Exciting day -- the launch of The Pennymores, a novel created with my daughters. This began during the pandemic as a collaborative bedtime story and turned into a full novel. It was like trying to bottle childlike imagination -- the hardest & most fulfilling book I've done.

“Books are our happy place.” ⠀ Quinn said this once, and our family kind of ran with it. ⠀ It eventually became one of our unofficial travel rules: ⠀ ✅ If you’ll read it, we’ll buy it. 📚 If it’s not at the library in 2 weeks, we’ll find a copy. 📍And if there’s a museum, church, or royal garden with a book in it... we’re going. ⠀ Which is how we ended up treating the British Museum like a sacred reading quest. ⠀ We tracked down original manuscripts. We spotted a tiny Paddington in the children’s wing. We even found the original British Library Reading Room... and yes, took our time soaking it in. ⠀ What could have easily been “Dad dragging us to another museum” became a scavenger hunt for literary treasures. ⠀ And I love that. ⠀ Because somewhere along the way, books became more than something we read at home. ⠀ They became something we look for together. ⠀ A reason to explore. A reason to wander into one more room. A reason to get excited about a place we might otherwise walk right past. ⠀ Because when your mission is books? ⠀ Even the quietest places can feel like an adventure. ⠀ #Books #Reading #FamilyTravel #Parenting

Having good next-door neighbors is such a gift.

Books became more than something our family reads. They became something we look for together everywhere we go.

“Don't think, just write. You can’t become a better writer if you don’t write... and write and write.” – @samanthademers

“Innovation sounds great. But how do we make this not feel like we’re just giving people more to do?” ⠀ A senior HR and People leader at a Fortune 500 company asked me this during a conversation. ⠀ Smart question. ⠀ Because her people were already busy. Resources were tight. Teams were stretched. ⠀ So when leaders start talking about innovation, creativity, or transformation, what employees often hear is: ⠀ “Cool. Another thing.” ⠀ Another meeting. Another initiative. Another offsite. Another deck. ⠀ And that’s exactly why so many innovation efforts quietly fail. ⠀ Not because people lack talent. ⠀ Not because they lack creativity. ⠀ Because organizations mistake activities for systems. ⠀ I see this all the time. ⠀ Let’s do an offsite. Let’s brainstorm big ideas. Let’s run a hackathon. Let’s announce an innovation strategy. ⠀ Those things can be useful. ⠀ But they’re events. ⠀ Events spike energy. Systems change behavior. ⠀ Without a system, innovation becomes something people have to do on top of their “real work.” ⠀ And eventually someone in the room starts thinking: ⠀ “Not another innovation workshop...” ⠀ That skeptic isn’t wrong. ⠀ What they’re really saying is: ⠀ “If this doesn’t change how we work week to week, why are we doing it?” ⠀ That question changed how I started thinking about innovation. ⠀ The goal isn’t to get people to do more innovation. ⠀ The goal is to help people do better work. ⠀ That’s what I mean by Creative Capacity. ⠀ Skills. Systems. Time. Permission. Structure. ⠀ The things that allow people to turn creativity into actual progress as part of their work, not on top of it. ⠀ Because innovation shouldn’t feel like one more thing on an already-full plate. ⠀ It should help improve what’s already on the plate. ⠀ Innovation isn’t more work. ⠀ It’s better work. ⠀ #Innovation #CreativeCapacity #Leadership #FutureOfWork

The key to writing a great book is to write a lot of books.

Innovation shouldn’t feel like more work. It should help people do better work. ⠀ Events create energy. Systems change how people actually work.

“The best entrepreneurs only strike when they see the biggest opportunities.” – @APompliano

I didn't expect a tiny fridge in Spain to teach me anything about how I live. ⠀ But it did. ⠀ At home in the US, we’ve got two fridges. ⠀ And two freezers. ⠀ Weekly grocery order. Stock the shelves. Pull from the inventory. ⠀ It’s a system. ⠀ Then, while traveling in Spain, we had a fridge the size of a hotel minibar. ⠀ No exaggeration. ⠀ Which meant... ⠀ We went to the market every 2–3 days. We thought about tonight’s dinner, not the week’s. We shopped with a basket, not a cart. And we ate what we actually bought... because it didn’t fit otherwise. ⠀ Turns out, there’s something beautiful about only having what you need. ⠀ About planning one meal at a time. ⠀ About slowing down and buying ingredients you’ll actually use in the next few hours. ⠀ At home, having more space makes it easy to operate on autopilot. ⠀ Buy more. Store more. Think about it later. ⠀ The tiny fridge didn't give us that option. ⠀ It forced us to be a little more intentional. ⠀ I still love a big fridge. ⠀ But I think I might love that tiny one more. ⠀ Sometimes having less space changes the way you use what you have. ⠀ And sometimes a constraint you’d normally try to eliminate ends up changing the experience for the better. ⠀ 🧊 Bonus: I can now say “Greek yogurt” in Spanish... with decent pronunciation.

Sometimes having less forces you to be more intentional. ⠀ Turns out, a tiny fridge taught me more about using what I have than a big one ever did.

“See a problem -> question it -> solve it. The Entrepreneur way.” – @LucaNetz

I’m a big mug guy. ⠀ Tall pour. Steaming hot. Sit down and get to work. ⠀ That’s my normal coffee routine back home in DC. ⠀ But spending time in Barcelona introduced me to something very different: ⠀ Meet my tiny, mighty new friend: 👉 the Nespresso pod. ⠀ Every morning, I’d pop one in, pull out my little glass cup, and sip a single shot of espresso while the kids slowly woke up and the city started to hum. ⠀ It was small. It was simple. But it became kind of sacred. ⠀ There was something about having just one intentional cup... ⠀ Instead of fueling a work sprint, it slowed things down just enough to start the day with a little more focus. ⠀ And let’s be honest... ⠀ It also made me feel like I was in a European film montage where I was about to write a screenplay or plot a heist. ⠀ All that from one little pod. ⠀ I’m still a big mug guy. ⠀ But Barcelona reminded me that sometimes the smallest rituals are the ones you notice most. ⠀ Sometimes less really is more. ⠀ ☕✍️🇪🇸 ⠀ #Rituals #Creativity #Travel #Writing

The smallest rituals are sometimes the ones you notice most. ⠀ Apparently all I needed was one tiny espresso and the delusion that I was in a European film montage. ☕️

“Stop waiting for your audience to show up and start creating so they have something binge when they find you 😉” – @KambreMechelle