How I operate

My Principles

What matters, what is true, and how to show up.

Grew up on a horse ranch in Oregon. Trained and competed as a gymnast. Worked as a neuroscience nurse. Existential about time.

  1. Time is finite.

    Choose challenges with outcomes that justify the time and capital, with people I admire and want to be accountable to.

  2. Reality before story.

    State what is observed, inferred, assumed, and unknown. Ask what was left out, and what evidence would change the conclusion. Presenting inference as fact destroys credibility.

  3. Action creates information.

    Focus drives action. Action advances the outcome or reveals the next move. Repetition creates momentum. The loop compounds. Stasis is death.

    Move fast when a correction costs little. Slow down when the consequences cannot be repaired.1

  4. Trust is demanding.

    Trust is built on competence, reliability, sincerity, and involvement.2

    A miss is evidence, not a verdict. Find the cause before deciding what it means.3

    When trust breaks, repair what can be repaired and change the behavior. Some breaches cannot be repaired. Know when to separate and move on.

    Say the hard thing early. Surface bad news before it compounds. Test for proxy arguments.4

  5. Set the tempo.

    Tempo is the speed. Rhythm is the pattern people can hold. Clarity, priorities, decisiveness, and follow-through establish both.

    Mastery is setting a rhythm people want to follow under pressure. Dropped into chaos, establish the rhythm before raising the tempo. Most people talking about alignment have no rhythm.

    High standards serve the outcome. Accountability keeps them from slipping. Rhythm makes them repeatable under pressure.

Notes

  1. Speed: Comes from narrowing the work.
    Slow down when: A decision is legally reserved, financially material, hard to reverse, or likely to cause human harm. Back
  2. The four dimensions:
    • Competence. Can you do the work, or learn what it takes?
    • Reliability. Do your timing and standards match your commitments?
    • Sincerity. Do your words and intentions match?
    • Involvement. Do we share the responsibility, the support, and the stakes?
    Back
  3. A miss can mean: error, unclear expectations, conflicting priorities, too little authority, a broken system, missing information, weak judgment, or real incompetence.
    What settles it: concealment, repetition without learning, and refusal to repair. Back
  4. Proxy argument: A safer dispute standing in for the real one. Arguing about process when the issue is trust, authority, performance, or risk. Back