I spent the past few months postponing a rose problem. We have a beautiful red rose bush in our back yard. We call her Rosita. Every year, Rosita, very uncharacteristic of her name, puts on a huge blooming show starting in the spring and culminating with a dazzling display the first week of July. Normally, by this time of year, the buds have exploded into gigantic, softball-sized clouds of red with a fragrance so delightful you can smell it all over the yard. But this year’s July display was disappointing. Her show was like one of those $39.95 fireworks kits you buy at the roadside stand that promise a Disneyland spectacular but deliver a pipsqueak pop and a two-second flash in the sky. You know what I mean.

Anyway, I knew something was wrong. This weekend I decided to find the cause. Turns out, Rosita had an infection. A string of ivy had made its way onto her branches, and despite her sharp thorny defenses, she was being strangled by this invasive parasite. Dead branches lay in the wake of this rose-choking assassin. After a careful chat with Rosita, we all agreed: surgery was required.

Thorn-proof gloves on. Pruning shears in hand. I went to work extracting the invader. Carefully and deliberately, I cut away the dusty dead branches and spiraling vines. Rosita’s home would be free of these life-sucking vampires. A few hours later (yes, I’m quite slow), the operation was complete. Rosita was free again to thrive. I held my breath, wondering if it was too late. But just a few days later, roses began to appear again. New sprouting branches. New leaves. New life. That’s right, Rosita was back! Her red blooms were exploding with their usual charm.

This weekend I sat outside for a moment, enjoying the display Rosita was putting on for us, and thinking about the lesson I’d just learned. Things can enter our lives that slowly erode our ability to do what we do best. The parasites grow, slowly but surely sucking the life right out of our efforts. They can even create dead weight that keeps us from growing in new directions.

If you’re like me, you might have procrastinated a bit too much. Now the ivy is everywhere. But it’s not too late! Put on the gloves. Grab the pruning shears and go to work. Trim out what’s sapping the life out of you: the useless busywork, the habitual process that seems healthy but is actually a lie. No roses bloom from ivy. Snip. Take your time. Find the toil, find the useless weight that burdens your day. Remove it. Clean it up. Set your schedule free so you can breathe, grow, and bloom.

Okay, I confess, this note today was probably more for me than for you. But maybe, somehow, it resonates with you too, or with someone you love. If so, share it.

Clean out the ivy. Be a Rosita. Go put on a show.

I arrived early. The room was set up with a matrix of round tables, set for lunch. Only two people were in the room. I wandered up to the front table, next to the stage. No name tags. It seemed like fair game, so I sat down.

Slowly the room began to fill up, and so did my table. We chatted about the conference and the AI topics that had been the signature theme through all the presentations. Lunch was delivered and the lights began to dim. On the stage, right in front of me, an announcer appeared. “Hi friends! We are delighted today to have a special guest join us to talk about The Power of Story: How Imagination Fuels Innovation. Please welcome, LeVar Burton.”

I watched LeVar walk on stage and sit just a few feet from where I was sitting. My mind raced with questions, about Reading Rainbow, about Star Trek, about Roots. I never got the chance to ask any of them. I didn’t need to. LeVar unpacked his life in a masterful, story-telling way, punctuating each point with incredible twists and turns.

According to Burton, storytelling is not a soft skill or an optional elective. It is the foundational technology of human civilization. Everything, every new innovation, every accomplishment, begins as an act of imagination. Nothing manifests in the physical world without first being imagined. Storytelling is our lingua franca, the universal shared language across ages, cultures, and people groups. Everyone understands and connects through stories. In the old days, storytelling was around a warm fire, casting light and shadows on the speakers. Today, it’s a new fire, a cool fire: glowing screens and digital systems we use to craft, transmit, and deliver stories. But in all of it, storytelling is key.

Are you a storyteller? I confess, as a kid, I was terrible at it. I’d do my best to give a narrative, or worse, try to tell a joke, and my stepdad would literally roll around on the ground laughing at how bad I was. That stung, but he was also quick to encourage me, and to teach me how to tell stories. He was brilliant at it. I embraced the lessons. I’d try again, sometimes a little better than the last, sometimes not. But I kept trying. Somewhere between his laughter and his lessons, I stopped being afraid of failing at it. Now I love to tell stories myself. Probably too much.

How do you tell a story? As in my example, the best way to improve is to practice. Keep telling stories. Take the feedback. Keep going. You’ll get the hang of it.

“Life, like walking, is a controlled fall. Take the step that is in front of you, and the next step will always reveal itself.” — LeVar Burton

Like learning any new skill, life gives us endless opportunities to fall. We might wish there were a magic button: press it, become an instant expert or artisan, but that isn’t how it works. It’s a series of trying, falling, failing, getting better, and trying again. Just like my own path to becoming a storyteller. The key is to keep trying: to place that foot of faith right out in front of you and keep walking.

Sometimes that means sitting at the front table, even if you don’t know you belong there. Sit down anyway. The story is about to begin.

Do you have a story? I know you do. Write it down if you haven’t already. Tell someone. Keep creating new ones. We are storytellers, after all. It defines us. It changes the world around us. It brings new color, flavor, and dimension to our lives. It even helps us imagine, and do, the impossible. 

Keep telling stories.

“So, what do you do?”

It’s one of those questions that follows us everywhere. Dinners, conferences, reunions, casual conversations with strangers. Most of us, myself included, answer with our job title or our role. It makes sense. We spend a staggering portion of our lives working, and so our work becomes a major thread in our story. But I’ve been thinking about that question differently lately. Because what we do for a living and why we exist, those aren’t the same thing.

What is your story? I believe each of us carries a purpose that is completely our own, irreplaceable, unrepeatable, and worth discovering. Our deepest responsibility isn’t to a job description. It’s to become, as fully as we can, who we were made to be. But what is that purpose? Why am I here?

Many years ago, I decided I needed to wrestle with that for myself. So, I sat down and wrote it out, not perfectly, but in a way that was honest and from the heart. I want to share what I found. But more than that, I want to invite you to do the same. Take a pause. Meditate on who you are. Reflect. What excites you? What gives you a sense of joy, meaning, and momentum? Next, dream. Look into the future of what you want to be.  Write it down. Then go further. Define the verbs that shape how you live that purpose out, day by day. As an example, I will share what I wrote, and why I do what I do:

My Purpose

I believe my purpose is to use my gifts and knowledge I have gathered in science, technology, leadership and writing to help others, to elevate our human experience across the world.  I will use my time to make a positive difference.  I will encourage others and help them enjoy the amazing gift of life we have been given.

My Mission 

Be Proactive – I will not passively let life go by. I will engage in creative discovery, problem solving, innovation and action to define my path and fulfill my purpose. I will enjoy life to the fullest and help others along the way.

Be Intelligent – I will actively pursue self-improvement by adding to my knowledge through continuous education, reading and experimentation. I will humbly acknowledge my weakness and seek wisdom to make able decisions and provide helpful counsel to others.

Be Generous – I will give to others in genuine need and look for opportunities in which to invest my resources for the good of my family, friends and fellow human beings.

Be Helpful – I will look for occasions to serve others. I will acknowledge that my work produces resources for my family and extends beyond our home to the community and society in general. I will extend assistance to those in need and will look for ways to help others grow in their life to meet their own purpose.

Be Compassionate – I will acknowledge my own weaknesses and be considerate of others. I recognize and embrace the rich diversity of our human family and will do my best to extend love, kindness, mercy and grace to all people.

Be Redemptive – I will look for opportunities to improve my environment and circle of influence. I will acknowledge my responsibility to myself and others and provide a positive impact on my environment, my surroundings, my fellow creatures, my home and my world. I will strive to elevate and to improve our human experience and condition.

What you do will change throughout your life. Why you do it…  that’s yours to keep. Write it down. Let it be your compass. And then go live it.

Embrace your purpose. Be you.

The vibe coding adventure continues… I’m sure you were hoping to hear another update from me about that. Ha! Well, today I hope I’ll share something helpful to you in life, not just on the command line.

I have a lot of code. I’ll confess some of it is pretty bad, and some of it is downright scary. I even have a few repos I haven’t touched in years. Not too long ago, I needed to update an old C++ project with a Rube Goldberg collection of bash scripts. Honestly, I couldn’t remember anything about the code. Sure, I could have spent hours poring over the classes, sifting through makefiles, and tracing if-else-fi branches, but I didn’t need to. I brought a friend. His name is Claude. I launched a chat window inside VS Code and began giving instructions.

First: “Let’s understand this codebase. I’m lost. Take a look at all the classes, functions, and scripts. Build an AGENTS.md file to document the purpose of this code, the setup, architecture, and APIs. Make it comprehensive. Create a complete but concise inheritance map in Mermaid, and unpack any call flows that will help me understand the design. While you’re at it, notice the style and best practices used and note what we should codify or correct.”

Claude went to work. It started scanning, reading, comparing, and composing. The design document emerged and it was impressive. Most sections were correct, but I adjusted a few key items around vision, goals, and project style. Claude even added a section on improvements, which I found impressive. Some of my memory came back about the code, and I found it humorous that there were so many flaws. Ok, you’re probably not surprised.

Next, I asked Claude to build a plan for new features I wanted to add, including fixing some of those bugs. It built a PLAN.md with checkboxes. We (and I mean “we” in the observer sense, Claude did all the lifting) worked through those tasks, with me occasionally making decisions. At each step, I’d review the code it updated (via visual diffs in VS Code), commit it, and sometimes coach Claude to take a different approach, sometimes regarding goals, style, or architectural changes that should match what’s in the AGENTS.md file. I’d ask it to compare its approach to the standard, and it would often say something like, “Yes, your code isn’t following the purpose of the project; let me fix that!” I find it funny that my only “coding” was chatting, and just as funny that I had to remind my AI buddy to check the AGENTS.md to stay on track.

Years ago, a mentor asked for my list of 5-year goals. I started listing things off the cuff, as usual, but he stopped me. He asked if I’d written them down. I hadn’t. He suggested that the act of writing them out would help me distill my thinking. More importantly, he said, it would become a reference point to help make decisions, prioritize, and trim away things that didn’t help with those 5-year goals. He shared his list and admitted he didn’t look at it often, but would revisit it each year or whenever he needed to prioritize. I followed his advice. It was life changing.

We all need AGENTS.md files. Maybe you’re better at this than I am, but like Claude, I often get caught up “doing” and lose sight of my key goals. I need to reference my map, my AGENTS.md, to ensure I’m focused on what matters most. That often means stopping things that don’t contribute to the overall 5-year plan for myself, my job, or my family. Other times, it means course correcting or starting something new. Whatever the case, that map is pure gold.

Do you have an AGENTS.md file for yourself? If not, may I suggest drafting one and committing it today? Start by asking: Where do you want to be in 5 years? What is important for you? Your career, your family, your world? Get specific. Set measurable outcomes. And, this is key, don’t forget to check in on it now and then. Otherwise, you’ll forget, and you may need Claude to stop by and fix things for you.

I woke up Sunday to a text alert from my mom. A week ago, she had been in the hospital, so sleep turned to panic for me. I grabbed my phone and was relieved to see it was a photo she was sharing. She had woken up early and discovered her yard was covered in a six-inch-thick blanket of snow. It was stunning! The glistening fresh cover had washed out all the imperfections of the ground and dressed it in a silky-smooth sheet of white. The harsh winter landscape was reframed into a wonderland. It was beautiful. It was peaceful and refreshing.

I’ll be honest, sometimes things feel hopeless. Everywhere you look there’s chaos. The landscape is full of noise, unrest, and uncertainty. I hear it in conversations, see it in the news, and watch it unfold on the local, national, and global stage. People are concerned, anxious, and unsure about the future.

At the same time, on the shores of our generation, the next technological wave is crashing: Generative AI. It’s poised to amplify us, disrupt us, and rewrite how work gets done. It’s exciting. It’s unsettling. It’s both at the same time.

If you’re feeling unsteady, you’re not alone, and we’re not the first to feel this way. Human history is a long story of disruption and change. Empires rise and fall. Technologies reshape daily life. Resources run thin, then abundant again. Wars, disasters, inventions, revolutions, some slow, some sudden. And every time, people struggle. They pause. They worry. And then they adapt, learn, and often, they thrive.

It strikes me that the ones who do best aren’t necessarily the strongest or the loudest. They’re the most flexible. The most curious. The ones willing to lean in, learn, and keep moving forward with hope, even when the path isn’t fully visible yet.

Years ago, I wrote about hope, not as wishful thinking, but as fuel. Hope isn’t denial. It doesn’t ignore reality. It looks reality in the eye and says, “There’s still a way forward.” Science even backs this up. Hope changes us chemically, releasing endorphins and enkephalins, neurochemicals that help us endure pain, overcome obstacles, heal faster, and feel joy again.

Hope covers the chaos of our lives with a blanket of snow. It reframes our situation. It elevates our approach and redefines our mood. But hope isn’t passive. It asks something of us. It requires faith, the kind that takes one step forward despite obstacles. It knows the road ahead may be challenging, but it believes the destination exists. It’s quiet perseverance. It’s choosing curiosity over fear. It’s staying open when it would be easier to shut down.

I believe this moment, right now, is one of those hinge points in history. Technology is accelerating. The world feels unstable. There is more chaos on the horizon. And yet, opportunity is everywhere for those willing to adapt, grow, and imagine something better. The future isn’t something that happens to us. It’s something we build, shape, and invent together, one decision at a time.

So, if you’re tired, pause. If you’re anxious, breathe. If you’re uncertain, stay curious. And above all, don’t lose hope! The future is still ahead of us. Tomorrow is still one more step toward our dreams. And hope, real hope, is still one of the most powerful tools we have to get there.

May your week be covered in a fresh blanket of hope!