Own My Growth

Helping folks with practical tips to manage themselves better

What Is the Struggle Doing to You?

Struggle

I was talking with my son and some of his friends about ChatGPT and Claude. A question came up: where do you draw the line? I do not think the answer lies in which tasks we use AI for. It Read more…


Hard Does Not Mean Wrong

hard does not mean wrong

We often make a strange mistake in life. When something feels hard, we assume we are not good at it. But lifting a heavy weight is supposed to feel difficult. The difficulty is not evidence that you are bad at Read more…


The Cover Matters

cover matters

We like to believe quality speaks for itself. It does not. Unfortunately, people judge the book by its cover. Always have. You can have the best product, the finest work, the most useful idea. But present it carelessly, and it Read more…


Weekend Story- The Returned Gift

Returned Gift

A man once came to a teacher who was sitting quietly in meditation. The man was angry. He stood before the teacher and began shouting. He accused him. Insulted him. Mocked him. The teacher did not answer. He simply sat Read more…


The Mistake Inside The Failure

Mistake inside failure

My son called recently, upset about a collaborative engineering project that had not gone well. He felt he had done everything right, but something else, unanticipated, had caused it to fall apart. We ended up in a bit of an Read more…


You Are The Example

you are the example

Before I became a technology entrepreneur, I spent many years in a large financial institution. The instinct there was always to avoid anything new, because it must not fail. And thanks to that fear of failing, we would not attempt Read more…


Over-Communicate

Something I keep telling my teammates: communicate more than you think you need to. If you do not have the answer yet, say so. If there is bad news, share it early. If something is taking longer, explain why. Because Read more…


Don’t Be Your Own Bottleneck

Don't be your own bottleneck

Working in technology has given me the chance to build solutions that genuinely improve productivity, reduce risk, and create better customer experiences. A few times over the years, the solution simply did not exist yet. My team and I had Read more…


The Urgency Trap

urgency

I used to wear urgency like a badge. Always on. Always responding. Always moving. I told myself this was leadership. But I had unconsciously trained everyone around me to believe that everything was a fire. And once you do that, Read more…


Weekend Story-Hole In The Boat

Hole in the boat

A man once asked a painter to paint his small boat red. The painter arrived early in the morning with his brushes, sandpaper, and paint. The boat was old, but well-loved. It had carried the family across the lake for Read more…