Welcome to The Concrete Leader Weekly — a weekly leadership and personal growth newsletter where I share inspiring stories, practical insights, and motivational lessons to help you start your week with purpose and clarity. Issue #146 The Catch You Never Saw Coming On February 3, 2008, in the closing minutes of Super Bowl XLII, New York Giants wide receiver David Tyree made what many consider the single most miraculous play in NFL history. Eli Manning escaped an almost certain sack, scrambled,...
14 days ago • 3 min read
Welcome to The Concrete Leader Weekly — a weekly leadership and personal growth newsletter where I share inspiring stories, practical insights, and motivational lessons to help you start your week with purpose and clarity. Issue #145 Driving Beyond Convenience: The Real Cost of Commitment I started college after high school in 1984. Tuition at IUPUI was $45 per credit hour, and after my first semester I wasn’t sure how I would pay for the second. During my senior year of high school and the...
21 days ago • 3 min read
Welcome to The Concrete Leader Weekly — a weekly leadership and personal growth newsletter where I share inspiring stories, practical insights, and motivational lessons to help you start your week with purpose and clarity. Issue #144 What Camping Taught Me About Courage Mark Twain once made an astute observation about human nature and past trauma: "We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it—and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot...
28 days ago • 4 min read
Welcome to The Concrete Leader Weekly — a weekly leadership and personal growth newsletter where I share inspiring stories, practical insights, and motivational lessons to help you start your week with purpose and clarity. Issue # Success vs. Significance: The Classroom Pivot That Changed Everything Early in our careers, most of us operate under a default setting: climb the ladder. We are taught to pursue the next title, chase greater responsibility, seek higher pay, and earn the respect of...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Welcome to The Concrete Leader Weekly — a weekly leadership and personal growth newsletter where I share inspiring stories, practical insights, and motivational lessons to help you start your week with purpose and clarity. Issue #142 One of the Greatest Gifts One of the greatest gifts I ever received was a rice cooker. It wasn't for Christmas or my birthday; it simply showed up on my doorstep one day. Over the course of my life, I've received many gifts with a much higher price tag. But cost...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Welcome to The Concrete Leader Weekly — a weekly leadership and personal growth newsletter where I share inspiring stories, practical insights, and motivational lessons to help you start your week with purpose and clarity. Issue #141 Uphill Dreams Require Uphill Habits Over the summer, I have shared several thoughts about making sacrifices now so something better can come later. That is not easy in our consumer-driven society. On July 13th, I wrote about delayed gratification, which requires...
about 2 months ago • 5 min read
Welcome to The Concrete Leader Weekly — a weekly leadership and personal growth newsletter where I share inspiring stories, practical insights, and motivational lessons to help you start your week with purpose and clarity. Issue #140 Getting Mean with Your Time: The 25 Gold Coins We track every dollar on the job site. We measure cubic yards, batch times, and labor costs down to the penny. If a piece of equipment sits idle or material gets wasted, it shows up immediately as a line item on the...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Welcome to The Concrete Leader Weekly — a weekly leadership and personal growth newsletter where I share inspiring stories, practical insights, and motivational lessons to help you start your week with purpose and clarity. Issue #139 Ideas Don't Move the World - Action Does Ideas Don’t Move the World - Action Does You cannot think your way to success. At some point, you have to do something. I’m an idea person, ideation is actually my top Gallup Strengths talent. But ideas alone don't move...
2 months ago • 2 min read
Welcome to The Concrete Leader Weekly — a weekly leadership and personal growth newsletter where I share inspiring stories, practical insights, and motivational lessons to help you start your week with purpose and clarity. Issue #138 The Thin Air of Promotion The hotel’s ground-floor elevator lobby was packed. Day one of The Precast Show in Denver had just ended, and a slow, restless line wrapped around the corner. Ed saw the bottleneck and shook his head. My room was on the tenth floor,...
2 months ago • 4 min read