Faith · Leadership · #ChipChats
I'm Still Working Out What I Believe.
Won't people walk all over me if I'm gentle? The loudest person in the room often wins the moment. But they rarely win the relationship. Gentleness isn't weakness. It's strength under control. Coercion gets compliance. Gentleness gets commitment.
September 26, 2026 · 1 min read
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Employee Ownership · Exits · #ChipChats
The Door Is Not the Decision.
When a business changes hands, how far down does the outcome reach? I used to think of this as three doors. It is really two doors and a dial. The door is not the decision. Either door can be narrow or wide. Pick whichever door you want but decide where the dial goes before the call comes.
September 25, 2026 · 2 min read
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Insurance · Risk · #ChipChats
Many Businesses Buy Insurance Once.
Many businesses buy insurance once. The policy gets written in year one, when the company is small and the risks are simple. Then the business grows. The business changes and the coverage does not. Nobody catches it in a renewal meeting. It surfaces on the one day it matters.
September 24, 2026 · 1 min read
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Entrepreneurship · Standards · #ChipChats
The Skeleton Didn't Belong in a Closet.
Walked into the office recently and new signs were up. Then I saw the skeleton and decided it didn’t belong in a closet. The signs show what we are building. The skeleton reminds me that everything looks different once you see underneath it. Tell the truth. Own the mistakes.
September 23, 2026 · 1 min read
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Sobriety · Mental Health · #ChipChats
78 Days Is Not a Victory Lap. It's a Data Point.
6am, day two of a member-guest and 78 days without a drink. I've learned I still suck at sober golf. Clarity is the biggest change. Not subtle. 78 days is not a victory lap. It's a data point. And I'd rather leave an accurate record than a flattering one.
September 20, 2026 · 1 min read
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Founder Life · Decisions · #ChipChats
From the Inside, It Was the Only Door That Wasn't on Fire.
There is a particular kind of confidence that only exists at a distance. Here's what it misses: from the outside, the call looks like a choice among options. From the inside, it was the only door that wasn't on fire. Build something. Sign the guaranty. Then tell me what I should have done.
September 18, 2026 · 1 min read
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Music · Encouragement · #ChipChats
In January, I Released a Song I Didn't Write Alone.
In January, I released a song that I didn't write alone. I worked it out with AI, line by line, from a prompt and a feeling. It took me months to figure out who I was talking to. Turns out it wasn't one person. The machine handed me the shape. I recognized what was inside it. Go be the voice for somebody. Including yourself.
September 17, 2026 · 1 min read
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Marriage · Gratitude · #ChipChats
The Most Important System in My Life Is a Person.
Nineteen years married, and when Ashley left for a week it was the first time it was just Hunter and me. I build companies around the idea that systems matter more than heroics — then discovered the most important system in my life is a person, and I'd been treating her like infrastructure. Reliable. Invisible. Assumed.
September 16, 2026 · 2 min read
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Operators · Distribution · #ChipChats
Somebody Lost Money Making Me Happy This Morning.
"We are processing your refund. You don't need to return the item." For four seconds it felt like generosity — then the only question that matters showed up: who ate that? Every frictionless experience has a cost center. If you can't find it, there's a decent chance you're standing in it.
September 15, 2026 · 1 min read
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Perspective · Risk · #ChipChats
Zoom Out on Your Ego. Zoom In on What You Gave Up On.
My feed keeps calling I, Robot a prophecy. Nobody says that about Armageddon — same setup. The risks we discuss are the ones where we still believe we have a hand. The ones nobody brings up are the ones we've quietly decided are out of our hands. Zoom out on your ego. Zoom in on what you gave up on.
September 11, 2026 · 1 min read
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Family · Legacy · #ChipChats
I'd Rather She Know Me Than Be Impressed by Me.
People ask why I post so often. Someday my daughter will want to know who her dad actually was, and I don't want her piecing it together from a headline and whatever anyone else remembers. Not the polished version — a record of nothing but wins would be a lie. I'd rather she know me than be impressed by me.
September 10, 2026 · 1 min read
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Employee Ownership · Labor Day · #GetCentered
Labor Day Honors the Work. Sharing What It Builds Is Harder.
Labor Day isn't a thank-you note — it exists because workers organized around a claim: the people who create the value have a right to a share of it. A century later, that argument has a new instrument. Roughly 25 million American workers now hold an ownership stake. Broad-based ownership isn't a perk. It's the structure we now start with.
September 7, 2026 · 2 min read
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Vulnerability · Gratitude · #ChipChats
A Shorter List of Things to Be Embarrassed About.
A memory feed served up this less-than-flattering pic — a week after I lost a headbutting contest with Edinburgh's cobblestones, during the four weeks we closed the ATIS recap. I showed up to every call looking like this. Nobody flinched. What I carried out wasn't toughness — a shorter list of things to be embarrassed about, and a longer list of people I owe.
September 8, 2026 · 1 min read
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Perspective · Presence · #ChipChats
At What Age Did Life Start Moving at Warp Speed?
Life hit warp speed for me around 35. The years I can replay are the ones with a first in them; the rest blur. But most of what I can still replay isn't a first at all — it's the Sunday dinners I was actually present for. Firsts announce themselves. Moments only slow down if I decide to.
September 7, 2026 · 2 min read
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Leadership · Focus · #GetCentered
Running Commentary on Me? Please Do.
Running commentary on other people doesn't do it for me. Running commentary on me? Please do. I don't participate — but I don't always leave either, and I tell myself that makes me neutral. It doesn't. Sitting there is a vote. If you have the energy to keep score on somebody else, you're not building hard enough.
September 6, 2026 · 1 min read
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Entrepreneurship · Leadership · #ChipChats
This Wall Didn't Need a Consultant.
Walked downtown Houston at 5am reading the skyline like a mystery novel. Then I turned a corner and hit a wall: no pro forma, no consultant, no committee — somebody decided a parking garage should say HOUSTON IS INSPIRED and made it true. Not everything worth building gets underwritten first.
September 4, 2026 · 1 min read
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Centered Partners · Gratitude · #GetCentered
The Safe Choice Was Never Us.
A year ago, Centered Partners had no track record. The safe choice was the incumbent broker, the incumbent vendor. Our first clients weren't betting on a firm — they were betting on people they already knew. Trust before proof is the hardest thing to earn. We intend to keep earning it.
September 2, 2026 · 2 min read
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Professional Services · Future of Law · #GetCentered
Getting Faster Costs a Law Firm Money.
Under the billable hour, the faster and better a firm gets, the less it earns. Per Thomson Reuters and Georgetown, worked rates rose a record 7.3% and profits 13% — on a model 90% of legal spend still runs through, one the report says "may no longer reflect the value delivered." The answer isn't a cheaper law firm. It's rebuilding the trusted advisor itself.
September 1, 2026 · 2 min read
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Perspective · Kindness · #ChipChats
I Cannot Watch the News Without It Getting to Me.
Some people can scroll past, but I never learned how. The suffering on the news has a camera on it; the suffering in my own world does not. The check is not the only currency. The person who needs me most this week is probably not on the news. They are in my phone.
August 29, 2026 · 2 min read
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Vulnerability · EO · #ChipChats
The Only Skeletons I’ll Ever Write About Are Mine.
Eleven owners. One Entrepreneurs’ Organization forum. No agenda except honesty. EO calls it going to the 5% — the part you keep behind the door. Nobody gave advice. Nobody tried to fix me. The skeletons only have power while they stay in the closet.
August 27, 2026 · 1 min read
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Professional Services · Value · #GetCentered
Prices Up. Delivery Cost Down. Both True at Once.
The price of professional services keeps climbing even as the cost to deliver falls. Legal rates rose roughly 7% last year; 90% of legal spend is still billed hourly. Between what you pay and what the work costs sits a gap, widening fast. The question is who keeps it.
August 26, 2026 · 2 min read
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Sobriety · Mental Health · #ChipChats
Seven Weeks Ago, I Quit Drinking.
Twelve days ago Brad Pitt told Esquire he’d been sober seven years — then went back off the wagon. Seven weeks ago, I quit drinking. I’m not writing from the other side of this. I’m writing from inside it, which is the only honest place I have. It counts. Even week one.
August 23, 2026 · 1 min read
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Leadership · Ownership · #ChipChats
We Didn’t Get to the Moon by Dreaming About Going to Montana.
I started my career at NASA. Montana is far, but you can drive there. The moon forces you to invent the vehicle. At its peak Apollo employed 400,000 people; twelve walked on the moon. Pick a destination that requires everyone — then build a structure where everyone shares in reaching it.
August 22, 2026 · 2 min read
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Team · ATIS · #ChipChats
Not the Business. The Crew.
Found this going through old photos — top of a new build in Toronto with three of the best elevator consultants I know. What I remember most isn't the buildings. It's who was in the cage with me. That's the thing I keep trying to build. Not the business. The crew.
August 20, 2026 · 1 min read
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Founder Life · Focus · #ChipChats
Options in One Pile. Commitments in the Other.
3am, sitting with the fact that I own 60+ domains, ~30 LLCs, and a dozen websites. Combined revenue: zero. So I re-sorted the list with one question: is there a named human who has committed to this besides me? Options in one pile. Commitments in the other. Be relentless about the second — and stop apologizing for the first.
August 19, 2026 · 2 min read
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Mental Health · Perspective · #ChipChats
You Were Never the Thing That Needed Fixing.
What worries me isn't people. It's the machine that keeps telling all of us we aren't enough yet. Thinner. Sharper. Younger. Fixed. The pressure was never built to be satisfied — it's built to keep you chasing. You were never the thing that needed fixing. The standard was.
August 17, 2026 · 1 min read
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Employee Ownership · Leadership · #ChipChats
The Question Isn’t How Much You Share. It’s How Far.
We ran generous equity incentive programs — but they weren’t broad based. A narrow plan rewards the people already in the room. A broad based plan changes who is in the room. Multiple exits later, I understand the difference, and it’s now foundational to how we build.
August 5, 2026 · 1 min read
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Founder Life · Grit · #ChipChats
Anyone Can Ride. Fewer Can Walk Back.
The photos are always of the ride. Nobody takes a picture of the walk back. We tell founder stories backward — exit first, the hard parts arranged neatly behind it. That is not how it felt. The good years blur. You remember the ones you barely got through.
August 5, 2026 · 1 min read
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Founder Story · Gratitude · #ChipChats
20 Years Ago, I Signed My Name to Something I Had No Idea How to Run.
The entity that’s now Greenleaf Capital Partners was first organized in 2006 under a different name. Different name, same thesis from day one: build the right way, for the long term, with people who care. The name on the door changes. The values underneath it shouldn’t.
August 4, 2026 · 1 min read
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AI · Trust · #ChipChats
The Gap Is Closing. It Can't Touch the Part That Matters.
I write these with AI — a neurological condition took my typing, and AI gave my output back. The cost of sounding competent has collapsed, even at the top of the ladder. When everyone can produce a sharp answer, the answer stops being the differentiator. What's left is older and simpler: trust, presence, judgment — the one layer no model can reproduce.
July 16, 2026 · 3 min read
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Perspective · Gratitude · #ChipChats
The Earth Kills Us by Accident.
A fault line has no god. A wildfire has no flag. Nature erases us without malice — Pompeii, Tanis, the next asteroid. Then I read the rest of the news: wars that won't stop, borders drawn in someone else's blood. That part we choose. Perspective isn't detachment — it's caring about the right things, harder, while we still can.
July 13, 2026 · 4 min read
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Gratitude · Perspective · #ChipChats
I Was Born in America. I Didn't Do a Thing to Earn It.
A UN headline put a number on the other side of the birth lottery: roughly a quarter of a billion people need urgent humanitarian help right now. Same kind of parent, same hopes for their kids — just a different line on a map. Most of my comfort is luck. The least I can do is not waste it being ungrateful.
July 8, 2026 · 3 min read
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Leadership · Space · #GetCentered
The Most Complex Thing We Ever Built, We Built Together.
Watching Jared Isaacman on Face the Nation brought it rushing back — the ISS, the most complicated machine humans have ever built. It didn't have to be international. In 1993, Dan Goldin invited a forty-year rival in, and that choice saved it. If we could do that up there, don't let anyone tell you what we can't do down here.
July 5, 2026 · 4 min read
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Founder Life · Perspective · #ChipChats
I Gave Four Years to a Deal That Fell Apart in an Afternoon.
Twelve months at the table, down to minor redlines — and then it was over. For a while it felt wasted. But that collapse is the only reason we pivoted, and the pivot became a three-way international merger: the proudest deal of my career. The failure didn't cost me the win. It was the door to it.
July 3, 2026 · 2 min read
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Gratitude · Perspective · #ChipChats
I'm Celebrating an Unfinished Country.
A documentary on the birth of America, watched from Boston. The founding wasn't clean — the best of us and the worst of us have always lived in the same body. I'm not celebrating a finished country this Fourth. I'm celebrating an unfinished one, and the people on the road who are the whole point.
July 2, 2026 · 3 min read
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Partnership · Entrepreneurship · #ChipChats
Two Kids. One Dinner. No Idea What Was Coming.
A photo in my friends' Boston office. Eighteen years ago Seth Burr and Darrin Lang bet on each other and started LABUR — their two last names stitched together, no daylight between them. I've watched founders chase the exit. These two chased the work. Different game.
July 1, 2026 · 2 min read
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Mental Health · Legacy · #ChipChats
What Do You Regret?
One of twelve questions in Rabbi Steve Leder's For You When I Am Gone. Your regrets aren't a confession of failure — they're a roadmap of what you learned. Don't wait for a deathbed to answer the hard questions.
June 13, 2026 · 3 min read
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Founder Life · Leadership · #ChipChats
Four Startups. All Four Exited.
Combined enterprise value north of $100 million. I could stop there and let it sound clean. It was not clean. Across all of it, the throughline was never the outcome. It was the people.
June 12, 2026 · 3 min read
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Perspective · Stoicism · #ChipChats
You Are a Crew. Be a Good One While You Can.
What do a Tuscan vintner, the crew of Artemis II, and Marcus Aurelius have in common? They tell the same story. From that far out, you cannot see a single border — just one blue thing holding everyone.
June 10, 2026 · 3 min read
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Risk Management · Leadership · #GetCentered
I See Risk Before I See Anything Else.
Blame law school. Two cases from first-year Torts never left me. One taught me to price the downside. The other, that I only own the risks I can foresee. Different leaders, different chapters — every one of them taught me the same throughline.
June 2, 2026 · 5 min read
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Perspective · Gratitude · #ChipChats
Completely Unrelated Things, All Pointing Me the Same Direction.
A space stat and a 2002 movie. Both dragged me back to something I wrote last year. There are eight billion of us on one planet. The only things that have ever felt big up close are the people and the moments.
June 1, 2026 · 4 min read
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Gratitude · Perspective · #ChipChats
I'm Embarrassed by It.
Within the last few days, I've said "Happy Memorial Day" and "enjoy the long weekend." The day very obviously isn't about a three-day weekend. It's about people who didn't come home, and families who've carried that weight ever since.
May 25, 2026 · 3 min read
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Founder Life · Perspective · #ChipChats
The Moment Isn't Coming. This Is Everything.
We sold our company eighteen months ago — after twelve years of building it from nothing. I waited for the moment that was supposed to come after. It didn't. Marcus Aurelius. Brunelleschi. Michelangelo. Every one of them is dead.
May 26, 2026 · 2 min read
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Leadership · Stoicism · #ChipChats
2am in Rome and I'm Thinking About Marcus Aurelius.
Stood in front of him today. The most powerful man in the known world. What survived him is a journal he never meant anyone to read. Performed strength ages badly. Honest reflection compounds.
May 19, 2026 · 2 min read
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Team · Gratitude · #GetCentered
Some Appreciation That's Long Overdue.
Kay Cameron was the third person in the office at ATIS. David Estes helped us scale ATIS too. You don't build multiple businesses with the same people unless those people are the reason it worked the first time.
May 19, 2026 · 3 min read
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Board · Employee Ownership · #ChipChats
Honored to Join the Board of Ascend Safety Collective.
Vertical transportation is one of those quiet industries where safety, compliance, and service legacy compound over decades. What drew me in: the commitment to broad-based equity for the Team.
May 19, 2026 · 1 min read
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Family · MESH · #ChipChats
What If Kids Learned Early That Bravery Isn't the Absence of Fear?
When Dustin Hejna and I started talking about Friendever, the thing that kept pulling us in wasn't the product roadmap. Turns out the version of "brave" we picked up as kids isn't bravery. It's armor. And armor gets heavy.
May 12, 2026 · 2 min read
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Leadership · Accountability · #ChipChats
Good People Have Sunk Companies with Good Intentions.
Not bad actors. Not lazy ones. People who genuinely meant well and told themselves the right story. A culture of accountability isn't harsh — it's clarifying. We talk about what happened, not what we meant to happen.
May 12, 2026 · 3 min read
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Leadership · Psychological Safety · #ChipChats
Gossip Is a Mirror.
One of the most revealing moments in any room is the moment someone leaves it. What gets said in the next sixty seconds tells you everything — not about the person who walked out, but about the people still sitting there.
May 12, 2026 · 2 min read
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Private Credit · Advisory · #GetCentered
Two Camps on Private Credit. Ignore Both.
The private credit conversation has split into two camps and middle-market operators should ignore both of them. Neither framing helps the operators weighing whether to sell, recapitalize, or refinance into the next cycle.
May 12, 2026 · 5 min read
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Leadership · Vulnerability · #ChipChats
She Cried at the Press Conference.
She wasn't falling apart. She was feeling the weight of what she was doing — standing between vulnerable people and the thing that hurt them — and her humanity showed through. Guilty on 17 counts. Proud husband.
April 12, 2026 · 2 min read
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Mental Health · Loss · #ChipChats
This One Is Different.
A man I know just ended his life. We weren't close. Never met in person. But we wrote chapters in the same book. His was called "Strength Through Surrender." I can't stop thinking about that title. We cannot keep losing people to silence.
April 11, 2026 · 4 min read
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Perspective · NASA · #ChipChats
It's 3:30am and I Can't Sleep…Again.
This is my NASA badge from the Dan Goldin era. I was 22 years old and had absolutely no business being in that building. Yesterday, four astronauts flew farther from Earth than any human in history. Victor Glover said it simply: seeing Earth from that distance is a reminder of humanity's shared identity.
April 7, 2026 · 3 min read
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Spirituality · Faith · #ChipChats
I Wear a Cross and a Crucifix. I Also Think I'm an Atheist.
Make of that what you will. The crucifix belonged to a great friend who gave it to me because he thought I needed to find Jesus. Neither makes me Christian — they make me someone who understands that symbols mean what we need them to mean.
April 2026 · 3 min read
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Perspective · Grief · #ChipChats
Death. What a Shitty Topic.
I think about it often. It started in eighth grade when I lost my first grandparent. Bad memory in general — but I can vividly recall the circumstances around that evening and every single loss since.
March 30, 2026 · 3 min read
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AI · Advisory · #GetCentered
The Knowledge Gap Is Closing. Here's What That Means for Your Advisory Team.
For decades, professional services solved complexity through specialization. AI is changing that equation — and we built Centered Partners around what comes next.
April 2026 · 8 min read
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AI · Advisory · #GetCentered
Everyone Is Talking About AI Replacing Experts. They're Asking the Wrong Question.
The real problem in professional services was never a shortage of expertise. It was a shortage of connection between it. Here's what AI actually does — and what it doesn't.
April 2026 · 2 min read
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Sobriety · Mental Health
Everyone Has Skeletons. Everyone.
I'm writing a book. My Skeletons Are Better Than Yours. The real point isn't competition — it's that we're all dragging something around and burning enormous energy keeping the closet door shut.
March 29, 2026
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Mental Health · Noise
The World Appears to Be on Fire
Wars. Elections. AI. Emotional entropy. And yet — my calendar remains full. I am personally struggling with the scale of what's happening out there and the smallness of what we're asked to care about in here.
March 2026
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AI · Founder Life
What Focal Dystonia Taught Me About AI
Writing was once one of my greatest strengths. AI cleared away the friction between having an idea and executing it — and gave me back the most valuable thing any of us have: time.
February 2026
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Marriage · Gratitude
Next Time Corporate Feels Heavy
My wife has been an assistant prosecuting attorney for 18+ years. She handles the cases most attorneys wouldn't want to touch. She carries weight that doesn't clock out.
February 2026
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Founder Story · ATIS
Some Things Really Do Get Believed Into Existence
My dad, brother, and I started ATIS from scratch in late 2012. I will never forget sitting in my basement and filing the articles of organization. A vision. Weekly Sunday morning visits on my parents' porch.
January 2026
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Centered Partners · Founder Story
The Opportunity I Couldn't Ignore
Smart people. Real businesses. Real risk. Being served by advisors too narrow, too transactional, too focused on their own product shelf. That's the gap Centered Partners was built to fill.
March 2026
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Centered Partners · #ChipChats
He Fiddled. I'm Scheduling Zooms.
Someone in the comments said it perfectly. "That's what Nero said." The answer to the noise isn't paralysis. It's building things worth building — and making sure the people around you are better off for having worked with you.
March 2026
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Family · Music · #ChipChats
My brother wrote a song called Heaven to Me.
Austin Grimm is a St. Louis-based musician — former frontman of Roots of a Rebellion. He's also my brother. And somewhere in his journey he wrote a song that stopped me cold.
March 2026
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