“First we make our habits. Then our habits make us.”

—John Dryden

I am grateful to the Oklahoma Athletic Administrators Association for the invitation this past week. Thank you!

Chasing Influence: Transformational Coaching to Build Champions for Life and What’s Your Juice? Unlock the Energy that Transforms Performance, Fuels Purpose, and Ignites the People Around You are now available on Amazon and Audible!

Loving the Bite

Watch someone who loves to run hills, sit in a sauna, or eat peppers that make their eyes water, and you'll notice they're not tolerating the burn. They're chasing it.

Habits work the same way.

The scoreboard resets and the season moves on. The next practice, meeting, project, or conversation gives you a clean slate. However, the way you handle setbacks—the way you respond when things aren’t going well, the way you dust yourself off when every break goes against you—these habit-forming moments don’t stay behind. They stay with you.

Circumstances are always changing. Sometimes you’re up big and life gives you a good bounce. Other times you’re grinding from behind and nothing will go your way. Either way, your habits don’t care. They just keep showing up.

That’s why how you manage when things are hard, boring, painful, or unfair matters more than most people realize. It’s not that the outcome doesn’t matter—it does, but the outcome isn’t the only thing being built every time you show up.

A study of mosquitoes, of all places, somehow helps us see how.

Researchers at Virginia Tech found that mosquitoes can be trained to like DEET. The love-it-or-hate-it stuff we spray to keep mosquitoes from biting us. After eight decades of keeping mosquitoes away, it is the most trusted repellent in the world.

And now … we find out that if a mosquito feeds on someone whose DEET has faded—still detectable, just not strong enough to repel—the insect’s brain begins to rewrite itself. It connects the smell with reward. More than 60 percent of mosquitoes returned to DEET, expecting a meal, even when there was nothing to bite.

The researchers cleverly call this a “complete reversal.” From innate avoidance to learned appetite.

Psychologists have a name for a phenomenon with some similarities in humans. Richard Solomon labeled it the Opponent Process Theory. The idea that with enough repeated exposure, an emotional response can flip entirely. What once felt aversive becomes attractive. What once felt punishing becomes something you miss when it’s gone.

That’s why some people learn to love hard workouts. Why entrepreneurs learn to enjoy risk, people love sauna bathing, and others love to eat blazing hot peppers. They’ve paired the hard thing with the feeling on the other side of it—the relief and sense that you did something hard and survived it—enough times that the brain rewires around it.

We become attached to whatever repeatedly precedes relief, reward, or familiarity. And here’s what we have to remember … the same process works in the other direction just as efficiently.

People can learn to love outrage because it reliably delivers a hit of righteous energy.

They can become attached to victimhood because it offers a familiar kind of comfort and relieves them of the weight of responsibility.

They can grow fond of drama, excuses, and being perpetually offended, not because those things are good for them, but because those things have been consistently rewarded, consciously or not.

The mosquito didn’t really learn to love DEET. It just kept finding food near it.

Humans do the same thing every day. We attach to whatever we’ve repeatedly experienced alongside something that felt like relief.

Your previous reps can save you or betray you. What are you teaching yourself to love?

Connecting this quote to the story. Over time, we become attracted to what we repeatedly reward, and every action is a vote for the habits, values, and identity we carry into the next round.

This week’s Chasing Influence tip: Winning cultures aren't built by avoiding hard things; they're built by embracing productive discomfort.

“Culture is what people do when no one is looking.”

— Herb Kelleher

Chasing Influence: Transformational Coaching to Build Champions for Life and What’s Your Juice? Unlock the Energy that Transforms Performance, Fuels Purpose, and Ignites the People Around You are now available on Amazon and Audible!

You Missed the Bus

I heard performance coach Jeremy Boone say something recently that really stuck with me. “Belonging without responsibility is entitlement. You can’t say you have ownership and act like a renter.”

Healthy cultures don’t suffer from a lack of belonging. A healthy culture can, however, suffer from confusion between expectations and standards—between what we hope people will do, and what we actually do.

That distinction hit home when my longtime coaching friend Shannon Blansette shared a story recently.

Blansette has been the head baseball coach at his school for thirteen years, and in all those years he’s been a stickler for punctuality. His players know the mantra by heart, because they’ve heard it countless times.

Early is on time. On time is late. Late doesn’t get on the bus.

Coach Blansette isn’t obsessed with time. But he is adamant about what being on time stands for—respect for your teammates, your coaches, and the commitment you’ve made to your team.

Along comes the playoffs this year and the team bus was scheduled to leave at 8:45am. Coach Blansette had forgotten some of his scouting charts, and after circling back to get them from home, for the first time in thirteen seasons, he was running late. He pulled into the parking lot at 8:47—two minutes late—to find the lot empty, the bus nowhere to be seen.

He quickly texted his captains. The reply came back: “Sorry Coach … early is on time, on time is late, late misses the bus.” They had left without him.

Coach Blansette then drove the thirty minutes to the playoff game alone. When he got there, his team gave him a round of applause. He could have been irate. Instead, He told me it was one of the proudest coaching moments of his life.

That story made me think of what I had just heard Jeremy Boone explain, “Belonging without responsibility is entitlement. You can’t say you have ownership and act like a renter.”

So many cultures run on belonging without responsibility. They feel good. People show up. There’s energy in the room. But the standards are soft. Everyone wants to be part of the team, and few are willing to live up to what that actually requires.

That’s what makes Shannon’s story so powerful. His players didn’t make an exception for him. They didn’t want to embarrass their coach, but the standard was bigger than him—and they knew it, because he had taught them so.

For thirteen years, Blansette had told his team that nobody was bigger than the rule. Then one morning, the rule came for him, and because he had lived it long enough, his players had the courage to hold him to it.

That’s not entitlement … that’s ownership!

Most leaders want ownership on their teams. Few leaders actually build it. Ownership isn’t created when people follow the rules because the boss is watching. It’s created when they uphold the standard when the boss isn’t there, or when the boss is the one running late.

That’s the difference between expectations and standards. Expectations are what we hope people will do. Standards are what we live, what we model, and what we hold each other to. Including the leader.

Anyone can enforce accountability downward. Healthy cultures hold it in every direction. People don’t believe what their leaders preach. They believe what their leaders practice. And eventually, they become what their leaders consistently permit.

When the standard you’ve been preaching finally comes for you, and it will, what will the people around you do?

Would the bus leave on time? And, how would you react?

(p.s. Coach Blansette’s team indeed won the playoff game.)

Connecting this quote to the story. Coach Blansette’s players didn't just hear the standard—they watched it being lived long enough that it became their standard too.

This week’s Chasing Influence tip: If a standard doesn't apply to the leader, it isn't a standard—it's a rule for everyone else.

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

A day early this week, and here's why. Today is your last chance to grab a free Kindle copy of What's Your Juice? or Chasing Influence. I wanted to make sure you saw it before the window closed. Enjoy the read, and then scroll down for this week's post on Jim Thorpe. I hope you like it!

Chasing Influence: Transformational Coaching to Build Champions for Life and What’s Your Juice? Unlock the Energy that Transforms Performance, Fuels Purpose, and Ignites the People Around You are now available on Amazon and Audible!

Wa-Tho-Huk

This time of year, courts, fields, stadiums, tracks, and courses are full of trophies, plaques, handshakes, and names read aloud over PA systems. It’s a time to recognize and celebrate impressive accomplishments.

For a few weeks every spring, recognition feels like the whole point. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. This week’s message shares the story of Wa-Tho-Huk.

You may not know that name. Most people don’t. But you probably know who he became. His name in English: Jim Thorpe.

In the summer of 1912, in Stockholm, Sweden, King Gustav V placed a laurel wreath on the head of this young man from the Sac and Fox Nation of Oklahoma and said, “Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world.”

Jim Thorpe looked at the king and said, “Thanks, King.”

At that moment of pagentry, accolade, and celebration … that was Jim Thorpe. No theatrics, witty reply, or headline-generating moment. Just a man who stayed true to who he was, even with the world watching.

But to understand why that moment matters … and why it still matters today … let’s go back a little further.

Jim Thorpe was born on May 28, 1888, in a one-room Oklahoma cabin in what was then labeled Indian Territory. He was a member of the Sac and Fox Nation. It wasn’t an easy childhood. By the time he was nine, he had lost his twin brother to pneumonia. His mother died when he was eleven, and his father when he was sixteen. Thorpe was sent, as so many Native American children were at that time, to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania. It was an institution built on the explicit mission of stripping Indigenous children of their language, their culture, and their identity. The school’s founder described his philosophy with stunning cruelty: “Kill the Indian, save the man.”

That was the world pressing down on Jim Thorpe from every direction. And yet something in him would not let it happen.

At Carlisle, he became one of the most electrifying football players in the country. He played every sport he touched with a recklessness and joy that looked natural, almost effortless. In the summer of 1909, between school sessions, he headed to Rocky Mount, North Carolina, and played semi-professional baseball for a small regional league, making a meager $25 a week.

By 1912, Jim Thorpe could be argued as being the best all-around athlete on the planet. At the Stockholm Olympics, he entered both the pentathlon and the decathlon. He won both. His decathlon victory was so dominant it redefined the event. After King Gustav placed the wreath on his head and spoke those now-famous words, the crowd roared for minutes.

Jim Thorpe, the kid from a one-room cabin in Indian Territory, was the greatest athlete in the world. And the world knew it. Then, they took the medals back.

A newspaper in Worcester, Massachusetts published a story revealing that Jim had played semi-professional baseball in North Carolina in 1909. Under the strict amateur rules of the time, accepting payment for athletic participation made an athlete ineligible for Olympic competition. The Amateur Athletic Union investigated. The IOC concurred. The consequence of making $25 a week was being scrubbed from the record books.

Thorpe wrote a letter to the AAU. He explained that he hadn’t understood the rules, that he had played ball as so many other young men did without any thought of his amateur status. He asked for understanding.

He was denied.

Jim Thorpe kept his head up, signed with the New York Giants and played six seasons of Major League Baseball. He played professional football and became the first president of the league that would eventually become the NFL. He kept showing up, and he kept competing. Thorpe brought his full effort to every arena that would have him — which wasn’t a given at the time.

There’s a danger in seeing ourselves only through the reflection of how institutions, critics, or other people define us. Jim Thorpe refused to let his Olympic records — and disappointments — define him.

He died in 1953 and never got the medals back in his lifetime.

In 1983, thirty years after his death, the IOC partially restored his recognition. It wasn’t until July 2022 — one hundred and ten years after his historic victories in Stockholm — that the International Olympic Committee officially updated the record to name Jim Thorpe as the sole gold medalist in both the decathlon and the pentathlon.

It took 110 years to get it right.

We all have our own version of this. Maybe not at this scale, but in ways that cut just as deep. You did something remarkable. And someone with authority found a reason to question it, diminish it, or erase it. In moments like that, the instinct today is to rage, hold a grudge, feel wronged, look for someone to blame, or declare that the world has it out for you personally.

The truth is, Jim Thorpe lived in a world that did have something against him. It wasn’t an excuse; it was a fact. He had every reason to burn with it.

Yet he didn’t.

We don’t all face what Jim Thorpe faced. But we do all get to choose our path — through the setback, the slight, the stripped title, the award that went to someone else, the recognition that never came. The path remains ours to pick.

Jim Thorpe took a different path and kept showing up regardless of what any scoreboard or record book said. The medal was taken. His mettle was never theirs to have.

Your worth carries the same great value; you don’t need a medal or ribbon to validate what’s good about life, the joys of each day, and the love around us.

This past Thursday would have been Jim Thorpe’s 137th birthday. The IOC finally got it right. Jim Thorpe always did. So should you.

Connecting this quote to the story. True success isn't determined by medals, records, or recognition. It’s determined by the peace of knowing you gave your absolute best—even if others fail to acknowledge it.

This week’s Chasing Influence tip: When others misjudge your value, keep showing up anyway. Consistency outlasts criticism.

What's Your Juice? Book Discussion Guide

Contact Troy Urdahl at troyurdahl@chassing-influence.com for bulk purchasing (15 or more) discounts for your book clubs and/or professional development opportunities.

About this Book Discussion Guide

Welcome to the discussion guide for What’s Your Juice?, a professional learning experience built around story, reflection, honest conversation, and action to be used as a leadership tool, with coaches, or student-leaders.

Every session is designed to help participants experience the book’s core message: the energy we bring shapes our reality, influences others, and transforms the groups we lead. Participants will leave each session with greater self-awareness, renewed purpose, and at least one specific behavior they are ready to practice immediately.

About the Book

What’s Your Juice? explores the invisible but powerful force each person carries into every room, relationship, challenge, and team. Your juice — the unique mix of your energy, effort, attitude, mindset, motivation, and expectations — determines how you respond to adversity, how you perform under pressure, how others experience your leadership, and how groups rise or fall together.

Through historical examples, scientific research, personal stories, and practical assessments, the book challenges readers to understand, own, protect, and share their juice with purpose. The book’s three-part architecture moves from the inside out:

Part I — How Your Juice Defines Your Reality (Chapters 1–5): Your internal energy dynamics

Part II — How Your Juice Influences Others (Chapters 6–7): Your outward leadership impact

Part III — The Power of a Group’s Juice (Chapters 8–10): Collective energy and culture

What You'll Gain

• Identify the energy you bring into rooms, meetings, practices, and relationships

• Shift from unconscious reaction to intentional response

• Strengthen belief, optimism, resilience, and self-efficacy

• Maintain control of your response when circumstances cannot be controlled

• Create conditions for flow, purpose, and sustained performance over time

• Understand how expectations — spoken and unspoken — shape the people you lead

• Motivate through ownership, meaning, autonomy, competence, and relatedness

• Recognize how group energy can lift, drain, pressure, or transform individuals

• Navigate conflict and build psychological safety in teams and organizations

• Build a personal Energy Roadmap for leadership, coaching, and life

In this Discussion Guide

For the Introduction and each of the ten chapters, you will find six sections:

1. Experience Starter — A quick activity or prompt that demonstrates the chapter theme before it is discussed

2. General Questions — Conversation starters anchored to specific pages and stories in the text

3. Leadership Questions — Prompts for leaders to use and consider

4. Coaching Questions — Prompts specific to coaches and those who directly develop others

5. Reflection and Assessment — One personal reflection prompt connected to the chapter’s assessment tool

6. Ideas for Action — One clear 24-hour challenge and a curated multimedia resource to extend learning

   Click here for the WYJ? assessments!

“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”

— A.A. Milne

Chasing Influence: Transformational Coaching to Build Champions for Life and What’s Your Juice? Unlock the Energy that Transforms Performance, Fuels Purpose, and Ignites the People Around You are now available on Amazon and Audible!

The Letter You Haven’t Written

Earlier this spring marked 22 years since Pat Tillman was killed in Afghanistan. He walked away from a multimillion-dollar NFL contract to enlist after 9/11. If you’re not familiar with Tillman’s story, that tells you most of what you need to know about him. Before he shipped out for his final deployment, he quietly placed a sealed letter on the dresser for his wife, Marie. Left there with the hope she’d never have reason to open it.

He called it a “just in case” letter.

It’s a sobering and remarkable story. Not because the idea is sad, although it is, rather because of what that kind of letter forces a person to do. It filters through everything that doesn’t matter and leaves you staring at what does.

It’s a question for all of us — especially this Memorial Day weekend.

If you had to write that letter tonight, what would make it onto that page?

I don’t mean what sounds right. Not the things we rehearse when someone puts a microphone in front of us. I mean what’s true. When time feels short, even hypothetically, we get serious and we get real. We don’t talk about our possessions, titles, or impressive exploits that fill our days.

We get clarity and we think about people — our relationships — and what difference we’ve made in this world.

Who would you write your letter to? Your spouse, kids, a parent, or a friend? When you think of that person, what would you want to tell them?

My guess is it wouldn’t be a list of your accomplishments. Most think to how they helped others and how they made others feel. Whether we showed up. Whether the people closest to us knew that they mattered. No matter the level of success, in the end it’s not about being remembered for what we achieved.

And if that’s true, it raises a harder question than the letter itself.

If you already know what matters most ... what are you waiting for?

We operate on a quiet assumption that the people we love can feel our intentions even when we don’t say them. That our presence does the work our words never quite get around to. Maybe it does. But there’s something a letter does that presence alone cannot. It says: I thought about you on purpose and wrote these words. I wanted you to have them. That lands differently and the people who hear it feel the difference.

When I imagine writing mine, I still don’t know how I’d fill the page. I’m still working on that. But I do know I will start with what I’ve been given — the people and the moments with them. I think about the people who believed in me before I could see it in myself. About what I’ve wanted them to know and kept meaning to say.

The clarity that feels reserved for life’s most urgent moments is already available to us. We don’t need a tragedy or a diagnosis or a deployment to find it. We just have to stop assuming tomorrow is guaranteed and start treating today’s ordinary conversations like they might be the ones that matter most.

Maybe the exercise isn’t really about the letter at all. Think of it as an honest accounting of what matters, who matters, and what's still left unsaid. What would yours reveal?

The men and women we honor this weekend understood something about time that most of us are still learning. They made their choices — about service, about sacrifice, about what was worth everything — with full knowledge that tomorrow wasn’t promised. The least we can do is take that seriously.

Your legacy isn’t sealed at some distant finish line; it’s being written right now, in the conversations you choose to have and the ones you keep postponing. In the people you prioritize.

Who deserves to hear that they matter, that you care about them, or that you are grateful for them? Write the letter before it’s too late.

Connecting this quote to the story. The words we share and the love we express continue to live inside others long after we're gone.

This week’s Chasing Influence tip: Don't assume people know how much they matter to you, tell them while you still can.

“You’ve always had the power, my dear. You just had to learn it for yourself.”

— Glinda the Good Witch

Chasing Influence: Transformational Coaching to Build Champions for Life and What’s Your Juice? Unlock the Energy that Transforms Performance, Fuels Purpose, and Ignites the People Around You are now available on Amazon and Audible!

Staring Out the Window

Every one of us knows someone who seems to have an answer for everything that’s wrong in their life. The boss. The refs. Their childhood. Their luck. Their teammates. The economy. Maybe, if we’re honest, sometimes that person is us.

We’ve all looked through the window and found someone or something else to blame for where we are, how we feel, or why things didn’t work out. And to be fair, sometimes the world is unfair. Bad breaks happen, people let us down, and circumstances can be incredibly difficult.

But if it’s always someone else’s fault, you’ll never get better.

Improvement begins the moment you believe you can improve. That’s where growth starts. It isn’t talent or resources, and you don’t need perfect conditions. You need that belief.

In Good to Great, author Jim Collins talks about the idea of windows and mirrors. When things go wrong, leaders look in the mirror first. When things go right, they look out the window and give credit to others.

Every day, whether we’re coaching a team, raising kids, building a business, trying to stay healthy, or just trying to become a little better than we were yesterday, we’re making a choice of looking in a mirror or through a window. The window is easy, but the mirror is what gives you the feedback you need.

The window tells you people are out to get me … nothing ever works out … I can’t catch a break … this is just meant to be.

The mirror asks you what can I do better … how did I contribute to this … what can I learn … what’s one thing I can control right now? Albeit harder, that is a much more productive conversation. It’s also the conversation that leads to something meaningful.

One of the best frameworks I’ve heard comes from Mark Gibson. He asks three simple questions: What do I want? How am I going to get it? And when am I going to do something about it?

Most people get stuck on the third question.

Because “someday” feels safe. We’ll start after the season, after vacation, after things calm down, after the new year, or after life becomes easier.

But improvement doesn’t happen in “someday.” It happens the moment someone decides: I’m going to take ownership of my life now. That’s how growth works. You have to believe improvement is possible before you’ll ever put in the effort required to pursue it.

And maybe that’s the real danger of always looking through the window. Blame feels protective in the moment, but over time it quietly convinces us we’re powerless.

The mirror does the opposite. The mirror reminds us we still have influence. Still have agency. Still have a choice. Still have room to grow.

That doesn’t mean beating yourself up or carrying guilt for everything that goes wrong. It means refusing to surrender the future to excuses.

One of my favorite lines from What’s Your Juice? says: “Your beliefs shape everything — your confidence, your performance, your potential.” That’s true in sports, leadership, parenting, relationships … in life. Because eventually, the stories we tell ourselves become the lives we live.

So maybe today is a good day to stop staring out the window.

Maybe today is the day to look in the mirror — not with shame, but with ownership. To ask: Do I want to improve? Do I believe I can improve? And if the answer is yes … when am I going to do something about it?

Hopefully today. Growth starts the moment we stop looking for someone else to blame.

Connecting this quote to the story. Growth begins the moment we stop waiting for someone else to steer our lives and take ownership of the role we played in getting us to where we are today.

This week’s Chasing Influence tip: The fastest way to improve is to spend less time looking for blame and more time looking for responsibility.

“It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.”

— Epictetus

Chasing Influence: Transformational Coaching to Build Champions for Life and What’s Your Juice? Unlock the Energy that Transforms Performance, Fuels Purpose, and Ignites the People Around You are now available on Amazon and Audible!

Waiting for Orders

In March of 1974, somewhere in the Philippine jungle, a man stepped out of the jungle. He’s thin, weathered, carrying a rifle he hasn’t put down in decades. His uniform is worn but intact, his posture is rigid, and his eyes are steely with resolve.

He’s been waiting, not to be rescued, but for World War II orders he never received.

Nearly thirty years earlier, Hiroo Onoda had been given a simple command: hold your position, never surrender, and never stop fighting. Onoda seems to have taken these orders pretty seriously … and he followed them to the letter. When leaflets were dropped from planes telling him the war was over, he thought it was enemy propaganda. When his own family sent messages begging him to come home, he assumed they’d been coerced. When former comrades searched for him and pleaded with him to stand down, he turned them away too—because none of it came from the one person who had the authority to end it.

Then, in 1974, that person finally came. Onoda’s former commanding officer, now an elderly man living a civilian life, made the journey into the jungle, stood in front of his soldier, and issued the only order that could end the war. Stand down.

Onoda wept and laid down his rifle. Just like that, the war was finally over. It didn’t end with a climactic battle, but rather with a long-overdue change in beliefs.

For nearly thirty years, the truth had been delivered to him in every form imaginable. However, long before any of those leaflets fell, Onoda had decided what truth was allowed to look like. His belief became a filter, screening out anything that contradicted it. He was certain of that truth, and that certainty made him unreachable.

His story is incredible and unbelievable in many ways. The pattern is not.

About a century earlier, a Hungarian physician named Ignaz Semmelweis noticed something that should have been obvious to everyone around him. Women in maternity wards were dying at alarming rates—especially where doctors moved directly from performing autopsies to delivering babies. His solution was simple: wash your hands. When doctors in his ward began doing so, the death rates dropped nearly overnight.

Yet, amazingly, the medical community rejected Semmelweis's findings and recommendations. The implications of his findings meant doctors had been unknowingly causing harm, and they were unwilling to accept that as truth. So they made arguments against him and continued on. Semmelweis died discredited. They couldn’t adjust their beliefs, no matter the evidence or the harm. It was the same filter, in a different jungle.

There’s a part of Onoda’s story that’s easy to skip past, but we shouldn’t. During those thirty years, he was still fighting a war inside his own mind … and in the jungle around him. Filipino civilians and soldiers were killed. His loyalty caused real harm, making this more than a story about remarkable persistence. It’s a story about what happens when commitment outlasts truth.

We have all seen versions of this that didn’t happen in hospitals or jungles. They happen in conference rooms, team meetings, and side conversations. A leader clinging to a strategy that stopped working years ago, who doesn’t know how to call it off. A team executing a plan everyone privately knows is broken, because no one wants to be the person who says so out loud. A person staying in a role, a relationship, or a version of themselves they’ve already outgrown—waiting for someone else to give them permission to move on. It’s not about effort or discipline. It’s about being clear-minded enough to let the signal get through and to notice and adapt to the ever-changing world around us.

Belief is the most powerful tool we possess. It can carry you through things that would stop most people in their tracks. But when belief stops adapting, it stops serving, and when it hardens into our identity, it stops listening altogether. Truth remains available; we just need to know how to recognize it when it’s standing right in front of us.

Are you still fighting a war that’s already over? And, are the people around you able to reach you if you are?

Connecting this quote to the story. Onoda’s unwavering loyalty to a single belief, that the war was still being fought, made him unable to recognize the truth even when it was repeatedly presented to him.

This week’s Chasing Influence tip: If your team can’t challenge the plan, the plan becomes the problem.

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.”

— Shunryu Suzuki

What’s Your Juice? Unlock the Energy that Transforms Performance, Fuels Purpose, and Ignites the People Around You is now available on Amazon and now on Audible!

Parts of this week’s story are shared in Chasing Influence: Transformational Coaching to Build Champions for Life. (Thanks, Missy Townsend!)

The White Belt

Over the course of thirty years and hundreds of millions of bags, Kansai International Airport in Osaka, Japan, hasn’t lost a single one of them. When NPR reported it a couple of years ago, most people assumed it must be an exaggeration or a fun story. It wasn’t.

Tsuyoshi Habuta, the airport’s chief of baggage operations, takes the job very seriously. “Luggage is precious to passengers,” he explains. That belief shows up in everything he does. Fragile items are hand-delivered, bags are placed on the carousel with handles facing outward, and every piece of luggage is tracked, counted, and checked … multiple times.

The luggage record of Kansai Airport is a perfect example of commitment to mastery, the pursuit of steady growth, getting a little better—every day.

The Japanese have a word for this. It’s kaizen … continuous improvement through small refinements and relentless attention to detail. While the kaizen philosophy took hold in post-World War II Japan, rooted in American quality-control measures, legendary stories of kaizen go back much further.

An apocryphal tale from the late 1800s tells of a young educator named Jigoro Kano, who created a new martial art—Judo. He introduced the belt system, white for beginners, black for masters. Over time, Kano became the highest-ranked practitioner in the world. A 10th-degree black belt. A lifetime of mastery.

And then, near the end of his life, he made a final request. He asked to be buried … in a white belt. Not the symbol of mastery, but rather the symbol of a beginner. Because even at the end, he believed he still had something to learn.

That single decision might be the most powerful lesson he ever taught.

A paradox even the great leaders and coaches grapple with is understanding that mastery isn’t a finish line. A black belt doesn’t mean you’ve arrived. It means you’re finally ready to start paying attention. Being a leader doesn’t mean it’s time for others to serve you. It means it’s time for you to serve.

The leaders who leave the deepest mark aren’t the ones with all the answers. They’re the ones still taking notes, asking questions, learning when no one is watching … and serving.

That’s what makes the Kansai Airport so special. It isn’t talent or technology that makes the difference. It’s something each and every one of us has the ability to possess: a belief. A belief that no detail is too small, no process is above improvement, and nothing—no matter how ordinary—is beneath our care.

What would change if we led like that? What might change if instead of trying to be the expert in the room, we sought to be the one still learning?

It’s a lesson for all of us. Stay curious, open, and never be too proud to wear a beginner’s belt.

Connecting this quote to the story. Mastery begins when we let go of the need to be the expert.

This week’s Chasing Influence tip: The best leaders model learning, not knowing.

“Treat a person as they can and should be, and they will become what they can and should be.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

What’s Your Juice? Unlock the Energy that Transforms Performance, Fuels Purpose, and Ignites the People Around You is now available on Amazon and now on Audible!

Our Monster Study

At the height of the Great Depression, hundreds of thousands of American children lived in orphanages. Some had lost parents; many others had been placed there by families who simply couldn’t afford to feed them. There were no parents to look out for these children. No one to ask questions, push back, or take them home if something felt wrong. The young kids were dependent on the adults around them.

Which made them, as researchers of the era well understood, convenient subjects.

Imagine one of these kids in an Iowa orphanage in the 1930s. He doesn’t have much, but he does have one thing that comes naturally … his words. He talks, laughs, and tells stories without a second thought.

Then the adults around him start paying close attention to the way he talks.

They begin pointing out hesitations and stutters that don’t exist. They interrupt him more often and correct him mid-sentence and circle back to every small stumble. Over time, something begins to shift—not in his ability, but how he sees himself.

A new story starts to take hold. Something must be wrong with him. His words aren’t right and can’t be trusted. And before long, the voice that once came easily starts to lock up. The fluency disappears, and the confidence that used to carry him forward fades with it.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t an accident. It was a real experiment.

In the late 1930s, a University of Iowa speech pathologist named Wendell Johnson recruited orphaned children and split them into two groups. Half received encouragement and positive reinforcement. The other half were told, falsely, that they showed signs of stuttering, and then had their speech picked apart relentlessly, week after week.

Many in that second group developed real speech problems, along with emotional damage they carried for the rest of their lives. Johnson kept the study buried for decades, and when it finally surfaced in 2001 after Johnson had passed away, it was given a name that still feels too accurate: The Monster Study.

It’s easy to read a story like this and assume it belongs to a different time, under a different set of rules.

However, Wendell Johnson never saw himself as a monster. He believed he was doing meaningful work. What it seems he never fully recognized was what it means to hold influence over someone who trusts you; someone who has no reason not to believe what you tell them about themselves.

Doubt changes more than how people see themselves. It changes how we see them, too.

When we expect someone to struggle or fail, we subtly begin to treat them differently. We offer less support, even if we don’t realize it, we scrutinize more closely. We tend to jump in sooner, limit their opportunity to work through challenges, and often ease off the encouragement that helps people grow.

The person on the receiving end feels it all, and over time, it adds up. They start playing it safer and hesitate more. They shrink in moments where they used to step forward. And before long, they begin to confirm the very expectations that were placed on them.

We see this dynamic play out in sports all the time. Players whose coaches genuinely believe in them tend to get better instruction, more consistent feedback, and more room to develop and grow. Players who are quietly written off often receive less support, and more often than not, their performance reflects it.

The Monster Study is an extreme example, but the underlying truth shows up in much smaller ways every day for each of us … in practice, in the classroom, and around the dinner table.

Wendell Johnson thought he was running an experiment. He was … and so are you. What you believe about the people around you is already shaping them.

Connecting this quote to the story. The beliefs and labels we place on others often become the very identity and potential they grow into.

This week’s Chasing Influence tip: Think about the most important people in your life right now … your players, your kids, your team. What story are they telling themselves about who they are, and how much of that story came from you?

“Clarity precedes success.”

— Robin Sharma

What’s Your Juice? Unlock the Energy that Transforms Performance, Fuels Purpose, and Ignites the People Around You is now available on Amazon and now on Audible!

Know What You’re Looking For

January 2011. St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota.

I enjoy speaking opportunities and sharing new ideas with different groups. My three assistant coaches and I had just wrapped what I thought was one of the better presentations we’d given. Forty-five minutes on how we’d built a successful baseball program—the culture, the buy-in, some big wins. The coaches in the room were engaged. The energy was good. And I had one final move, it was a video clip I’d recently discovered that I was convinced would close the talk with a laugh and end our presentation on a high note.

There was just one problem. No A/V speakers.

The clip was in Italian and subtitled, but I felt the audio mattered. So the St. Olaf staff scrambled, found external speakers, got everything wired up, and we were off. I clicked to my final slide, leaned into the moment, and delivered my closing setup:

“In closing, I’ll leave you with these final thoughts. All of you possess the knowledge and tools to excel. It’s where you place your priorities, and what you emphasize within your program can make all the difference. You hold the secret in your hands—it is up to you to show them the way. Let me illustrate.”

I hit play.

A minute later: total silence.

Not polite silence or contemplative silence. Just … energy-draining pin-drop silence. A 45-minute presentation—one I was proud of—ended without so much as a polite chuckle.

I sheepishly closed my laptop. Thanked the room and filed that video away where I wouldn’t have to see it.

For fifteen years, I didn’t think about it (I may have even repressed it!).

Then, while preparing for a new presentation this past week, I found it again—buried in an old folder, exactly where I’d left it. I pulled it up and watched it. And I still thought it was funny, and it had a point worth making. I still believed in the clip and couldn’t believe it flopped so badly.

My wife did not share my confidence.

She thought trying it again was a questionable idea. In fact, we put a bet on it— that no one would laugh. With that friendly wager, I had some stakes on the line and something to prove. More than that, I had fifteen years of experiences to help me understand why it had failed the first time.

So here’s what I need you to do before this post goes any further. Watch this one-minute clip to help me settle my bet.

(You can click here if the link above didn’t work.)

Apologies for my attempts at humor :)

But when I showed that clip to a room full of coaches a week ago—same type of audience, same video, fifteen years later—they laughed heartily and clapped as the presentation came to a close.

My wife owes me.

The video hadn't changed. It was the same clip, Italian comedy, donkey, and punchline. What changed was what I brought to the clip this time.

The second time, I told the room they had to laugh—because I had a bet with my wife riding on it (the bet’s rules said nothing about my ability to do this—sorry, Rebecca!).

Suddenly, the room was invested, and there were some stakes for all of us. Before I hit play, I told them exactly what lens to watch it through. I didn’t leave the interpretation up to chance and I controlled the frame. When it was over, I gave the the punchline they’d been primed to receive:

In 2011, I handed them a video and hoped they’d figure it out.

In 2026, I handed them a lens first, and the video did exactly what I had originally thought it could.

The content was never the problem. It rarely is.

What I’ve learned after decades of coaching and leading is that people don’t struggle because they lack the tools. They struggle because they haven’t been shown how to look at what’s right in front of them. That’s our job. Not just to have the answer, but to help people find the angle, lift what’s in the way, and see clearly. Just like the man in the video. He was solving the problem in front of him, and he knew what he was looking for.

Preparation and framing matters, and so does our clarity of intention. The quality of how you show up … how you set the table, how you guide the eye, how you create the conditions for people to receive what you’re offering … that is the work.

Fifteen years is a long time to sit on a lesson. But some things are worth the wait—as long as you’re willing to figure out what you were missing the first time.

What are you looking for? And more importantly, are the people you lead, coach, and serve able to see it too?

Connecting this quote to the story. People won’t see the lesson until you help them prepare for it. The first time I showed the video, the audience wasn’t prepared to understand what they were seeing, but the second time, they had the needed lens and could see the message that had been missed the first time I delivered it.

This week’s Chasing Influence tip: Don’t just give people the answer—help them see it.

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

— Annie Dillard

What’s Your Juice? Unlock the Energy that Transforms Performance, Fuels Purpose, and Ignites the People Around You is now available on Amazon and now on Audible!

Still on the Air

It was the Fourth of July, and Uncle Jerry was ready.

He loved the holiday the way only a Korean War veteran who had spent his life learning history could love it—it meant something. The family was assembled on the beach by the lake, young and old, and Jerry carried a bulging bag of fireworks down to the dock. It would be a majestic display, the kind that would make his mother, Grandma Violet, beam with pride and exclaim, “Well, isn’t that something!”

Then a spark from his punk fell into the paper bag.

What happened next has been talked about and debated for nearly fifty years. Fireworks erupted in every direction. Kids ran for cover. Grandma Violet dove behind the embankment. And my godfather—hard-working, proud Jerry, a man who never wore shorts—jumped right in the lake.

For about twenty years afterward, he didn’t admit that any of it had ever happened.

What the fireworks don’t tell you is what his hands could do when they weren’t fumbling a lighted punk. Among many things, Jerry was a leatherworker. When I was a kid, he made me a belt. It wasn’t any ordinary belt; it was a full Hulk Hogan WWF championship-style belt, the kind any kid of the 80s would wear like a true Hulkamaniac. Made by hand, with care and love.

Jerry passed away this week at 93, after a full and wonderful life.

Researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky describes lasting happiness quite simply. The experience of positive emotion, combined with a deep sense that your life is good. Not perfect or easy, but good. Jerry had both. Not because his life was without adversity. He served in Korea, worked hard, and lost loved ones too soon. But he was oriented toward life in a way that generated joy around him, even if it meant diving for cover along the way.

That kind of life doesn’t happen by accident. It’s a choice, made daily, to show up and contribute.

Researchers who study aging have consistently found that what people want most at the end of their lives isn’t about recognition, status, or a résumé. It’s the deep desire to pass something forward, to know that what you did and knew and loved will outlast you (something called generativity). This drive to shape the next generation is one of the strongest predictors of purpose and life satisfaction in older adults. At the end, what matters is impact. How you helped, what you passed on, who carries something of yours forward.

Jerry did this for decades from behind a microphone.

He was a radio man by trade. He gave farm reports and sat behind that mic putting his voice, his knowledge, and his stories out into the world so others could learn and benefit. He once told his listeners he was thinking of starting a coin collection, and the pennies came rolling in. Long before podcasts and platforms, Jerry knew that stories are only worth something when they reach people.

The Hulk Hogan belt reached me. I hope the fireworks story reaches his grandchildren’s grandchildren. The farm reports reached farmers who needed to know what was coming.

Jerry would broadcast his stories.

We are all broadcasting something. Every conversation is a transmission. Every time you sit with someone earlier in the journey and share what you’ve learned, you’re doing what Jerry did behind that microphone. And every time you stay quiet because the moment feels small, or because you don’t think your story matters enough, you’re leaving the airwaves empty.

Jerry was a coin collector, a leatherworker, a veteran, a radio man who loved horses and history and his family. He made things with his hands that carried his love forward, and he told his stories so others could learn.

Performative influence will fade. Lived influence becomes a fireworks story that lasts fifty years.

What are you broadcasting? And who needs to hear it?

Connecting this quote to the story. What truly lasts isn’t the moment itself, but the stories, values, and impact we passed on to others … long after we are gone.

This week’s Chasing Influence tip: The way you show up today becomes the story someone else tells tomorrow. Make it count.

“The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.”

— Albert Einstein

What’s Your Juice? Unlock the Energy that Transforms Performance, Fuels Purpose, and Ignites the People Around You is now available on Amazon and now on Audible!

A Reboot is Required

My best thinking almost never happens at my desk.

It shows up in the shower, staring at a campfire, or on a long bike ride without earbuds. I’ll even admit standing at the toilet has generated more than a few breakthroughs I’m not prepared to explain.

With my mind free of distraction, a thought surfaces—it might be a connection previously unmade, a new path forward, or an unexpected answer to a question I’d been grappling with.

For a long time, I thought it was the universe providing an answer. The idea just seemed to come to me at the right time.

There’s a better answer, and science has it.

In the late 1990s, neurologist Marcus Raichle was running brain scans, expecting to find that the brain would quiet down during rest. What he found was that certain brain regions actually light up brighter when people aren’t focused on tasks. Rather than idling down, the brain shifts into a different kind of work. Raichle called it the Default Mode Network (DMN) since it seemed to be what the brain does by default when you step back and give it some room.

What happens in that space? The things that matter most.

The Default Mode Network is where we do our deepest creative thinking. It’s where we connect ideas that don’t seem related on the surface and find the human wisdom that AI can’t reach. It’s also where we process emotions, develop empathy, think about the people around us, imagine the future, and ask the bigger questions about who we are and what we’re doing here. Research tells us that the DMN is central to how we develop a sense of purpose in our personal and professional lives.

And right now, most of us aren’t letting our Default Mode Network run.

Every quiet moment has become an invitation to reach for a phone. The line at the coffee shop, the few should-be quiet minutes before sleep, the quick walk at work. As soon as boredom arrives, we jump on our phones and the Default Mode Network is silenced.

That has consequences. The DMN needs idle time to activate; if we are giving the brain a constant stream of external input, the deeper work never happens. We’re constantly consuming … and quietly losing the ability to think for ourselves.

This happened to us slowly without even realizing it. We didn’t see what we were giving away by constantly seeking stimulation. Social media, video games, and our entertainment platforms are engineered to fill the spaces where the brain’s most important work takes place.

The fix doesn’t need to be drastic. You don’t need a retreat, a vow of digital silence, a regimen of forest bathing, or an overhaul of how you live. You need what boredom used to give you for free.

Leave the podcast behind on your next walk. Let the shower be quiet. Sit in the car for an extra two minutes after you park and let your mind go wherever it wants to go. When boredom arrives, sit with it rather than fill it. When you do, be sure to keep something nearby to capture those thoughts and ideas when they arrive, because the Default Mode Network doesn’t hold its deliveries long.

The best ideas I’ve ever had showed up in the quiet. I would bet the same is true for you. Not at the desk, not in the meeting, not mid-scroll, but in the space between. That’s when our brain does exactly what it evolved to do, when given the chance.

You already know how to reboot a frozen computer. Your mind deserves the same courtesy.

Connecting this quote to the story. When we stop filling every moment, we create space for the answers we’ve been searching for to find us.

This week’s Chasing Influence tip: You know how to reboot a frozen computer. Your mind might be waiting for you to do the same.

“What is important is seldom urgent, and what is urgent is seldom important.”

— Dwight D. Eisenhower

What’s Your Juice? Unlock the Energy that Transforms Performance, Fuels Purpose, and Ignites the People Around You is now available on Amazon and now on Audible!

The Trap of the Urgent

I had this Post-it note on my desk for the longest time with an idea for future exploration. It simply said: Eisenhower Matrix. I’m not sure exactly when I wrote it. It’s been long enough that it isn’t so sticky anymore, it’s started to fade, and the corners have turned. Every now and then I’d look at it, think yes, I need to do that, and then something more pressing would show up and I’d move on.

So here we now are. The note has finally won. And I have a new appreciation for its irony.

Eisenhower had a note of his own.

He had written it the night before the invasion, folded it, and kept it in his pocket. It accepted full personal responsibility if D-Day failed. While thousands of details screamed for his attention—changing weather reports, incomplete intelligence, the staggering logistics required to move 150,000 soldiers across the English Channel—Eisenhower had already done the thing only he could do. He had made the decision and quietly prepared to own the outcome, whatever it was. His attention was on what mattered the most.

Later in life, Eisenhower distilled his approach into a simple framework, known as the Eisenhower Matrix. It sorts the demands on our time into four categories: urgent and important, important but not urgent, urgent but not important, and neither.

Most of us bounce between the urgent categories. Emails, notifications, deadlines, requests … our days fill quickly with things that feel pressing but don’t really move our lives forward.

I’ll be honest, for those who know me well, practicing patience can sometimes be a challenge. And I think I know why. Years of working as an activities director has programmed me to live in the urgent. The job demands it. There are scores of details that must be attended to … and accurately. One mistake can mean a team doesn’t show up, referees aren’t scheduled, a bus never arrives. And if that happens, a game doesn’t happen—a very public mistake that impacts and upsets hundreds of people, some of whom may have traveled a significant distance for an event that simply isn’t there. Most jobs don’t carry that kind of time-bound, public accountability. It trains you to be a firefighter, rushing from one burning issue to the next, and after enough years, urgency stops feeling like pressure. It starts feeling like purpose.

Someone put it this way recently, “The best thing about banging your head against the wall is the way it feels when you stop.” We laugh because we recognize it. Most of us spend entire days trying to finish urgent things, and we’ve confused the relief of stopping with the satisfaction of living in the moment.

Eisenhower knew that the most meaningful work, the kind that shapes who we become and what we leave behind, rarely screams for attention. It waits in that second quadrant: important but not urgent. And if we keep ignoring it, it doesn’t stay quiet forever. Urgency has a way of showing up loudly later when importance is neglected now.

The important things will never fight for your attention the way the urgent ones do. They don’t have that kind of voice. They need you to choose them.

Great leaders are disciplined about protecting space for what matters most—to think, prepare, and invest in others—because they understand that influence is built in important moments, not necessarily the urgent ones.

I’m glad I finally picked that Post-it note back up. The life you want, the relationships you value, the legacy you hope to leave—they rarely come from reacting. They come from choosing.

The fires will always be there. What I’ve learned—sometimes the hard way—is that the most important work has never asked me to hurry.

Connecting this quote to the story. Eisenhower’s success came from intentionally prioritizing and protecting time for the most important decisions, which would shape the outcome.

This week’s Chasing Influence tip: Consciously guard time for what is important before urgency steals it from you.

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

— Marcel Proust

What’s Your Juice? Unlock the Energy that Transforms Performance, Fuels Purpose, and Ignites the People Around You is now available on Amazon and now on Audible!

The Shot Nobody Planned

Christmas Eve, 1968. William Anders was looking out the window of his Apollo spacecraft orbiting the Moon when something unexpected appeared on the horizon.

At first, it was just a sliver of color against the gray landscape. Then more of it rose into view. Anders grabbed his camera. Click. The photograph he captured would become one of the most viewed images in human history. It is called Earthrise.

Anders was part of Apollo 8, the first crewed mission to orbit the Moon, and by any measure the mission was already historic. The goals were to test the spacecraft, photograph potential lunar landing sites, and prove the journey was possible. It had taken hundreds of thousands of people working together to get three astronauts to that moment.

Nobody planned the photograph. It wasn’t on a checklist. It was someone being fully present in an extraordinary moment, who had the awareness to recognize what he was seeing—and then the instinct to act.

The ripple that followed is staggering. That singular image transformed how humanity saw itself. For the first time, people didn’t see a map with borders and nations—they saw one small, fragile world floating alone in an endless void. Something shifted in the collective consciousness. Within 16 months of the photograph being shared, Earth Day was celebrated for the first time, the Environmental Protection Agency was established, and the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts were passed.

As Anders later reflected, “We came all this way to explore the Moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered Earth.”

He went to the Moon to complete a clearly defined mission. He accidentally changed the world by being present for a single unplanned moment.

Anders showed that your most powerful ripple may not come from your most prepared moment. It may not come from the presentation you rehearsed, the plan you built, or the agenda you executed perfectly. It may come from a quiet, everyday morning when you said exactly the right thing to someone who needed it. Or from a conversation you almost skipped. It might be a moment you never saw coming, but were fully present for.

Four hundred thousand people made Apollo 8 possible. But it was a single person, looking out one window at the right moment, who created the image that outlasted the mission itself.

Most of us will probably never orbit the Moon. But all of us are showing up to moments every day—whether in classrooms, locker rooms, conference rooms, living rooms, or Zoom calls—that carry more potential than we realize. These moments exist for all of us … are we present enough to recognize them when they arrive?

You can’t plan the shot that changes everything. But you can be ready to take it.

Think about the most meaningful impact you’ve ever had on someone—the moment that mattered most to the people you lead or serve. Was it a carefully planned scheme, or was it something smaller, quieter, more human? What does that tell you about where your real influence lives?

Connecting this quote to the story. The greatest influence we have can come from simply being present enough to notice the moment.

This week’s Chasing Influence tip: Influence doesn’t come from the moments you prepare for; it often comes from moments you’re present enough to recognize.

“Everyone you meet knows something you don’t.”

— Bill Nye

What’s Your Juice? Unlock the Energy that Transforms Performance, Fuels Purpose, and Ignites the People Around You is now available on Amazon and now on Audible!

What Did You Learn the Teacher?

That’s the question my grandfather asked his grandkids every day after school. We all spent years thinking he had it wrong.

My brothers and I would burst through the door, hoping to find him waiting. He was a farmer, house painter, and trapper who lived his entire life in well-worn overalls—a man who measured his days in work done. And every time we came running to him, he’d greet us with a twinkle in his eye and ask the same question: “What did you learn the teacher today?”

We’d laugh and correct him. “Grandpa, we didn’t teach the teacher!” He’d smile like he knew something we didn’t … because he did.

He wasn’t making a grammatical mistake. In his fun and silly way, he was making a statement about how he saw the world. To him, everyone, no matter their age, background, or station in life, had something valuable to give. Even us kids, barely tall enough to see over the kitchen counter, had experiences and perspectives that could benefit the adults around us. Including our teachers—and him.

Most of us strive to spend our lives in learning mode. Consuming wisdom, seeking the next insight, seeking mentors to sharpen our edge. A growth mindset is powerful. However, my grandfather lived something that takes most people a lifetime to discover, growth that stays inside you is only half the story.

Living a meaningful and others-centered life is beyond asking “How can I improve?” It’s “How can my improvement serve someone else?”

That’s the twist from a growth mindset to a contributor’s mindset, and it changes everything.

A contributor’s mindset shows up in three simple ways. A. You walk into every room asking what you can add, not just what you can learn. B. You treat every interaction as a chance to lift someone else, and C. You end each day with one honest question: Did I leave people better today?

My grandfather lived and died in a small town, painting houses and doing various odd jobs to make ends meet. Every day, in those worn overalls, he showed us what it looked like to live a life asking not what you could take, but how you could help.

That’s a contributor’s mindset. Influence showing up in overalls and work gloves, asking the right question, and waiting for you to grow into the answer.

What will you teach the teacher today?

Connecting this quote to the story. Each of us has something valuable to contribute, and leadership begins when we start asking what we can give, not only what we can learn.

This week’s Chasing Influence tip: Walk into every room wondering, how can I leave this place better than I found it?

“It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.”

— Mark Twain

What’s Your Juice? Unlock the Energy that Transforms Performance, Fuels Purpose, and Ignites the People Around You is now available on Amazon and now on Audible!

Where’s that Damned Cat?

There once was a mouse who lived in a tavern. One night the mouse found a leaky barrel of beer and drank all he could hold. When he finished, he sat up, twirled his whiskers, and looked around arrogantly. “Now then,” he said, “where’s that damned cat?”

There's an old saying: perception is reality. For the people watching and listening to you, that's true … and it matters enormously. But if your own perception loses touch with reality, that same principle becomes the most dangerous idea in the room.

The mouse from the opening story didn’t understand this.

And, we’ve all met that mouse, or maybe even been that mouse. A big win, a great quarter, a standing ovation … suddenly we’re twirling our whiskers, puffing out our chest, and looking for cats we were scared of earlier. Nothing in that room changed, except the mouse's willingness to see it clearly. And that’s a dangerous place to lead from.

The mouse wasn’t magically stronger after tipping back some beers. The cat didn’t get smaller. The matchup didn’t change beyond the mouse’s clarity of his odds.

That’s what hubris does. It doesn’t eliminate threats; it dulls your awareness of them. An inflated ego disguises itself as confidence and quietly convinces you that the hard-earned lessons life gave you no longer apply. You’ve arrived, earned it, and nothing can stop you now.

But the cat is still there.

Those with the greatest influence carry their success lightly. They stay curious and coachable. They keep asking hard questions, especially when things are going well. Humility gives clarity. It’s the discipline of seeing reality as it is, not as you’d prefer it to be.

Mice that go looking for cats don’t usually get to tell the story.

When you’re a mouse leading other mice, the barrel of beer doesn’t just affect you. A leader’s inflated confidence can become the group’s collective blind spot.

We’ve seen it in locker rooms where early success turns into overconfidence and preparation quietly slips. Or in organizations where a few strong years harden into entitlement, and leaders stop listening to the warning signs around them. Confidence is essential—it’s contagious and energizing—but it must be sustained by competence. By the work, preparation, and honest assessment of where you actually stand.

The best leaders celebrate with their people and then get back to work. Stay humble, lead with earned confidence, and let discipline move you—not the moment. Because when perception drifts too far from reality, it isn’t the cat that becomes dangerous. It’s you.

Connecting this quote to the story. The mouse wasn’t facing a new cat … he was facing his own unchecked ego, and the real battle wasn’t against the threat in the room but against the inflated version of himself that believed he was invincible.

This week’s Chasing Influence tip: Don’t let a little success intoxicate your judgment.

“Success is never final. Failure is never fatal. It’s courage that counts.”

— Winston Churchill

What’s Your Juice? Unlock the Energy that Transforms Performance, Fuels Purpose, and Ignites the People Around You is now available on Amazon and now on Audible!

The Last One Off the Ice

High school playoffs bring the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. I saw this happen in a packed arena this week.

The final buzzer had sounded, and with it, a season. For many, it ended a lifetime of youthful joy—moments forged with teammates whose bond had long since blurred into something deeper than friendship.

The top seed had fallen and it was an upset not many saw coming. Both teams had filed off the ice, the officials were gone, the arena was emptying, but one player remained.

He stood there, alone on the ice, unable to leave it. Maybe because leaving meant it was real. Maybe because that ice—that cold, hard, unforgiving surface—had been his sanctuary for as long as he could remember. And this was the last time he’d stand on it wearing that jersey.

His coach waited at the door. Patient. Silent. Not checking a phone. Just ... present. Because a good coach knows that some moments aren’t about strategy or performance. They’re about being there.

Then came his dad.

He moved quickly—the kind of purposeful stride a parent makes when they don’t quite know what they’ll say but know they need to say something. The high school hockey player was emotional. Exposed in that very public, very lonely way that only athletes who have just lost something know.

And then his dad said it, firm … and caring.

“Head up. You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. You left it all out there. We are all so proud of you.”

The floodgates opened. The player skated to the door, and they hugged, a hug that said everything the words couldn't, in full view of anyone still watching. It was private in every way that mattered.

And there was coach, right beside them, ready to walk him to the locker room. Not ahead. Not behind. Alongside. With a hand on his shoulder.

I’ve been thinking a lot about that moment. I’ve experienced that same feeling many times, and now I was watching it. What do you say? What do you do?

We live in a world obsessed with outcomes and in that framework, what happened that night was simple: they lost, season over, story done. But what I witnessed wasn't a loss. It was a reminder of what all of this, the practices, the seasons, the sacrifices, was really for.

The coach who wouldn’t leave his player alone. The dad who didn’t lead with “get off the ice!” or “toughen up!”—but with unconditional care and pride. The kind that says: I see you and I love you.

There are two great motivators available to all of us: fear and love. Fear would have had that dad arrive with questions, criticism, or uncomfortable silence. Fear would have had that coach already in the locker room managing the chaos. Fear would have told that young man that losing means he failed.

Love did something different. Love waited on the ice, and it walked quickly across an arena to say the right thing. Love put an arm around a kid and walked him somewhere hard.

The outcome of the game didn’t change. It never does. But love shaped everything that happened after that buzzer sounded. It always does.

Who in your life is still standing on the ice—long after everyone else has left—waiting to see what you’ll do next? Will you rush past them toward whatever comes next? Or will you stop, look them in the eye, and choose love?

The game will end. What happens next is up to you.

Connecting this quote to the story. Love doesn’t erase defeat; it transforms what defeat means.

This week’s Chasing Influence tip: At the end of the day, people won’t remember the score. They’ll remember how you showed up.

“You cannot always control what goes on outside. But you can always control what goes on inside.”

— Wayne Dyer

What’s Your Juice? Unlock the Energy that Transforms Performance, Fuels Purpose, and Ignites the People Around You is now available on Amazon and now on Audible!

This story is adapted from What’s Your Juice?

The Great (Ant) Escape

Some of the best leadership lessons don’t come from boardrooms or business books (or newsletters!). Sometimes, they come from a mayonnaise jar, a piece of pantyhose, and a classroom full of ants.

Let me explain.

When I was in elementary school, growing up in the heart of the Upper Midwest’s farm country, I had a science project that required building an ant colony. Simple enough, right?

Or so I thought.

I walked down a dirt road cutting through farm fields by my house until I found a bustling ant mound. I scooped up some promising dirt filled with ants and carefully moved my “subjects” into a glass mayonnaise jar. I then stretched a piece of nylon pantyhose over the top, secured it with a rubber band, and had my homemade ant farm.

We were off to a great start. Although the ants didn’t seem too happy to be in there, I was confident this was going to be the greatest ant farm anyone had ever seen. I couldn’t wait to show off these feisty ants to my classmates and teacher. After the proud reveal, I left my ant farm at school for the night, excited to return the next day and see the progress.

That next morning, I walked into class to find no ants in the jar. My prized insects were gone.

What I had unknowingly captured were cornfield ants—industrious, determined little devils with a natural drive to be free that far exceeded my elementary abilities to contain them. They had chewed straight through the nylon and vanished into the school.

I never did find out what happened to them after their great escape. It became an unspoken secret between my teacher and me; a quiet understanding that some forces simply cannot, and perhaps should not, be contained. There were no re-dos for this project.

Looking back, I had focused all my energy on trying to control something whose very essence was to break free, rather than first understanding what I was truly dealing with.

The ants weren’t the problem. My approach was.

As a leader, I see this pattern play out constantly. We waste enormous energy trying to manage the unmanageable … trying to control outcomes, people, perceptions … instead of directing our efforts toward what we can actually influence. We grip tighter when we should be thinking smarter.

Real power isn’t managing everything; it is choosing what to manage.

On your team: Are you spending energy trying to contain someone whose drive and determination is actually their greatest asset, just needing better direction?

In your work: Are you gripping tightly to a process, a plan, or an outcome that keeps escaping your control no matter what you do?

In your own head: Are you exhausting yourself trying to control things that were never yours to control in the first place?

The most energized leaders I’ve ever known aren’t the ones who control the most. They’re the ones who’ve gotten really clear on what deserves their energy … and what doesn’t.

The ants are going to do what ants do. What are you going to do? That’s what you control.

Connecting this quote to the story. Over-control often backfires, costing you the very thing you’re trying to manage.

This week’s Chasing Influence tip: Understanding what you’re leading matters more than controlling it.

“We suffer more in imagination than in reality.”

— Seneca

What’s Your Juice? Unlock the Energy that Transforms Performance, Fuels Purpose, and Ignites the People Around You is now available on Amazon and now on Audible!

Running to the Roar

I have always enjoyed Saturday morning nature programs on TV. You can learn a lot from Mother Nature, and I love to see animals I might not otherwise see unless I'm visiting a zoo.

In both cases, I enjoy and appreciate the safety of observing the wild kingdom from a safe place. If you’ve ever heard the full-throated roar of a lion in person, you’ll never forget it. Even separated by a zoo enclosure, your heart starts pounding.

Imagine you don’t have the reassurance of that safety glass for a moment. You’re standing in the tall grass of the African savanna. The air is still until it hits you—the deep, guttural roar of a lion shakes your body. Our built-in fight-or-flight response kicks in. Run … quickly … away from that sound.

That instinct seems safe and obvious. Get away from that noise.

That instinct to run away from the noise is exactly what gets you killed.

When a pride of lions hunts, the roar usually comes first. It’s loud, violent, impossible to miss. Older lions are often tasked with creating the heart-stopping noise that triggers panic. Meanwhile, the real hunters—the younger, faster lionesses—move silently. They don’t roar. They don’t make or chase noise. They go straight to the spot where the fleeing victims will run.

When prey bolts away from the roar, it runs straight into the ambush. The roar actually isn’t the threat. It creates a trap.

The animal kingdom is a constant teacher. We see this same situation play out in our everyday lives. We hear the roar of a difficult conversation and avoid it, a tough project appears and we steer clear, or change happens and we resist. We run away from the noise.

Unfortunately, the thing we’re running from doesn’t disappear. It circles, grows, and waits for you. Avoided conversations rot relationships, delayed decisions turn into crises, and ignored problems compound. The cost of avoidance is higher than the discomfort of action.

Running to the roar (rather than away from it) doesn’t mean being reckless. It means being clear-eyed and recognizing that what’s loud isn’t always what’s dangerous. Likewise, what’s quiet is often where the challenge lives. We can face our fears or be controlled by them.

We can learn to do hard, and we can do hard better. Every time you face what scares you instead of fleeing from it, you build capacity. Hard doesn’t disappear, but your ability to handle it grows.

What’s the thing you keep circling, the thought you push down, the decision you delay? The cost of avoidance is higher than the discomfort of action. Running from the roar only guarantees you’ll meet the ambush unprepared.

Run to the roar.

Connecting this quote to the story. Our stories are the psychological cave; what feels most intimidating to enter is often where growth, clarity, and breakthrough are waiting for us.

This week’s Chasing Influence tip: Address tension while it’s small.

“To lead people, walk beside them.”

— Lao Tzu

What’s Your Juice? Unlock the Energy that Transforms Performance, Fuels Purpose, and Ignites the People Around You is now available on Amazon and now on Audible!

Championship Actions are Louder than Words

The torch is lit, and we have two more weeks of the winter Olympics to enjoy—filled with world-class competition and heart-warming stories.

One story most know well will be told again. An unlikely group of American college hockey players. A dominant Soviet team. A gold medal that changed sports and history.

People know about the underdog story. Many know about the relentless conditioning, the bag skates, and the mental toughness that defined the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team. Some might even know the name Ralph Cox, the final player cut from the roster—the one who came within inches of experiencing the Miracle on Ice. And of course, there was Herb Brooks.

What few people know is that Herb Brooks understood the pain of sports better than anyone.

In 1960, Brooks was the last player cut from the U.S. Olympic team, which would go on to win gold without him. He knew what it felt like to be close enough to touch greatness and still be left behind, and he carried that understanding with him for the rest of his life.

Twenty years later, that memory resurfaced at the peak of his coaching career.

The United States was on the cusp of defeating Finland to capture the gold medal at the 1980 Olympics. As the final seconds ticked off the clock, Al Michaels counted down history. Gloves, sticks, and helmets littered the ice. Fans jumped over the glass. An enormous American flag was unfurled, and the celebration became a blur of noise and unfettered joy.

And in the middle of it all, Herb Brooks snuck away to find some quiet.

He quickly hugged his assistants, turned away from the ice, and quietly walked off the bench toward the locker room while everyone else celebrated.

For years, people wondered why. Why didn’t he stay? Why didn’t he rush the ice and celebrate with his players? Why didn’t he soak in the moment he had spent his entire life chasing? What was he thinking about?

Years later, Brooks was asked that last simple question: “When the final seconds ticked down, and you knew you were going to win the gold medal, what were you thinking about?”

The answer was unexpected. “I was thinking about Ralph Cox.”

He was about to win the gold medal and what was he thinking about? The last guy he cut from the team. Ralph Cox, the young man whose Olympic dream ended when Brooks cut him. Every leader can relate to that type of moment—maybe not of that magnitude, but we know the feeling.

Herb Brooks is often described as cold, stern, demanding, and intimidating. Those descriptions aren’t wrong. He was brilliant, calculated, and relentless. He pushed people to places they didn’t believe they could go. But in that moment, at the pinnacle of success, what surfaced wasn’t ego. It was empathy. It was memory. It was an understanding of the human cost that comes with leadership decisions.

He knew exactly what that felt like, because years earlier, he had been on the other side of that conversation.

Great leaders don’t erase pain. They acknowledge it, remember it, and allow it to inform how they lead, without letting it define them.

I didn’t understand that about Herb Brooks from Olympic footage or highlight reels. I was too young for that. I learned it years later on a cold night in the Willmar (Minn.) Civic Arena in the winter of 1986–87.

Brooks had recently been let go as the head coach of the New York Rangers and had returned to Minnesota to coach at St. Cloud State, helping lay the groundwork for the program’s transition from Division II to Division I. That night, with our breath fogging in the cold arena air, he wasn’t there as part of some promotion. He was avoiding attention and was simply watching a game.

Along the way, my keen-eyed brothers and I spotted him near the concession stand. He couldn’t have been nicer as he stopped, put his arms around us, and smiled for a photo with my brothers and me. It was just a small moment of humanness in a cold rink.

That’s the image of Herb Brooks that has stayed with me.

Leadership isn’t defined by the moments everyone sees. It shows up in the ones they don’t see. And when you succeed, pay attention to who you were thinking about when you got there.

As the celebration unfolded in 1980, Herb Brooks’ thoughts drifted away from the ice. Ralph Cox wasn’t part of the final roster, but his contributions and the standard he represented were still part of his story. And now, it’s part of our story.

Great leaders remember the ones who helped shape the moment, even if they weren’t there to celebrate it.

That’s influence. And it’s worth chasing.

Connecting this quote to the story. Coaching and leadership require trusting people with outcomes you can’t control, and living honestly with the consequences of that trust.

This week’s Chasing Influence tip: Remember all the people behind the outcome.