Topics

Kids & Video Games

Having contributed to the development of 15 video games for PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo, I have an insider’s perspective as to what developers are trying to create. What’s more, since founding GameTruck, I’ve seen literally thousands of video game parties. So I have a rare perspective on how kids and adults interact with each other over video games. My goal is always to bring compassion, understanding, and better tools to the topic.

Coaching & Leadership

When we franchised GameTruck twenty years ago, I realized we were not just selling video game trailers to people, we were helping people become entrepreneurs. If we wanted GameTruck to be successful, it wasn’t enough that I learned how to be a better business owner and leader, I had to help other people on that journey as well. I joined the Entrepreneurs’ Organization in 2014, and for the last five years I’ve helped a wide array of owners grow their business through coaching. Helping entrepreneurs improve their skills is like pushing on the lead domino, a lot of other problems get knocked down fast.

Resilience & Mental Toughness

Over my fourteen years of coaching youth baseball, it was not the championships and trophies, but watching a group of boys become good men, the kind of men who could be their best when their best was most needed. Developing the mindset to face hard challenges with grace is a common thread for the best leaders.

Entrepreneurship & Innovation

Because GameTruck was the first of its kind, that experience taught me a lot about innovation and disruption. Out of the ashes of the arcade industry, my team and I learned how much work comes after the good idea. Hint: It’s a lot. Ideas are easy, execution and commitment is what drives change.

Play & Connection

Whether it was coaching youth baseball, or hosting video game parties, I learned that friends are made shoulder to shoulder, facing challenges together, and nothing connects us quite like play.

Systems Thinking & Engineering

I earned my engineering degrees from ASU during the tech boom of the late 80s and early 90s. Personal computers, cell phones, and the internet showed me time and again how a well-designed system can have an enormous impact on people’s lives. Earning eleven patents taught me nothing is more powerful than designing systems which help people live better lives.

Writing & Storytelling

For a long time, I communicated like an engineer, giving people answers followed by facts. But it wasn’t until I stopped telling people what I knew, and started to share with them how I learned it, that I discovered the power of story. Now I am obsessed with sharing my experience, so people can discover their own lessons, and we can both benefit from the journey.

Building a Digital Second Brain

College was a great start, but a career in technology taught me to be a lifelong learner. And as my experience fanned out, so did my interests — until I was reading a non-fiction book a week. How on earth do you keep that much content straight, let alone apply it? In 2017 I learned about Niklas Luhmann and his Zettelkasten, and shortly after that I discovered Tiago Forte’s PARA system. Together, those concepts helped me build my first digital second brain — an organized system to extend not just my learning, but how I can effectively apply what I learn.

AI & Agents

I have credit on fifteen video games that sold over thirty million units and more than three billion dollars in revenue. Interactive experiences have been the center of my career for a long time, and now, finally, the games can talk back to us. Science fiction has become science fact. What an exciting time to be alive.

Gamification & Technical Leadership

After leaving Motorola’s research labs, I made the unlikely jump into video game development. I assembled and led teams of artists and engineers with one singular purpose in mind: to build something fun. From my perspective, that is the ultimate gamification. Can you create an experience for someone else that feels like play?