saving links you’ll never revisit. It’s like a to-do list that never shrinks, each lingering task quietly mocking you. There’s a certain relief in wiping the slate clean and admitting some things simply aren’t getting done or read. That’s a hard truth for Type A personalities.

Summer, at least the concept of it, is over here. The kids go back to school this week: my son into third grade, my daughter into kindergarten. As a kid, summer’s start and end mattered. Then it didn’t. Now, as a parent, it matters again. Summer scrambles routines with camps, odd drop-offs, and late mornings. I won’t miss the chaos, but I will miss the freedom to hit the gym every morning. In a couple of weeks, I’ll be back in the classroom for my sixth semester teaching, what my wife and I call “hustle season.”

Speaking of hustle, we recently purchased a house for Jackie’s business. Her retail studio is now a drop-in space for projects, and the “Art House” will host camps and scheduled classes. It’s been an exciting experience to witness her business evolve. I am looking forward to the next phase of her entrepreneurial endeavors.

I’ve been reading more fiction this summer. Highly recommend Project Hail Mary before the movie drops in March. Andy Weir’s blend of astrophysics, regular physics, chemistry, mathematics, and biology is impressive, even if you’re not into sci-fi. I also wrapped up the Red Rising series and finally read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which is not fiction but is almost too wild to be true. Even bookstores have a hard time figuring out where to put it. I’d seen the Johnny Depp film, but Hunter S. Thompson’s writing is even wilder on the page. It’s raw, fearless, maybe a little too fearless.

That brings me to courage, something I’ve written about before: The Courage to Start, and the Courage to Say No. One is about leaping; the other, about knowing when not to.

A co-worker and I were talking this week about leadership competencies. Courage in leadership means standing out front, challenging the status quo, and making your position clear even when it’s unpopular. But there’s a fine line; too much courage, and you can burn bridges or pick fights you shouldn’t.

Courage isn’t the absence of fear; it’s acting despite it. Fear exists for a reason; it’s evolutionary protection. As James Clear put it, “Your success depends on the risks you take. Your survival depends on the risks you avoid.” Early in your career, courage is easier because you have less to lose. Later, it’s tempting to play it safe, to protect the position you’ve built. It’s common for senior employees fearing being seen as incompetent, so there will be a lack of courage to ask for help or say you don’t know something. But courage isn’t about reckless risk-taking; it’s about standing up for the risks that matter.

As the school year starts and fresh beginnings roll in, find ways to practice courage. Introduce yourself to strangers. Ask for what you want. Risk the awkwardness of rejection. Courage is a skill, and like any skill, it gets stronger the more you use it.

Don’t get captured,

Connect with Zach

Twitter • LinkedIn • Youtube

Provide Feedback

Leave a comment

The concept of work-life balance implies that work and life are separate entities. When we treat them as rivals, we create unnecessary tension. Work isn't separate from life; it's an integral part of it. When we frame it as an either/or proposition, we create unnecessary distraction and guilt. Instead, we should recognize that work is simply one component of a well-rounded life.

Think of your life as a table. It’s most stable when each leg is strong and evenly supporting the weight. Try to balance on one or two legs, and you'll find yourself constantly wobbling, requiring significant effort to maintain stability. The same principle applies to life: you need multiple "legs" supporting your overall well-being.

Extremes in any direction will eventually cause the table to topple. If you focus solely on work at the detriment of your health, what good is professional success if you're heading toward an early grave due to high stress and an unhealthy lifestyle? Conversely, if you neglect your professional development, you may find yourself lacking the sense of accomplishment and fulfillment that meaningful work provides.

This applies across the board. Extreme diets work for a while. But they’re unsustainable. Same with over-indexing on any one part of life. If you’re ignoring mental health, relationships, or personal growth, you’re not showing up fully anywhere else either.

The key is identifying which legs are essential for your personal life balance. For me, these four legs I want to keep balanced are:

1. Professional Growth

2. Family

3. Health

4. Friendship

Balance across these areas isn't just about time allocation; it's about intentional actions that keep me grounded in what it means to excel at my job, be a present leader for my family, maintain physical fitness, and nurture meaningful friendships.

True life balance is dynamic, not static. Sometimes circumstances demand that we pour more energy into certain areas. During a family vacation, for instance, it makes sense to focus heavily on being present with loved ones. However, even during these times, I still try to put something into each "bucket", perhaps a quick morning workout or family walk, reading a professional development book by the pool, or staying connected with friends through texts.

Your four legs will likely look different from mine. They might include faith, hobbies, personal goals, community involvement, or creative pursuits. The specific categories matter less than ensuring you're not neglecting any single area for too long.

A balanced life isn't simply about leaving work at the same time every day or turning off notifications after hours. While boundaries are important, true balance comes from purposeful engagement across all areas that matter to you. It's about being intentional with your energy and attention, recognizing that different seasons of life may require different distributions of focus.

Rather than thinking about work-life balance, consider adopting a "life balance" mindset. Identify your four legs, and regularly assess whether you're giving appropriate attention to each. Remember, the goal isn't perfect equilibrium at all times, it's sustainable stability that allows you to thrive across all dimensions of your life.

Truth is, most parts of life don’t come with a perfect KPI dashboard. Sure, your bank account might show how your career is going. But how do you measure if you’re being a good partner or parent? How do you quantify your physical or mental health? Sometimes, life doesn’t give us clear metrics. All we have are intentions and actions. Sometimes, you just know.

When we stop pitting work against life and start viewing them as complementary components of a fulfilling existence, we might finally achieve the stability and satisfaction we're seeking.

Don't get captured,

Connect with Zach

Website • Twitter • LinkedIn • Youtube

Provide Feedback

Leave a comment

I know it's cliché to say "I can't believe he's turning 8," but time really does fly. And the older we get, the faster it seems to move, because time is relative to our perspective.

For Sage, one year is 1/8th of his life. That's 12.5%, a big chunk. For me, a year is more like 1/40th, just 2.5%. Each year feels smaller, like it's rushing by, because it is in the perspective of our life. As we age, time compresses.

We often look back and judge our younger selves through today's eyes. If only I had bought Bitcoin… or NVIDIA stock… ten years ago. I'd be x% richer.

But that kind of hindsight ignores context. We forget what it was like to be in our twenties: broke, uncertain, and risk-averse for good reason. The easiest way to get rich is to already be rich. It's easy to invest long-term when you don't need the money short-term. When every dollar matters, risk looks a lot different.

Oh, got to go. Looks like Best Buy is opening…

Bag secured. Don't tell Sage.

[…hours later] Now where was I?

Ah yes, time and regret.

Earlier today, I was in a meeting where the topic was Gen Z. The conversation centered around the defining events of their generation: the anxiety of COVID, the rise of digital activism, and a financial worldview shaped by watching their parents navigate a recession. The bottom line? A lot of Gen Z Americans think “we ‘re f**cked” (actual quote from the presentaiton).

There are also differences in communication style, career expectations, and perceptions of what’s possible. They are digitally native, entrepreneurial, and more pragmatic than other generations. They have a stronger focus on mental health and global issues.

Every generation tends to look down on the ones that follow. "They just don't get it," we say. But what if it's the older generations who don't get it?

We expect them to behave as we did, but they're not growing up in the same world. Homeownership is harder. Traditional career paths are less stable. The so-called American Dream keeps moving further out of reach.

It's hard to put yourself in someone else's shoes when they're walking a completely different path. Maybe instead of telling them to toughen up or think like us, we should challenge ourselves to understand what it’s like to be them.

Time flies, wealth compounds, and generations evolve. But empathy? That’s a choice.

Sage turns 8 this weekend. He'll probably remember the gift more than the effort it took to get it. But I'll remember this moment, a reminder of how fast it's all moving, and how important it is to try and see the world through someone else's eyes.

So, you'll probably find me playing Mario Kart and Donkey Kong this weekend, because spending time with my family is something I know I won't regret.

Don't get captured,

Connect with Zach

Website • Twitter • LinkedIn • Youtube

Provide Feedback

Leave a comment

1. Culture Is Everything

Culture encompasses the norms and behaviors that an organization expects and tolerates. This principle applies to countries, organizations, and any community of people. I often remind my students that the root word of "culture" is "cult", a cult represents an extreme version of expected behaviors and social norms.

Apple takes culture so seriously that Steve Jobs created an internal university, Apple University, historically led by deans from prestigious institutions. The goal was to ensure deliberate effort in teaching Apple's culture, especially to new hires.

Before joining Apple, I didn't fully appreciate how organizational culture shapes everything. Culture typically begins with beliefs, values, and vision. Values define what truly matters to the organization, while norms establish the appropriate attitudes and behaviors shared among members. These beliefs and values must align between new recruits and long-term employees alike.

Effective culture requires intentional socialization practices that help people feel belonging, plus reinforcement mechanisms like standard operating procedures, policies, reward systems, and leadership attitudes that maintain behavioral norms. As the saying goes, culture is often defined by the worst behavior that's tolerated. The lowest standards of conduct set the tone for the entire environment.

All of this should drive toward meaningful purpose, strategy, and goals for everyone in the organization. Apple demonstrates daily that culture is fundamental to understanding and practicing what makes Apple, Apple.

2. Networking Creates Impactful Change

Making meaningful change in any organization requires three essential elements:

Credibility comes from consistently delivering on your core responsibilities. If you can't execute the fundamentals, no one will follow your leadership on bigger initiatives.

Bias for action is crucial because significant change requires drive to move things forward despite roadblocks, speed bumps, and resistance. Without this bias, you'll struggle to push anything across the finish line.

Resources are the third requirement. I use the acronym FHIST to categorize different resource types:

• Financial - Money and budgets

• Human Capital - Your skills, experience, and health

• Intellectual Capital - Your knowledge and expertise

• Social Capital - Your relationships, networks, trust, and influence

• Time - The hours and bandwidth you have available

At Apple, social capital is king. People are typically hired for their human and intellectual capital, but you success because of who you know and how you collaborate. You cannot accomplish anything truly impactful beyond yourself without other people's help and support.

Building relationships, understanding what others do, and discovering mutual ways to help each other is both important and encouraged. I believe this social capital is much harder to build remotely, you miss crucial elements like reading body language, spontaneous conversations outside meetings, and shared meals. The network you build becomes essential for succeeding at Apple.

3. What Got You In Won't Make You Succeed

We've all encountered the new colleague who constantly leads with “Well, at my last company..." Saying this at Apple is like holding up a cross to a vampire. While we expect everyone to leverage their knowledge and experience to do their best work, you're here now for a reason, not there.

Whatever experience or expertise got you hired is just the entry point, not the success formula. Continuing to build your resources, expand your knowledge, and leverage creativity and passion is what drives success at Apple.

4. Don't Judge a Book by Its Cover

I can always spot vendors on Apple's campus because they're dressed for traditional business meetings. Meanwhile, I've seen 20-year executives wearing flip-flops, shorts, and Hawaiian shirts on a Tuesday afternoon.

At Apple, you cannot judge someone's capabilities or organizational level based on appearance or meeting behavior. Like elite special forces units, sometimes the most talented people don't look or behave exactly as you'd expect. Don’t mistake calm or casual for unqualified.

5. Constraints Drive Creativity

Apple operates in a perpetual state of being under resourced by design. We don't hire frequently, so we typically work as if we're down a person or two. This resource constraint often drives innovation and creativity in our approach to problems.

Similar to art, constraints can fuel creativity. Instead of encountering a problem and immediately thinking "just hire someone to work on that," you actually focus on solving the problem with existing resources.

This approach also prevents falling into Parkinson's Law, which states: "Work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion."

Consider digital storage as an example. When I was younger, a 1GB hard drive felt limitless. But as storage capacities increased, so did our appetite for data, photos, videos, apps filled the space simply because it was available.

Work behaves similarly. If you hire more people than necessary, bureaucracy gets imported to fill the allocated work time. Organizations start spending the majority of their time on cross-functional coordination and internal processes, like expense submission procedures, rather than focusing on what matters most: the customer and the value your company brings to the world.

These five lessons have shaped not only how I work at Apple, but how I think about organizational effectiveness and personal growth. Each insight reinforces that success comes not from what you know when you arrive, but from how you adapt, connect, and innovate within the unique culture you join.

For me, I’m five years in and I’m just getting started.

Don't get captured,

Connect with Zach

Website • Twitter • LinkedIn • Youtube

Provide Feedback

Leave a comment

We talk about “the good old days” like they were easy. But they weren’t. They were uncertain, hard, stressful at times. What makes them feel “good” now is that we know how they ended. The risk and uncertainty is gone. The outcomes are known.

Whatever you’re going through now might feel overwhelming. But one day, you’ll look back and think: That was nothing. I made it through. In fact, some of the hardest things I’ve done are the ones I now treasure most. Not because they were fun, but because I got through them. The struggle is the story.

These days, I have to seek out challenge. Comfort creeps in with security and lower risk tolerance. And yet, I still catch myself wondering, What’s next? Will it be hard? Almost certainly. Will it be worth it? Probably. And eventually, I’ll wonder why I was ever so stressed in the first place.

We crave certainty. We want the cheat code, the crystal ball, the guarantee that it’ll all work out. But if we had that? The challenge would disappear, and with it, the meaning of it all.

Every superhero story also has a villain. Both the superhero and villain have gone through some kind of challenge: lost parents, loved ones, or trauma. What sets the hero apart from the villain is how they respond to that pain. A villain seeks vengeance and tries to cause others to share in the same pain they have felt. A hero says, "I'm going to make sure no one else feels this same pain I have."

I recently stumbled into a rabbit hole of college acceptance videos, some kids breaking down in tears, others screaming with joy. I remembered my own letters. Back then, those moments felt like everything. At the time, they were.

But here’s the truth: the most important thing isn’t whether they got in or didn’t get in. It’s what they’ll do next. How will they respond to rejection? To success?

Will they blame that rejection letter for their failures for the rest of their life? Will the Ivy League student rest on their accomplishment of making it into a prestigious school, or will they continue to find challenges to help them grow? I meet plenty of students who forget they were once the kid screaming with joy to be exactly where they are now, even when it’s hard. The same goes for after college when you might land your dream job.

How we respond to those moments, good or bad, shapes who we become. That choice may be what determines whether we become the hero or the villain of our own story.

Don't get captured,

Connect with Zach

Website • Twitter • LinkedIn • Youtube

Provide Feedback

Leave a comment

Looking back at my path, captain of my varsity football team, West Point (fundamentally a leadership school), Ranger school (learning to lead in the worst conditions), and managing people since my first job leading a platoon in Iraq, I realized something striking. Despite all this leadership experience and training, I was never taught about emotional intelligence or why it matters. I thought it was simply about empathizing with people.

Then I discovered a framework that changed how I think about leadership energy. iPEC coaching introduces a model for assessing energy levels that provides remarkable insight into workplace behavior and team dynamics.

The Seven Levels of Energy

Level 1: Victim Energy A state of low energy where individuals feel powerless, avoid responsibility, and disengage from challenges. If you feel your ideas are routinely ignored but never speak up because "no one listens anyway," you might be operating here. This leads to quiet disengagement and growing resentment toward leadership.

Level 2: Conflict Energy Driven by anger and resistance, marked by judgment, defensiveness, and a need to win or control. You're passed over for promotion and immediately assume office politics were involved. Worse, you resent peers who did get promoted. That resentment spreads to your manager, and you begin undermining decisions.

Level 3: Coping Energy Characterized by rationalization and compromise, people manage stress by tolerating situations rather than challenging them. You disagree with a new company policy but don't speak up, telling yourself, "I just need to put my head down and do the work." You comply outwardly while burning out internally, never bringing your authentic self or ideas to work.

Level 4: Care Energy Heart centered energy focused on empathy and helping others, leading to collaboration but risking self neglect. When teammates struggle with projects, you consistently jump in to help despite being overwhelmed yourself. You put in extra time to prevent others from failing, great for the team, but a path to personal burnout.

Level 5: Solution-Focused Energy A solution oriented mindset that embraces challenges with optimism, viewing setbacks as opportunities to grow and innovate. When your organization restructures, instead of complaining about change, you focus on how to make the new structure work better for everyone.

Level 6: Connection Energy Marked by deep intuition and connection, individuals create effortlessly and lose themselves in meaningful work. You're leading a brainstorming session, fully immersed in the process rather than trying to control it or "look smart." You build on others' ideas, encourage creative thinking, and help the team reach unexpected solutions.

Level 7: Bliss Energy The highest energetic state, reflecting complete non-judgment, presence, and unity, where ego dissolves and work becomes pure expression. You're facilitating a team offsite when someone challenges your ideas mid-session. Instead of reacting defensively, you smile and say, "Interesting, tell me more." You let go of ownership and ego, trusting the moment completely, which opens up more honest and transformational conversation.

The Leadership Application

None of us operates at a single energy level across all aspects of our lives. We'd all like to claim we're at Level 7, but honest self assessment usually reveals otherwise. The power lies in treating energy as something we can actively manage and improve.

As leaders, we should assess both our own energy levels and those of our team members, then develop plans to help everyone reach their highest possible level. This isn't about judgment, it's about growth and creating the conditions where people can bring their best energy to work.

Start by noticing your own energy, then help your team elevate theirs. That’s the real work of leadership.

Don't get captured,

Connect with Zach

Website • Twitter • LinkedIn • Youtube

Provide Feedback

Leave a comment

McRaven has lived a dozen lifetimes in one, and getting to hear him speak in person was something I won't forget. Here are the most powerful takeaways from that session

"You don't want to ring the bell."

In SEAL training, "ringing the bell" means quitting. It's the easy path when things get hard. But if what you're doing is good, honest, noble, and honorable, don't quit.

The key to resilience isn't strength or intelligence. It's team. You need people who will pick you up when you fall, who will paddle the boat when you can't, and who will dust you off and get you back in the fight. No one makes it through alone.

Four Rules for Earning Respect

When McRaven was a brand-new Naval officer, he asked a senior enlisted leader: What do I need to do to earn respect?

The answer was three simple, timeless rules:

Work hard: You don't need to be the most talented, but you better be the hardest working. Effort is noticed. It earns respect.

Be a good teammate: It doesn't matter if you're the best at your job, if you're a bad teammate, the team fails. Being the best on a losing team still makes you a loser.

Know the business: When McRaven became Chancellor of UT, he didn't know much about academia. His college buddies found the whole thing hilarious knowing his performance, or lack of, in college. But he spent months studying how the university worked: what department chairs do, what a provost is, how research gets funded. He learned the business of the business. He had to do the homework. When you join a new company or team, you'll get some onboarding like understanding the culture, the language, norms, and behaviors. But everything else about understanding the job and industryis on you. Especially if you're moving every few years, like in the military, you learn quickly: come in early, stay late, ask questions, do the research.

Leadership skills only matter after you understand the underlying business. If you don't know how it works, you can't lead it.

Be a good person: The last thing that has been recommended to earn the respect of his team is to be a good person. McRaven says every decision you make as a leader should pass three filters:

• Is it moral? Are you doing what's right?

• Is it legal? Are you following the law?

• Is it ethical? Are you respecting the rules and values of your organization?

Pass all three, and you'll stay on the right side of every decision.

Make It Meaningful

One of his most powerful points: "As a leader, your job is to connect your team's work to something noble, honorable, and decent."

He told a story about meeting a telecom worker who didn't see much value in his job. McRaven reframed it: You're not just stringing wires, you're connecting mothers to daughters, patients to doctors. You're keeping society connected.

Every job, no matter how tactical, contributes to something larger. If you're a waiter, you're feeding people and enabling connection. If you're in a massive public company, you're creating value and helping people build security through retirement and ownership.

And if you can't tie your current mission to something bigger? Maybe it's time to find a new mission.

These are frameworks I’ll be incorporating into how I live, lead, and parent. Hearing them from someone who’s led elite teams in war, run a massive academic institution, and spent a lifetime in service only reinforces their weight.

The most powerful leaders don’t complicate things, they clarify. They return to timeless truths. And they live them with conviction.

Whether you’re leading a company, raising a family, or just trying to be a little better than you were yesterday, work hard, be a good teammate, do the homework, and do the right thing.

That’s a pretty good mission.

Don't get captured,

Connect with Zach

Website • Twitter • LinkedIn • Youtube

Provide Feedback

Leave a comment

It’s hard to write about something meaningful when you just wrote something two days ago. Ideas need time to breathe. I’d rather take the week to observe, scribble notes, and let a topic show up uninvited.

I don’t want to force a point just because it’s Thursday. The best writing feels like it had to happen. And anyway, no one unsubscribes because they’re not getting enough email. Everyone’s inbox already looks like a garage sale exploded.

Over Memorial Day weekend, I caught myself glued to my phone, but for once it felt worth it. Nick Bare, founder of Bare Performance Nutrition, was hosting a backyard ultramarathon that bordered on psychotic. It’s called the Go One More Ultra Marathon. Every hour, on the hour, runners had to finish a 4.2-mile loop in brutal Texas heat. The faster you ran, the more time you had to rest before the next loop. Miss the hour cutoff or quit and you’re out. Last person standing wins.

After two straight days, only two runners remained. They just kept going. Into night three, they’d run over 230 miles. That’s when a storm swept in with lightning, 80 mph winds, and sideways rain. The race was called off. Not because the runners stopped. Because nature decided they’d had enough.

All they were chasing was a horseshoe that said “FINISHER.”

No prize money. No crowd. Just two people testing the outer limits of human willpower. Every hour, their legs said no, their brains said stop. And still they stood up and said, “One more.”

That’s what got me. We’re all capable of more than we think, but most people listen to the voice in their head that tells them to quit. And why not? The brain is trying to protect you. Thousands of years of survival instinct protecting you from making a bad decision that could get you killed.

You don’t need unshakable self-belief. You just need to stop believing the overprotective voice that says you can’t.

Mindset is the great separator. Chris Rock says you’ve got three options in life: be brilliant, be infamous, or be a victim. Victim’s the easiest. It costs nothing and demands nothing. Just blame someone or something else and stay stuck. But you can’t go one more and be a victim at the same time.

You will run into times when your mind tells you to stop. It’s too risky. What makes you think you can do this? It’s going to be hard. What if we could turn down that voice and overpower it with one that yells “Do one more”? What if that voice got so loud we stopped doubting what we can accomplish?

Jesse Itzler has a name for this. He calls it a Misogi. Inspired by an annual Japanese purification ritual in sacred waterfall, lakes or rivers. His version? You do one hard thing a year. One big, scary, uncomfortable thing that becomes your filter for every decision the rest of the year. to ask youself: Will this help or hurt my ability to complete the Misogi challenge?

It could be a marathon. A brutal hike. A multi-day bike race. Something ridiculous.

I’ve decided mine for 2026. I’m doing the Texas Water Safari. It’s a 200-mile canoe race from New Braunfels to the Gulf Coast in less than 100 hours. The fastest teams finish in a little over 40 hours I’ve been asked to do it before and half-committed. This time I’m in. Writing this down is me committing.

It’s scary. It’ll hurt. But it’s possible. The real challenge is learning to sit with the discomfort, hear the voice that says “stop,” and do it anyway. I’ve got a year to train that voice.

Time to practice discomfort.

Don't get captured,

Connect with Zach

Website • Twitter • LinkedIn • Youtube

Provide Feedback

Leave a comment

I'm not going to lie and pretend I don't enjoy a long weekend with friends and family, because I do. But I would trade it in a heartbeat to have my friends back. Like my good friend Rob Collins, who I last saw when his platoon was switching out with mine in Iraq.

Some veterans carry survivor’s guilt during this weekend, the feeling that maybe it should’ve, or could’ve, been them. It’s heavy. But we need that reminder. We need time set aside to honor those who never came home.

Last week, I flew back from Raleigh and sat next to a man wearing a KIA memorial bracelet. KIA stands for Killed in Action. These bracelets bear the name, rank, and unit of the fallen. I asked him about it. It was his son. An Army Green Beret who lost his life in Afghanistan. He was flying home from a memorial ceremony at Fort Liberty, with his grandson, the fallen soldiers son.

You could see the pain in his eyes. I felt it. The only thing I could muster up, without breaking down myself, was: I’m so sorry. He asked me if I served and told him yes. We shared a quiet moment and then he told me thank you.

Sitting there next to this father, I realized that his pain, and the pain of thousands of other Gold Star families, is something most of us will never fully understand. But we all understand loss in some form. We all know what it means to love someone. Life is fragile. And we so easily forget how much we have.

You never know the last time you’ll carry your child. The last time you’ll speak to your parents. The last time you’ll be with someone you love. Loss of loved ones is inevitable. Grief is universal.

I don’t have a big message here. I’m not an expert on grief. But I am learning how to be grateful.

To the fallen, and to the families they left behind, thank you.

Don't get captured,

Connect with Zach

Website • Twitter • LinkedIn • Youtube

Provide Feedback

Leave a comment

Each year feels a little easier, and a little harder. Easier because my core materials are mostly built. Other than the occasional overhaul (which I’ll probably need to do again next year), the tweaks are minor. Harder because I now see more clearly what’s working and what’s not, and I’m always striving to make it better.

The curse of experience is realizing how much you don’t know. When you’re new, ignorance can feel like confidence. But once you’ve done it for a while, imposter syndrome starts whispering: They’re going to realize you don’t know what you’re doing.

As a non–tenure track professor, there’s not a lot of institutional scrutiny, no pressure to publish, no tenure committee. So the only “grades” I get are from one peer evaluation (in five semesters) and my end-of-semester student evaluations.

The Feedback Trap

If you’ve ever taught a class, you know how hard it is to get students to complete evaluations. It’s the last week of the semester, finals, presentations, burnout. Filling out a survey to help next semester’s students? Not high on the priority list.

But somehow, I usually get over 80% participation. Which, frankly, deserves its own award.

The two questions that actually go into your performance review:

• Overall, the course was…

• Overall, the instructor was…

Rated from Excellent to Very Unsatisfactory, scored from 5.0 to 1.0, respectively.

I’m proud of my instructor record so far: 4.7 average over 2.5 years, well above the university average.

And this semester? Over 70 students responded. The overwhelming majority said they loved the class. Meaningful feedback. Actionable suggestions. Strong praise. But what did I focus on?

You guessed it: The one student who marked me as a “Very Unsatisfactory” instructor.

And yeah, it got to me.

Why Do We Obsess Over the One?

It’s human nature, right? We could be surrounded by 96 people applauding, but the one heckler in the back is the voice that sticks.

That’s the voice imposter syndrome listens to. “See? They know. You’re not good enough.”

We let it fester. It alters our mood. Maybe even our actions. At work. At home. With the next class. But I caught it early this time.

I reminded myself: It’s not my job to make everyone happy. In fact, maybe the class wasn’t hard enough. Maybe I wasn’t pushing my students far enough.

Growth Hurts

I thought about one of the best professors I had at UT: Patrick Badolato. He teaches accounting, which, let’s be honest, isn’t exactly everyone’s favorite subject. But he made it compelling. Challenging. Real. I used to parrot him at parties just to sound smarter. Even if you don’t care about accounting, it’s critical to business. Not just for keeping the books, but because it’s the language of decision-making.

What I remember most isn’t how easy his class was. Because it wasn’t. It was hard, even for someone like me who loves numbers. But that challenge forced me to think differently. To get better.

Not everyone appreciates that. Some hate it. Because, well, they don’t want hard, they want an easy A. He has received way more “Very Unsatisfactory” ratings and negative comments. In fact, he wears them like a badge of honor and ends presentations with them.

The Balance Between Challenge and Burnout

I once asked Patrick how he balances challenging students with not turning them off completely. He teaches 20+ courses a year. He has won a teaching award every year over the past decade. Over 1,000 students a year, yet the man still somehow remembers my name. His answer?

“That’s the question I’ve been trying to figure out for years.”

But the question isn’t just about students. It’s about teams. It’s about parenting. It’s about life.

How do you challenge people to grow, without pushing them into burnout?

How do you keep showing up, even when people criticize you for doing the hard thing?

You Will Not Be Everyone’s Cup of Tea

The more public you are, the more feedback you’ll get. Some of it helpful. Some of it harmful. Some of it just noise.

You can either:

• Ignore it completely.

• Internalize all of it, good and bad (not advised).

• Or find a third way…Let it inform you, but not define you.

Where you stay open enough to grow, but grounded enough not to let it break you. If you’re trying to be everyone’s favorite, you’re probably not being yourself. You’re watering down your edge. Your convictions. Your values.

Let’s say you walk into a room of 10 random strangers:

• 2 will love you immediately.

• 2 can’t stand you.

• 6 are undecided.

I’d rather be real and have 5 people love what I do than fake it and try to win over 8 with a version of me that’s not even real.

Authenticity Requires Courage

And courage sometimes means accepting that if you’re not getting a few “Very Unsatisfactory” reviews…

You may not be pushing hard enough. You may not be doing work that matters. You may not be growing by challenging those around you.

So yeah, I got one "Very Unsatisfactory."

It stung. But five semesters of teaching have taught me something important: The class that pleases everyone probably challenges no one. The same can go for leadership.

So that's the professor and leader I want to be. Not universally loved, but deeply impactful. I'm proud of this semester. And that one review? It's just a reminder that I'm on the right track.

Don't get captured,

Connect with Zach

Website • Twitter • LinkedIn • Youtube

Provide Feedback

Leave a comment

If something is limited, we instinctively want it more. “Only 3 left in stock” or “Offer ends soon” triggers a fear of missing out. Scarcity creates urgency, and urgency sells.

It also raises perceived value. Basic supply and demand economics: the scarcer a resource, the more someone is willing to pay for it. That gap between what a buyer is willing to pay and what the seller accepts? That’s consumer surplus. And companies leverage this principle strategically to maximize profits. Some even destroy unsold goods to maintain scarcity, preserving brand status and pricing power.

Take the Hermès Birkin bag. Functionally, it's just a handbag. But it sells for $30,000–$500,000 in today's market. Why? You can't just buy one, you have to be chosen. Buying a Ferrari can be the same. Scarcity and exclusivity drive the price, not the product. Luxury brands have mastered this psychological lever.

Consumers often buy for three reasons:

• Functional – What the product does

• Emotional – How it makes them feel

• Social – How it makes them look or seem

The strongest brands sell the emotional and social story.

You’re not buying a Rolex to tell time. You’re buying the story of success, legacy, and admiration.

The Scarcity Mindset

These same psychological triggers that drive consumer behavior don't just affect our purchasing decisions, they can fundamentally shape how we lead and live.

Scarcity mindset tells us there’s not enough to go around, money, success, love, recognition. If someone else is winning, it must mean you’re losing.

That mindset leads to hoarding, of resources, knowledge, and opportunities. It’s pulling the ladder up behind you once you’ve climbed it.

We see this play out all the time:

• Wealthy neighborhoods opposing new development to preserve and raise home values.

• Leaders avoiding hiring talented people out of fear they’ll be outshined.

• Managers who micromanage because “no one can do it as well as I can.”

It even delays innovation. “The market’s too crowded” becomes the excuse for inaction.

Scarcity doesn’t just limit decisions, it shrinks your world.

The Abundance Mindset

The antidote is abundance.

An abundance mindset says there’s enough opportunity, growth, and progress for everyone. Helping others doesn’t subtract value, it multiplies it.

Worried someone might steal your idea? That’s scarcity creeping in. Execution, not the idea, is what builds great companies and brands.

Leaders with an abundance mindset:

• Celebrate wins that aren't theirs.

• Hire up, not down.

• Share freely, not fearfully.

• Create environments where collaboration trumps competition.

• Invest time in developing others without expecting immediate returns.

Mentors and leaders should model this. Help others openly. Celebrate success to spotlight others, not yourself. That’s when you stop manufacturing perceived value through exclusivity, and start creating real value through trust, generosity, and shared impact.

Shifting from Scarcity to Abundance

Here’s how to shift your mindset:

1. Audit your defaults

Notice when you’re triggered by others’ success. Do you feel resentment or jealousy? Do you struggle to be happy for a peer’s promotion? Those are signs scarcity is driving.

2. Reframe wants vs. needs

Scarcity tricks us into thinking wants are needs. Once you have the thing you thought would change your life, its value often vanishes. Gratitude resets this frame. Remind yourself you may already have what truly matters: health, family, love, purpose.

3. Recognize others

When team members succeed, see it as expanding the organization's capabilities rather than threatening your position. Reframe competitive situations as opportunities for collective growth. Acknowledge that innovation and success aren't finite resources, they multiply when shared.

4. Practice generosity

Ask: “How can I create value for others today?” Volunteer. Mentor. Teach. That’s why I teach, it’s not just a paycheck. It’s a chance to give knowledge, grow future leaders, and multiply impact.

5. Surround yourself with builders.

Scarcity thinkers drain you. Abundance thinkers spark you. One takes. The other creates. Choose wisely who you let influence your mindset and organizational culture.

The same psychological trick that convinces you to spend money on things you don’t need is the same one whispering that opportunity is scarce.

But it’s a lie. The pie isn’t fixed. And even if it were, we could still create more.

So the real question is this:

Are you playing the game to take? Or to build, give, and grow?

In leadership, as in life, those who approach the world with abundance create legacies that extend far beyond their individual achievements. And that kind of leadership is contagious.

Don't get captured,

Connect with Zach

Website • Twitter • LinkedIn • Youtube

Provide Feedback

Leave a comment

Why? Because it was written by a 14-year-old named Cole Summers.

The book is called Don’t Tell Me I Can’t, and it completely shattered my frame for what kids, and honestly, anyone, are capable of. It reminded me of stories from Japan about kids taking the subway alone, or stories from earlier generations starting work in a factory at age ten. This book made me want to add it to the required reading list for my entrepreneurship students.

The lessons aren’t groundbreaking, but the stories are. Cole bought his first truck at age 8, even though he couldn’t drive it. He bought and renovated a house at 10. He taught himself lessons from Warren Buffett on YouTube. The takeaway isn’t just about entrepreneurship, it’s about excuses. College students tell me all the time about why they can’t do something. Cole’s life makes those excuses feel pretty thin.

It’s not just what is said, it’s who it’s coming from.

Discomfort

I injured my arm recently. I wish I had a cool story, like not tapping in a jiu-jitsu match or throwing heat at my son’s baseball game.

But no, I was raking leaves in the backyard.

Now I’ve got elbow pain, random aches, and a receding hairline to match. Aging is a cruel tradeoff: just when your health becomes more important, it gets harder to maintain. In high school, you could eat garbage and still gain muscle. In college, a hangover took one Advil and a breakfast taco. Now? A late night out feels like you need a three-day recovery plan.

So if health matters more as we age… why is it so easy to let it slip?

Because we crave comfort. And the more we indulge in it, the more it bleeds into everything we do.

Seeking Discomfort

The more you seek comfort, the more it starts to define your baseline.

Comfort becomes the standard. Discomfort becomes the enemy. And slowly, laziness creeps in, masked as efficiency or “taking it easy.”

It’s like food. The tastier it is, the worse it probably is for you. Comfort works the same way.

But here’s the truth: being comfortable with discomfort is a skill.

It’s not natural. It’s trained. Like brushing your teeth, it becomes automatic, if you build the habit.

I’ve seen it in myself recently. Since the arm injury, I haven’t trained jiu-jitsu in weeks. My gym routine is off do to limitations with certain exercises. I’m leaving early. Not tracking my protein. Skipping vitamins. Drinking way too much caffeine. None of these are huge failures, but they stack up.

Its death by a thousand cuts. And before you know it, you’re staring up at a bigger mountain than when you started.

Shock the System

When I feel myself slipping, I don’t try to ease back in. I hit the reset button. I shock the system.

Here are a few ways I do it—feel free to steal them.

Physical Resets

• Cold Plunge: Nothing resets your nervous system like cold water. Even regulars dread it. That’s the point. Discomfort, practiced.

• 1–2 Hour Ruck/Run/Hike: I used to do this every Sunday at 5am. I need to start again. Moving for an hour+ in Zone 2 heart rate gets your mind right for the rest of the week.

• Camping: Sleep outside. It’s not luxurious. It’s dirty. You won’t sleep great. But nature has a way of resetting your energy and drive.

• New Workout Class: Yoga, CrossFit, Pilates, bootcamp, doesn’t matter. A new group, new challenge, and movement you’re not used to snaps your brain out of autopilot.

  ---

Mental Resets

• 72-Hour Fast: Yes, it’s physical, but mostly it’s mental. No food for three days forces discipline. Your body gets a break; your mind gets sharper. I try to do 3–4 a year.’

  Tip: Do it with friends to commiserate with. Also, plan the fast to end Friday dinner. It’s better to have work to take your mind off of not eating than to watch your family eat all weekend.

• Read a Whole Book in a Weekend: Pick a non-fiction book and finish it cover to cover. It’s amazing how much momentum this creates. It’s better than scrolling on your phone.

• Wake Up at 4:30am for a Week: You jump out of bed to catch a flight, the pain of missing a flight is so great, the snooze is out of question. Pretend everyday that the pain of not getting up will be higher than the pain of sleeping in. Early mornings force intentionality.

• Social Media Detox: Delete the apps for a week. They aren’t helping. Every scroll is time stolen from something meaningful. Reclaim it.

Final Thought

As I wrote in The Motivation Factor, motivation needs momentum. And when momentum stalls, sometimes you don’t need a gentle push, you need a jolt.

Know your own signs. Watch for the creep of comfort. And when it shows up?Shock the system.

Don't get captured,

Connect with Zach

Website • Twitter • LinkedIn • Youtube

Provide Feedback

Leave a comment

The things we admire in other people are actually our own strengths. And the things that annoy us most? They’re often our weaknesses.

I think this idea is psychologically grounding in a way that forces self-reflection. It made me ask:

• What traits or values do I truly admire in others?

• And what’s the difference between admiration and envy?

• Is envy just admiration turned into resentment?

The traits we notice most in others, good or bad, are probably mirrors. They reflect, on a subconscious level, aspects of ourselves: strengths that lie dormant, or unresolved insecurities that haven’t been addressed. Admiration shows you what’s possible. Annoyance shows you what you avoid.

Admiration

Ever watched someone do something better than you and, instead of saying “Screw them,” felt drawn to it? Felt inspired? That’s admiration. It’s not envy. It’s resonance.

For example, I admire bold speakers. Not because I’m a bad one, in fact, I think public speaking is one of my strengths. But when I see someone really command a room, I don’t feel threatened. I feel fired up. I want to get better too.

Admiration can be a compass, it pulls you toward your better self.

Who I Admire

Once I understood that admiration reflects the values I aspire to, I made a list. Here’s who I admire, and why:

• Scott Galloway

Scott is a NYU professor and successful entrepreneur turned media machine. I don’t always agree with him (which might be the most common compliment he gets), but I respect his boldness, his clarity in speaking truth, and his ability to challenge norms. His writing in No Mercy/No Malice is crisp and unapologetic. He commands attention with stats, sarcasm, and substance. I admire him so much I named my own writing outlet The Prof Z Project as a nod to his Prof G Pod.

• Tim Ferriss

I’ve been a fan since The 4-Hour Workweek published almost 20 years ago. Tim lives in frameworks. He experiments on himself and lives with intention. His systems thinking encouraged me to build my own tools and templates. He’s a reminder that life can be designed, not defaulted.

• Joseph Kopser

A fellow West Pointer, veteran, UT professor, and Austinite. Joseph is humble, mission-driven, and always building up others. I admire how he lifts people around him while getting sh*t done. I see his path as a version of what I hope mine evolves into.

• Chris Williamson

Chris has a quiet intensity and deep curiosity. He packages intellectual insights in short, powerful maxims. That’s how I think too. I latch onto ideas and try to make them my own. He makes learning accessible, and I admire that as an educator.

• Jocko Willink

A walking embodiment of discipline equals freedom. He’s not pretending. He lives it. That level of consistency and authenticity is rare. I like to think I’m disciplined, but watching Jocko reminds me there’s still another gear.

These people all operate with clarity, courage, and conviction. They run their lives like a well designed system, and they scale their insight into action. That’s what I want to be known for too.

They’re not perfect. But perfect isn’t the goal.

Perfect means you’re done.

And I’m not done.

What Annoys Me (and Why It Matters)

Let me be brief, because I don’t like dwelling on the negative. But these irritations are signals. They help me understand my boundaries, my values, and maybe even the traps I want to avoid falling into.

• The need for extreme control or power

I value flexibility and earned influence, not dominance. I also value results. Getting things done without controlling everything, that’s impressive. With enough resources, anyone can eliminate risk. But doing something meaningful when you don’t hold all the strings? That’s leadership.

• People who are always unhappy

I believe happiness is largely a choice. I'm not talking about clinical depression or mental illness here, those are real, and they deserve support. I also recognize that genuine hardship and systemic challenges can create real barriers to people's wellbeing. But for most people, most of the time, happiness is a perspective. A mindset. And a decision. If your subconscious goal is to be unhappy, you'll find reasons to be. But the same is true the other way. I build systems to keep that perspective top of mind. Abundance is real, but you have to choose to see it, even when circumstances make that choice more difficult. Life is not supposed to be easy, but you can make the best of it while you're here.

• People who are fake or manipulative

This behavior feels dishonest. Yes, we all “play roles” at work or with strangers. But I’m talking about something deeper, when someone pretends to be someone they’re not in order to take. I prize genuine, earned trust. And I work in spaces (corporate, academia) where masks are common, so I may be especially sensitive to this. What bothers me most is seeing inauthenticity used as a tool to gain advantage rather than as a shield for vulnerability. True influence, in my view, comes from substance and genuine connection, not performance.

Mirrors

These annoyances might just be guardrails I set for myself:

• I avoid becoming controlling by leaning into systems, openness, and adaptability.

• I avoid emotional fragility by separating actions and tasks from feeling.

• I avoid manipulation by surrounding myself with people who are real.

Both admiration and annoyance are mirrors.

What you admire is your aspirational self.

What you resent may be where your values are violated.

Try This

Do the honest audit for yourself:

• Who do you admire, and why?

• What does it say about the person you want to become?

• What behaviors bother you?

• What do they reveal about what you need to protect, or improve?

The world and what we are drawn to reflects who we are. We just might learn something if we pay attention.

Congratulations to the Class of 2025. Remember…

Don't get captured,

Connect with Zach

Website • Twitter • LinkedIn • Youtube

Provide Feedback

Leave a comment