I recently hit a milestone: thirty-three years of professional life. With the many worries about the potential impact of Artificial Intelligence on the workforce, I reflected on what I would tell my younger self and my kids.
Twenty-six of those years were spent at Xerox, navigating the intricate, high-stakes of a global corporate giant. The last 5 were spent in a completely different world—building a high-tech medical cannabis facility from scratch.
Going from a legacy corporation to a “from-nothing” startup in a highly regulated industry forces you to strip away the fluff. You learn what actually works. I kept a list of principles along the way. I used to call it “The martial art of the office”, but looking back, it’s really just something worth remembering when the pressure is on.
1. The Strategy of the “Spoon”
Whether you are managing a billion-dollar budget or building a high-tech greenhouse from a muddy field, the physics of progress are the same.
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Move mountains with a spoon: Big projects are an illusion. They are just a long series of small, consistent actions. When the scale feels impossible, stop looking at the mountain and just keep digging. It is true of your savings as well, by the way…
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Roughly right, but precisely wrong: In a startup, waiting for 100% certainty is a death sentence. I’d rather be moving in the right direction with a rough map than standing still with a high-precision calculation of the wrong path.
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The Pig and the Scale: You cannot make a pig fatter by weighing it every day. I’ve seen too many leaders spend more time on the “scorecard” than on the actual work. Action is the only thing that feeds the project.
2. The Mental Architecture
Thirty years will break you if you don’t have a system to clear your head.
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Mind like water: In the greenhouse or the boardroom, things go wrong. A “Mind Like Water” means reacting with the exact amount of force required—no more, no less. Don’t let a small leak become a personal crisis. Making a splash is okay if you can quickly bring your mind to peace.
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Build a list, release your mind: Your brain is a processor, not a hard drive. Write it down. If it’s on the paper, it’s not taking up “RAM” in your head. Your brain is an amazing pattern detector. Look at your list and search for the pattern. (I actually built an app to do this!…see other post)
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The Power of Habits: Willpower is a finite battery. I learned to build “Click, Routine, Reward” loops so that the hardest parts of my day became automatic or frictionless.
3. The Superpower: Emotional Intelligence
For most of my career, my mantra was “Passion: Yes / Emotion: No.” I believed that being “professional” meant being a fortress—stoic, detached, and analytical.
I was wrong.
After three decades, I’ve realised that emotional intelligence is a sensory superpower. Most people are staring at spreadsheets or technical specs, completely oblivious to the “human weather” in the room.
If you are someone who feels the tension in a meeting, who senses a lack of integrity before a word is spoken, or who gets a lump in their throat when a team hits a breakthrough—that is your edge. While others are flying blind, your emotions are giving you data. Using that sensitivity to address the unspoken is the highest form of leadership.
4. The Foundation
At the end of the day, the facility is built, the company is sold, or the role ends. What remains is your character.
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Never compromise ethics: In a new industry like medical cannabis or a big corporate, your word must mean something. Once you trade your integrity, you can’t buy it back. You want to be the one that all would agree is the obvious choice to keep the water to cross the desert. It is a lot harder than it sounds and requires real work. It will sometimes hurt you to do the right thing.
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Build a legacy, not a scorecard: People won’t remember your quarterly KPIs from 2014. They will remember how you treated them when things were falling apart.
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Don’t confuse the “shoveling” with the “shit”: Always respect the people doing the hard, sometimes unglamorous work. They are the ones actually moving the mountain, cleaning the mess, …
A Final Thought
To my sons, Jules and Noe: if you take anything from my thirty years, let it be this: Strength is measured in the number of times you stand up. You will face “idiotic managers” and “mountains.” You will make mistakes. But if you keep your “Mind Like Water,” keep your ethics intact, and learn to trust that “superpower” of your own intuition, you’ll do more than you ever dreamt of and will have pride in what you built.
Absorb some of this as a sponge and Live today like it’s the “good old days.” Because, looking back from many years out, I can tell you—it truly is.
