The Empty Seat
A first solo flight in Zimbabwe, an instructor who climbed out, and the judgement involved in knowing when someone no longer needs you beside them.
Read Note
An editorial archive
I've spent two decades inside consumer businesses. I'm also a qualified flying instructor. Both have taught me the same thing: when pressure rises, judgement narrows unless you know how to keep it clear.
Field Notes are drawn from life as a pilot, executive, father and mentor. They keep returning to one question: what holds judgement steady when conditions are moving quickly?
Each note begins with something lived. A warning light. A room going quiet. A person out of position. A detail others miss. A decision that asks for courage. A moment when speed begins to look like progress, but may only be noise.
The purpose is not nostalgia. It is to examine what those moments reveal about calm, consequence, instinct, care, coherence and the way people behave under pressure.
Some notes come from work. Some come from flying. Others come from family, sport, mentoring, culture, failure or the small observations that explain more than they first appear to.
Together, they form the evidence base behind Calm at Speed: a way of building, deciding and staying steady without losing humanity, taste or commercial clarity.
A first solo flight in Zimbabwe, an instructor who climbed out, and the judgement involved in knowing when someone no longer needs you beside them.
Read Note
The risk is not always learning something new. Sometimes the risk is discovering that what you already know is no longer enough.
Read Note
Entering a market and becoming part of one are different achievements. On the difference between routes and roots — and what living in a market reveals that the numbers never do.
Read Note
AI is increasing the premium on executive judgement, not reducing it. On emotional intelligence as a genuine operating capability and why clarity under pressure remains the scarcest resource of all.
Read Note
The most sophisticated creative and operational leaders are usually paying attention to details other people walk past.
Read Note
High performance often depends less on intensity than on whether people are positioned where their instincts can operate freely.
Read Note
The best operators rarely ignore instinct. They simply understand where instinct really comes from.
Read Note
Nightclub doors taught me that leadership often begins long before anyone starts speaking.
Read Note
Flying humanitarian aid into Ukraine reinforced something aviation teaches very quickly: calm is procedural.
Read Note