It was a calmer quarter that ushered 2024 out, not much travel, couldn’t find a good thing to watch, and having to deal with local politics (and politicians, yuck), and still processing through he damage of two hurricanes and a flood. 2025 is shaping up to be a great year professionally with lots of CEO stuff on the way, and personally with at least two legendary trips planned.
Biggest News
A group of citizens founded ValdostaFirst, a civic organization designed to introduce transparency and accountability into local government, because our elected officials routinely fail to do so. Several days after launching the organization, funding it, and sending our first set of Open Records Requests to the City of Valdosta, the City Manager asked the City Council to terminate the relationship with Taylor Insurance Services that had been in place for more than 50 years. It was retaliation, pure and simple, and will be proven as such as we hold them accountable for the action in the future.
What I Watched
The 3 Body Problem (Netflix): I was a little late to the party here, but thought the premise and early execution was really good. It draws you in but once it has made its big play, the downhill slope doesn’t really carry the ride all the way down. Good acting from people I like that aren’t superstars, scripting was solid and the premise was novel and caused you to think, and even research to learn a little about astrophysics.
The Diplomat (Netflix): Kerri Walsh from Ally McBeal plays the Ambassador to the UK and I didn’t get it, and couldn’t finish it. She was strong but it was because she was weak but it was really because she was strong in her weakness, or whatever? At the end of the day, I didn’t care and the showrunner didn’t seem to know much about diplomacy, what Ambassadors do, or how political intrigue works. To me it was just bad and I went looking for something else.
Into the Fire (Netflix): Whoa, I did not expect the twists and turns that came from this documentary about a mother who gives up her child for adoption, finds out decades later that she is missing and goes on to solve the cold case.
Bonhoeffer: I don’t walk out of movies, I figure if I pay the money, there will be something to enjoy. Sadly this was not the case in the biopic about God’s Spy, Dietrich Bonhoffer. It’s a marvelous story but simply didn’t end up in the right hands to tell the story on the big screen. It’s a shame because Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship, is a modern classic and he really was a hero who was killed in a concentration camp, but none of that was dramatic enough for filmmakers who had to spice things up and add parts to the story that just weren’t ever true.
What I Read/Listened To
The Body Keeps the Score: A very interesting book that argues that our bodies, not only our minds, warehouse the psychological experiences we undergo. While focused on trauma, the author suggests that traumatic experiences can alter the brain's structure and function, particularly areas like the amygdala, prefrontal cortex, and hippocampus. If you're exploring it for personal growth, understanding a loved one's experience, or professional development, the book offers both research-driven insights and practical strategies for understanding and healing. I didn’t expect to find much germane to my own experience here but was wrong and glad I was. Very helpful book.
The James Altucher Show: I binged a bunch of episodes from Altucher who is one of my favorite interviewers. He’s slightly on the spectrum, is very intelligent, curious in a way that cuts to the heart of what you really want to know from a guest, and fearless or oblivious in a way that let’s him ask the tough questions. His episodes with Eric Jorgenson about the Scribe Media collapse and reboot, and with Micha Kaufman about how and why he built Fiverr, were especially good. When I binge podcasts, James is one of my go to guys. I would LOVE to guest on his show to talk about A CEO Only Does Three Things.
Where I Travelled
Savannah:
Birmingham: Alabama as a state largely gets what it deserves, but Birmingham is an overlooked jewel that has made incredible strides in the past 15 years. The downtown has been completely redone and sports dozens of new restaurants that deserve far more attention than they get in the national food press. While in town meeting with a potential partner, we ate at Helen, a contemporary Southern grill where the chef is multiple James Beard Chef finalist. It’s a standout.
The Villages: We live close to the Villages in Florida. It’s a massive planned community that targets 65 and older residents. A great friend and mentor of mine, Brad Hart got married and wanted to have a reception there so that his mom could attend without too much travel. Since it’s so close, we drove down and had a grand time. The place defies description with neighborhood, or village, after village spreading across the horizon and older folks scooting about in golf carts. No matter the setting, it was a joy to say congrats to Brad and Jasmine!
Amelia Island: We did our firm Christmas Party at the Ritz Carlton on Amelia Island this year and it was nice. I chose the location because I was speaking at a conference the following week that was hosted at the property. The conference was focused on Family Offices, and I spoke on the use of AI in the practice of managing an office, and on asset allocation activities when you don’t have a professional team on board to do it. Both talks were well received, and the other attendees and their talks were edifying and gave me much to consider for this year. We have begun deploying capital away from venture and into public markets for the first time in many years, and are still hoping for some turnaround in the multi-family space.
Atlanta: The last week of the year, we typically decamp to Atlanta as a family. We shop a bit, eat a lot, and just do a bunch of nothing together. We don’t go fancy, we go tried-and-true: Italian at Ippolito’s in the suburbs, breakfasts at Henri’s, consignment stores in Buckhead. This trip we tried a new Indian restaurant, Hyderabad Cafe in Dunwoody. When we arrived there were 25 Indian men waiting in line for takeout, a good sign and the food was phenomenal, including my Chikoo milkshake! We also made a stop for my daughter’s first Rigby & Peller fitting. I have never taken a woman to this high-end custom bra store that she didn’t walk out a different woman. Exactly no woman that you know wears the correct bra size and it can greatly affect their confidence and poise. These folks measure you properly, fit you perfectly, charge you accordingly but it’s worth every penny. You may think it weird that I know anything about this, but in my view, a gentleman makes it his business to know the things that serve those he loves and this store does that for sure.
Nashville: I completed my third visit with the team in Nashville and it was intensely spiritual in a way that other visits haven’t been. I’m still doing the work to process through the material and expect that it will take me a long while to do so. What I do know is that the relationship I have with Jesus is more important and clear to me than it ever has been before. While in town I stayed at the Union Station Hotel and couldn’t have been more disappointed. Millenials in charge of anything tends to make me jaded, and this place could have been run by the Nazi Youth for all its insistence on policy and protocol and lack of independent thinking.
What I’ve Done
Monographs: In a particularly productive week this quarter, I wrote the next three books in my CEO series. As with all good books, they came from a place of serendipity and basically wrote themselves. You may know that I coach CEOs, and finished my 100th such coaching engagement in September. I took all the notes from those sessions (about 1500), and feed them in ChatGPT to see if there were some themes that emerged. It turns out that there were, all the CEOs I coached camped out on basically three tactical areas where they needed a little additional help: Meetings and Communication Cadence, Financial Matters, and Strategic Planning. Instead of writing huge tomes on these issues, I boiled down the basic frameworks on how to implement these on a tactical level and wrote three monographs on the topics. I’ll start publishing them in the new year.
Spanish Language Book: My publisher decided that it was time for a Spanish language edition of A CEO Only Does Three Things and we hired a translator to do the work. It was a really interesting process and taught me things I really didn’t know but probably should have. The first question was which Spanish you wanted to use, American or Castilian. I assume that all Spanish was largely the same, sort of like British and American English, but the translator was at pains to assure me that I should choose the right audience so that the idiom and translation was most relevant. I went with American Spanish and we should see the book come out in Q1.
Video Course: I partnered with Jasmine Jonte this quarter to script the video course for A CEO Only Does Three Things, and have engaged my production team to produce it in the coming months. We feel like it will be ready for primetime in Q2. I thought this was an easy process, “Here, read this book, take the bits you like and give me a script to read on camera.” Nope, the level of professionalism and detail that Jasmine and her team go into to make sure you have something that you’ll proud of is amazing and I look forward to seeing the work materialize.
Hernia surgery: For years, I’ve had an umbilical hernia. I wasn’t particularly embarrassed by it, didn’t really understand it, and wasn’t concerned about it. When I did the Executive Health Program at the Mayo Clinic (highly, highly recommend), the doc noticed it and started asking me questions. I figure I had it because I carry so much of my weight in my belly and I’m a little self-conscious about it: “Oh, I have a hernia because I’m too fat, that’s what caused it.” It turns out that it’s a genetic defect where the tissue lining the stomach and belly button area isn’t very strong and lets the belly bowl out into an unflattering shape. It’s been true for all the men in my family, and the surgeon fixed it right up. My stomach is flatter and more normal looking than ever before and people have said “Have you lost weight?” because of it. The recovery was much tougher than I had anticipated, taking about 8 weeks to fully recover, during which time I realized just how much I use my core to move about.
What I Learned
Small-minded men will flee from controversy and division like the hounds of hell are chasing them and being whipped by Satan himself. A whiff of difficulty that threatens any appearance of collegiality will drive them to betray promises, and professed values. We saw this with my recent interactions with my City Council, where long term friends were more concerned with everything looking like it was ok to the outside world than they were with keeping their word to me, and to others, and to getting the actual job of management done. That kind of spinelessness carries implications that we are dealing with as citizens every day, and will haunt them for the rest of their political careers.
I know you are a fan of ChatGPT. I gained great insights and learned from the Gospel of Thomas through conversation with ChatGPT. I am amazed at how it helps to understand and integrate the sayings into daily living. Getting ready for the next journey to become closer to God.