Lessons I Wish Someone Had Told Me Tomorrow I'm conversing with students in a university setting. The below lessons are what I'll be sharing with them. Anything you'd add? 1. All the old cliches are true. 2. Figure out which game you’re playing. a. If you’re driven to achieve, make sure you actually want the prize. b. Challenge the traditional metrics of success (prestige) and make your own. 3. Life (and career) are a series of experiments. The linear path is a myth. 4. You will suffer. So make sure you’re suffering for something that matters to you. 5. Get married after age 24, but before age 30. Have kids. Lots of them. 6. Make a small number of high-conviction bets to build wealth. a. Except for birth, you achieve wealth through Time x Risk x Being Correct b. Build conviction by writing a thesis based on your unique perspective. 7. Find a wave and ride it. 8. Ultimately, the value you create for others is what matters in most scenarios. a. You don’t need permission. Credentials don’t matter. b. Your background/limitations/hardships are not an excuse. 9. Optimism, obsession, and raw horsepower are how things get started. 10. Cohesive teams, the right combination of calmness and urgency, and an unreasonable commitment are how things get finished. 11. It’s easier to do hard things that really matter. 12. Moving quickly is a competitive advantage. So is focus. 13. Being “real” is magnetic to the right people. And repels the wrong ones. 14. Think long term. 15. Relationships are all that matter in the end.

Stewardship means caring for what has been entrusted to us. Click through for our thoughts on Big Bend, the border, and the responsibility to get both right. chisos.com/blogs/cowboy-boot…

Grief: what books or resources have helped you? Especially related to losing a family member to suicide. I'm going through it now. I've spoken with my pastor and close friends. But will admit that I'm struggling. Grateful for recommendations.

You can’t use reason to talk people out of positions that they didn’t use reason to get into.

On some of my group text threads it’s like “eek people disagree about this political topic, don’t bring it up” (echo chamber culture). On others it’s like “ooh fun disagreement!” (idea lab culture). When you get used to the latter culture, the former seems so juvenile.

Best decision I ever made.

This land is special. Well done, @kristhejean . Hit me at the end. piped.video/watch?v=bBFhd9cf…

Business is just the adult version of making friendships on the playground.

I don't know @OldHollowTree. But he writes about tradition and raising his family up in New England. Plus he makes a fine beeswax candle. That's a solid contribution in my book.

Today we gather all across America. Flags will wave from porches and tiny hands. Kids will laugh and run through the yard. Town squares will fill and neighborhoods will glow as fireworks shine over driveways, city parks, ballfields, and pastures. And beneath all of that, beneath the smoke and the music and the red, white, and blue, something powerful tugs at our hearts. America. This country. Our country. This strange, implausible, beautiful, great country. Two and a half centuries ago, fifty-six men signed their lives to a document that no government on earth had dared to write: that all men are created equal, and that a responsible people could govern themselves. The Declaration. The Constitution. The Bill of Rights. They put words to a promise that stirred in the soul of mankind. Then they got to work fulfilling that promise, fighting for that promise. Building towards it. Exceptional people with extraordinary courage built this nation. Farmers, doctors, mothers, fathers, dreamers, and doers. People who looked toward the horizon and believed that more was possible. Every generation added a plank to our house. But those before us did not merely leave us a monument to admire. They left us a challenge. A responsibility. Because a nation like this does not exist naturally. It must be stewarded. By fathers who lead. By mothers who protect. By those who keep building when it would be easier to quit. By soldiers and teachers and firefighters and pastors and ranchers and craftsmen and ordinary neighbors. By the man who tells the truth when lying would profit him. By the woman who raises children with discipline and tenderness. By the citizen who serves, forgives, works, prays, sacrifices, and does the hard thing because the easy thing would make us weak. That is the core of America. Not just the eagle and the anthem and the rockets bursting in air. The daily responsibility, the work of keeping a country. Tonight I’ll be standing in front of the Washington Monument with my wife, watching the fireworks burst over the Lincoln Memorial. And I’ll think about those that walked this path before us. About you. About us. And the great responsibility that rests on our shoulders. What a thing to be handed. What an honor. So, this year, wave the flag. Hold your hand over your heart. Hug your people. Watch the sky light up. And remember how rare this is. Remember what is asked of us now. God bless America.

Took the wife to the capital for our 250th 🇺🇸 American dynamism on full display and people are in great spirits. Never doom

Chisos HQ <> Roman HQ

Obsessed with craftsmanship. Defiantly independent.

A flowing sense of grounded joy. Rightness. Married 3/27/26

"Get a rope" = undefeated crime solution

it is wise to be correct it is sometimes unwise to speak