Where I came from

Somebody taught me this first.

Almost nothing I am any good at started with me. It started with somebody who bothered to show me, and mostly did it without making a speech about it.

The first one

My grandfather put a golf club in my hands. That is the earliest thing I can point at and say: this is where the rest of it came from. Not a lecture about discipline. Just a game that would not let me lie to myself, handed over by somebody who already knew that.

Most of what he understood never got written down. That is normal, and it is a waste, and it is most of the reason this site exists.

There is a version of a man that other people never meet. The one who was twenty three with nothing figured out. The one who sat in the truck outside the house for a minute because the day had gotten the better of him. People get the finished version, which is why everybody ends up learning the same things the slow way.

So I am leaving the drafts on purpose. Not the tidy story. The part where I was unsure and did it anyway.


Standards

The rules I keep.

Short list on purpose. A rule you cannot recite is not a rule.

01

rule one

Where it came from, and the time I broke it.

02

rule two

Where it came from, and the time I broke it.

03

rule three

Where it came from, and the time I broke it.

04

rule four

Where it came from, and the time I broke it.

Worth
passing on

Written down before I forget it.

The things I would actually want somebody to have, whoever ends up needing them.

01

On the first time somebody tells you no

What it means, what it does not, and what to do in the ninety seconds after.

02

On who you let close

The signs I missed for years, and the ones I would want somebody to catch in the first month.

03

On the day you want to quit

What I did, whether it worked, and how close I actually came.

04

On being good at something

Why the boring part is the part, and why nobody will clap for it.

Photographs
Old family photo goes here. supply image

These will be my own. Every photo on this site is used once and nothing repeats.