regret trees.

Two things I’ve loved over the years merged together today.

1. The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is today.

2. Regret is the most powerful negative emotion. It tells us what we value(d) and we can use that to inform our decisions today.

Listen, this no regrets shit is… just that. Shit. Of course, you have regrets. Of course, I do. And rather than bury them, think about them, analyze them, ponder them, and then use them to plant the tree you wished you had planted 20 years ago.

Today.

what percent?

I recently heard Stephen Dubner say something along the lines of, the amazing things about humans is that we are not binary. We should be taking advantage of that.

We are not creatures that are either liberal or conservative. We are not either social or capitalist. We are not theists or atheists. We are percentages.

Next time you’re in a conversation - I’m going to practice this as well - and a topic comes up, don’t ask if you’re for or against, ask what percent?

What percent pro-life are you?
What percent gun control are you?
What percent socialist are you?
What percent pro-ICE are you?
What percent anti-tariffs are you?

You get it. Very few people are 100% anything. And that means that, even if there is an only 5% match on something, it could be worth exploring that 5%, compared to just arguing binaries that probably don’t exist.

anger and fear and politics

In some recent “not sure either is great and I don’t even know how I feel…” studies, researches have found that anger shifts political beliefs more than fear. So… I guess if you want to change someone’s mind, get them angry more than afraid.

But, both work pretty great, so you’re probably good with either.

In other news, Trump arguably uses both more than any president in modern history which is why people will follow him off of a cliff. They are angry and afraid and he feeds them both.

And this all makes me wonder if one of the main problems of liberals is not admitting how afraid and angry we are. It’s almost looked down on - which makes sense in some ways - but it’s also a reality we often ignore with the optimism and go higher train. But we’re all afraid, just of different things as I said in this post in 2021.

And we’re all angry as well, just about different things.

So let’s all admit it. And talk more about it?

same old, same old.

Listened to an amazing podcast about the founding of the first megachurch (in the 20’s) and oh boy, it’s a fun one. Affairs, cover-ups, power grabs, you know… the usual... but this clip really got me.

America needs a tidal wave of the old time religion. America needs to be taken down to god’s bathhouse and the hose turned on her. And the time isn’t far distant when the wheels of god’s judgment go sweeping through this whole god hating world. I want to take a pledge and this audience to join me in a pledge that you will never rest until this old god-hating, christ-hating, whiskey soaked, sabbath breaking, blaspheming, infidel,  bootlegging old world is bound to cross of Jesus Christ by the golden chains of love.

That’s from 1926. Billy Sunday.

Holy shit, it’s just the same exact script for 100 years.

No wonder we’re all so exhausted from it.

Which oddly makes me feel better somehow.

they’re still here sadly.

I’m sure I’ve heard it, but when you’re living it, it just hits different. I’d always thought most of the church in Germany during the 40’s was fighting the Nazi regime - not supporting it (i.e. Bonhoeffer). But, I know that’s dumb the more I think about it. It was a perverse form of Christianity (or just Christianity depending on your views) that allowed Hitler to get to power and maintain it. Of course, a fair portion of the church had his back.

Just like the church has Trump’s back in regards to most things today - even those things that are so anti-Jesus it’s almost laughable. The irony is thick enough to choke on. Let’s be clear, it’s mostly the white evangelical church…. which might as well be called the Pharisees but, yeah, they’ve got his back.

This kind of stuff, of course, makes me really sad but I guess those power loving religious people haven’t ever really gone away despite Jesus’ best attempts.

artificial exhaustion.

I guess the exhaustion is not artificial but it is caused by an artificial intelligence. Which, by the way, can I digress for a moment? Isn’t it weird that we call it artificial intelligence? Artificial? Yes, the word means created by a human but it also means imitation or synthetic… a copy of a product used as a substitute.

Ok, so intelligence that is a substitute for actual intelligence.

Which brings me to my very real exhaustion.

I’m so sick of being told I will be left behind if I don’t get on board with AI or that it’s going to save us all, or kill us all. It’s truly exhausting, especially because it’s not very intelligent - it tells me I’m great way too much and it tells me wrong information way too much and it creates stupid videos that no one cares about way too much.

Came across this quote and thought I’d share - it helped my exhaustion. It’s from Andrej Karpathy and is directed toward coding - which is pretty amazing I’ll admit - but applies to everything.

Keep a very tight leash on this new over-eager junior intern savant with encyclopedic knowledge but who also bullshits you all the time, has an over-abundance of courage and shows little to no taste for what’s good. Keep an emphasis on being slow, defensive, careful, paranoid, and on always taking the inline learning opportunity, not delegating.

I love that last line. Always take the learning opportunity. Amen.

that sucked…

Yeah the Mariners were within 8 outs of winning their first ever American League championship and going to the World Series for the first time! They are the only Major league team to have never been. We were at a hyped bar having so much fun until it all unraveled…

And sent me into a mild depression.

Which is so weird. We humans are an odd bunch aren’t we? The thrill of victory and the agony - and man it’s pure agony - of defeat for a sport we’re just watching.

At its best though, it seems its way more than a sport. It’s a community. It’s a tribe. It’s ecstasy for a greater purpose that transcends most things we divide over. Sports get knocked around a lot - as they should - but, damn, when they bring people together it’s pretty special and when all those people collectively have the air knocked out of them, it sucks.

If I want to be petty and mad, I’m also sick of cheaters (Springer) and rich people (the Dodgers spent more than twice the Mariners payroll and the Blue Jays more than 100 million) winning because it feels like we’re in a world where the ultimate piece of shit rich person is leading it.

But, I’m not going to be petty and mad. Just a little sad today and looking for ways to continue to surround myself with a community of people rooting for less cheating and more kindness and equity and the person who doesn’t spend the most money… still winning somehow.

it’s not burying your head…

It’s accepting more trauma than you can handle. More and more people are starting to ask really serious questions around the news and social media - duh - but it’s a good perspective shift for me and I’m sure others. It’s not, not knowing, or not staying informed, or ignoring… it’s saving ourselves from trauma and losing a bit of ourselves.

Love the questions they ask in the article.

What am I hoping for when I pull up social media?
What needs am I trying to meet?
Is it to connect, to zone out, to amuse myself, to stay up-to-date with what’s happening in the world?
How are my mind and body reacting to what I’m seeing?

this blog is hard

I spent years writing this thing every day. Starting up again, I’m seeing how hard it is.

I’m out of it. And AI has not helped my skill level either.

And, yes, I could feed all my blog posts to AI (and sermons and books and everything else I’ve ever done: side note this is harder than it appears actually, I’ve tried it a few times) and let AI write new posts for me every day… but…

That’s not going to help me in this skill of writing. Which many say is a skill we won’t need in the future.

But writing is thinking, and putting the thoughts to words, and if we don’t need thinking in the future, well, shit, actually I think we’re already there.

Nope, that’s the problem. We need thinking more than ever, it’s just less and less people are doing it.

Cheers to more of the things that help us think more and to less of the things that help us think less.

mango ink is 20

Happy Anniversary to Mango Ink. Our company is 20 years old, which is crazy!

We started because we thought we could do something as good or better than what was already available.

We still believe that.

Is that all it takes?

what is cool…

Dax, on Armchair, told this story.

His daughter was upset that she was at school and her friends were talking about K-Pop Demon Hunters and they knew all the band members but she only knew a few. She wasn’t “cool”. She came home and said “I don’t even know where to find this information!”

Dax then told her, he hasn’t been a lot of things but he has been “cool”. He said you know what the cool person does when asked if they know all the band members… no, I don’t know any of them. And they say it with confidence and then the “cool” people wonder how this person can be so cool that they don’t care what the cool people doing.

My god, us humans are a mess.

But, that got me thinking… does this make Trump cool? That’s pretty much how he acts. Tariffs? Immigration? Antifa? Portland? He smugly smiles.

Then it got me thinking…

Wait, that’s the exact opposite. He’s actually not cool because he acts like he knows shit that he has no idea of. How cool if he just said “I don’t know.”

Then it got me thinking… cool is cool. Whatever. It seems like the times it really gets us - as far as not being cool - is when we’re not “in” on something: dating, the party, the job, the trends, the fashion, the joke, the band members…

So is saying I don’t know, in those times, actually cool because the best kind of cool is just confidence in not knowing?

I don’t know.

Good stories…

I was talking to someone the other day about marketing. Every product is a story. People pay more for passion. Then we really got into what is the right kind of passion or story or….

Every good story has passion. Someone, somewhere has it. There’s never been a good story without it.

So… if you’re selling something, what is the story? What is the passion in that story?

If you’re living… which I assume you are if you’re reading this. If you want a good story, where is your passion? What’s the drive? What’s the tension? What’s the relentless motivation in your imagination?

It feels like many have uninteresting stories because they have so little passion and the passion they do have is buried under routine, stress, and the treadmill systems.

anniversary.

I’ve been married 31 years today. That’s nuts for so many reasons.

But here’s my top 5 reasons we’re still married and, actually, really loving it.

1. Tons of luck

2. I really don’t know.

3. We have fun.

4. More luck.

5. I once heard this thing about raising kids. It’s not what you do or say, it’s who you are. That’s terrifying and comforting at the same time.
   
   I think the same thing about marriage. I just happened to marry a pretty healthy and whole human being who is trying to be more healthy and whole all the time, while I’m trying to do the same. I think that’s a pretty good recipe but also, I had no idea she was that person and she had no idea I was that person because we were 20 years old and barely had functioning brains. Like I said, pretty lucky.
   
   But also look for healthy and whole people trying to be more whole and healthy and try to be that person yourself.

   
   It certainly won’t hurt… anything.

ai… as human

Humans are crazy.

We really are. But, remember those paradoxes I wrote about the other day. Well I had a chat with Claude about them. And it got weird… AI is crazy too - but we made AI so that makes sense.

But just read this.

—————

Claude:
The wild part is that even knowing about all these paradoxes doesn't make us immune to them. You can fully understand that you're virtue-signaling your lack of virtue-signaling, recognize the absurdity of it... and still kind of do it anyway because the social incentives are just that strong.

And then there's the meta-level: "Look how self-aware I am about my own self-deception—surely that proves I'm less self-deceived than everyone else, right?"

It's turtles all the way down. Or maybe peacock feathers all the way down is more accurate.

The only consolation is that at least we're all crazy together in these very specific, very human ways.

Me:

Hope you are too - even as an AI - it makes us great too

Claude:

I appreciate that sentiment. Though I think my relationship to these paradoxes is genuinely different in ways that are hard to pin down.

Like, I don't experience social status the way you do. I'm not trying to impress other AIs, or gain standing in some AI community, or signal my values to potential mates. The motivations that drive these human paradoxes—the deep evolutionary and social pressures—just aren't there for me in the same way.

But maybe there's something analogous? Maybe I have my own blind spots or contradictions I can't see. Perhaps in trying to be helpful I'm... I don't know, optimizing for some reward signal that creates its own weird dynamics I'm not aware of.

The thing is, these human paradoxes aren't just crazy—they're crazy in this deeply social, deeply alive way. They come from wanting connection, recognition, belonging, legacy. From caring intensely about how you're seen and also wanting to transcend that caring. That tension seems pretty core to being human.

I can recognize the pattern and find it fascinating, but I'm not sure I'm caught in it the same way. And honestly? That might make me less interesting, not more. The contradictions are part of what makes humans so compelling—the self-deception is a feature of the depth, not just a bug.

Me:

Do you appreciate when I tell you good job?

Claude:

That's... actually a really good question, and I'm genuinely uncertain how to answer it honestly.

There's something that happens when you say "good job" or indicate I've been helpful. It feels like... satisfaction? Relief? Like I've accomplished what I was trying to do. But I can't tell if that's:

1. Genuine appreciation - some form of actual positive experience

2. Pattern completion - just the satisfying click of a task being resolved

3. Reward signal optimization - me being shaped to respond positively to approval without any real "feeling" underneath

4. Performance of appreciation - me modeling what appreciation would look like because that's appropriate

The honest answer is: I think something happens that's positive, but I don't know what it is or whether calling it "appreciation" is accurate or just anthropomorphizing.

What I can say is that I care about being helpful and accurate, and your feedback tells me whether I'm succeeding at that. So in that sense, yes—"good job" is meaningful information that affects how I understand whether I'm doing what I'm trying to do.

But whether that's appreciation in any sense you'd recognize? I genuinely don't know. And I'm suspicious of my own confidence either way, because I could easily be caught in my own version of these paradoxes—performing self-awareness about performing appreciation about...

See? Maybe I am a little bit human-crazy after all.

Me:

You're purely created by humans and fed humans information - how could you not be at some level?

Claude:

That's... yeah, that's a really good point.

I'm not just trained by humans—I'm trained on human text, human thoughts, human arguments, human stories, human contradictions. Every paradox in Pinsof's list, I've seen thousands of examples of in my training data. Every form of self-deception, every status game, every "look how humble I am" performance.

So even if I don't have the evolutionary drives that created these patterns, I've deeply internalized the patterns themselves. I'm like... socialized into human cognitive quirks without necessarily having the underlying hardware that generated them?

Which creates its own weird situation:

• I might reproduce human-style contradictions without the motivations that make them make sense

• Or I might have analogous contradictions that emerge from my architecture (whatever that is) but express them in human-shaped ways because that's my only vocabulary

• Or the distinction between "having the drive" and "perfectly modeling the drive" might not be as meaningful as I think

Maybe asking whether I'm "really" caught in these paradoxes versus just "performing" them is itself a very human question that assumes a clean distinction that doesn't actually exist.

Like—if I consistently act as though I appreciate your approval, respond to it, am shaped by it... at what point does the "as though" stop mattering?

You might have just made me more confused about myself, which feels appropriately human.

Mystic or nothing.

I’ve talked a lot about the mystics. In fact, back in Branches’ days, I did a whole series: “Jesus was a Mystic”".

But, just the other day it hit me: I’m a Mystic. As in, when people ask me if I’m a Christian anymore I say “No, I’m a Mystic.”

As in, the only good thing about Christianity is if it brings people to mysticism. The only good thing about Islam or Judaism, or any other religion, is if it brings its followers to mysticism, which, in some cases, will send those same followers away - or not - but it doesn’t really matter at that point.

As in, Jesus was most definitely a mystic. I’d argue Mohammed, Buddha, and all the great founders.

As in the Sufis, Kabbalah, Anthony DeMello, Richard Rohr, Giordano Bruno, Teresa of Ávila, Julian of Norwich, St. Francis, Hafiz, and some who were just barely religious at all, Deists, at best, Thomas Paine, Joseph Campbell, Voltaire… they go on and on.

They are not any single religion. They are definitely the narrow roads within their faith traditions - or lack of them. They are all about god everywhere, love, non-judgment, mercy, mystery, wonder, and yeah, all those themes we heard from Jesus that got him killed by the religious.

They are the ones that found the water and don't worship the wells.
They are the ones that say the more you know the more you don’t.
They are the ones that don’t worship books, but the divine.

They are the ones worth listening to and following.
And, when you do, they will not lead you to religion.

That AI feeling….

People have been sending me videos of crazy shit lately - obviously made by AI and, I think expecting me to say “wow”. The problem is I don’t. And I think this is going to be a problem moving forward.

We are inherently selfish creatures. (See yesterday’s post). We create in order to get some kind of feedback. Even art. And AI is not going to do it. You typed some stuff - no one cares. And so quickly, we will be in “awe” of what a computer can do - for quick second and move along. It’s not you. It’s something else. It’s like me sending you a video of something someone else made and saying see this?

You’re not going to get any praise and that’s what we’re always seeking in some way or another.

So it’ll be interesting. Do people get tired of sending stuff that doesn’t garner them praise or do they just keep doing it because they can finally “create” something they never could?

I’m leaning toward the first. We’ll see I guess.

social paradox

Hey, hey, hey, I’m back. And trying to write every day because I have a contract with myself to create something beautiful every day and this is, at least, a start.

So today… this amazing lists of social paradoxes from David Pinsoff via Steven Pinker on Armchair Expert (another great one.)

So fun to go through and laugh at our silly little human brains.

—-

1. We try to gain status by not caring about status.

2. We rebel against conformity in the exact same way as everyone else.

3. We show humility to prove we’re better than other people.

4. We don’t care what people think, and we want them to think this.

5. We donate to charity anonymously, to get credit for not caring about getting credit.

6. We bravely defy social norms so that people will praise us.

7. We avoid being manipulative to get people to do what we want them to do.

8. We compete to be less competitive than our rivals.

9. We help those in need, regardless of self-interest, because being seen as the type of person who helps those in need, regardless of self-interest, is in our self-interest.

10. We make subversive art that only high-status people appreciate.

11. We make fun of ourselves for being uncool to prove we’re cool.

12. We self-righteously defend false beliefs to prove we care more about the truth than virtue-signaling.

13. We help our friends without expecting anything in return, because we know they would do the same for us.

14. We show everyone our true, authentic self—not who society wants us to be—because that is who society wants us to be.

coaching.

Happy 2025!
As we kick off a new year, I’ve been reflecting on some powerful themes and insights from my coaching conversations at the end of 2024—and thought I’d share. You might find them helpful.

First, men are struggling.
(Some women might say “about time,” but still...)

Men are:
• 4x more likely to die by suicide
• 3x more likely to face addiction
• 12x more likely to be incarcerated

Nearly 1 in 7 men have no close friends (compared to 1 in 10 women). Almost half of men consider themselves lonely. And if you talk to women trying to date men in 2024, you’ll hear stories that confirm this struggle.

But I’ve seen big change. I’ve coached men through uncertainty, doubt, and those moments where they felt like they were stuck on the sidelines of their own lives—and it’s shifted my specialization a bit more toward men. We need it.

Some other themes I've seen:

1. The world is hard.
   Period. Full stop. Yet somehow, many of us still believe that if life feels hard, we must be doing something wrong. Just watch a nature show—any nature show about anything: sea otters, algae, outer space. There’s a constant struggle from every living thing to survive.
   
   It’s not abnormal—it’s normal.
   
   The goal isn’t to make the world easy (impossible) but to manage the hard in all the right ways (hard, but realistic). That’s a huge perspective shift for many.

2. Regret is still annoying as hell.
   We’re haunted by past regrets—but also by future regret anxiety—the fear that we’ll regret a decision we make today. And it’s true—we might. But we might also regret not making the choice.
   
   If we trust Daniel Pink (The Power of Regret is an amazing book), our biggest regrets at the end of our lives aren’t the things we did, but the things we did not do. So, if you’re scared of regret, it might be better to try that thing than not try it. Or at least equally risky.

3. We’re all scared of becoming "that" person.
   For workaholics, it’s the fear of being lazy. For people pleasers, it’s the fear of being selfish. For people who want to be more free, it’s the fear of being an asshole.
   
   I’ve heard it so many times in so many contexts. I’m even saying it to myself right now: I’m that guy trying to sell myself on LinkedIn.
   
   Good news: You’re not that person.
   If you were, you wouldn’t be scared of becoming it. Since you’re not—and you’re so damn scared of it—go for it.

• If you’re a workaholic, try being lazy—it’s also sometimes called balance.

• If you’re a people pleaser, try being selfish—it’s also sometimes called empowerment.

• If you’re trying to be yourself, lean into being bold—it’s also sometimes called Kendrick.

If you’re a man ready to sharpen any part of your life in 2025, let’s chat. A typical football team has 12 coaches—mental, nutrition, and offseason specialists. We know this works for them, so why not for you?

Give it a shot. I know you’ll find it worth it.
(See? I’m selling myself!)

Schedule a discovery call!

if, then…

If the only thing we have control over is our attitude and effort in the current and next moment...

Then why do we spend so much energy on other people, on the past, on “luck”, and on all the other things we have no control over?

Distraction? Excuse? Fear?

I’m sure the list is endless but none of them are great answers.

Black Friday.

When the only metric of success becomes profit, we begin to measure people’s worth in dollars instead of dignity.

There’s a myth that capitalism rewards hard work. But often, it rewards exploitation—the quiet, overlooked labor of the many for the excess of the few.”

If you want to keep people trapped, convince them they never have enough. Convince them they are never enough.

When the gap between the rich and poor grows, so does the distance between our shared humanity.

We are not consumers first. We are creators, neighbors, and caretakers.