Month: January 2025

Moral Hazard

I had only been on the highway for a minute when I saw the flashing lights behind me.

I looked down at my speedometer. It read 80 miles per hour.

My hands started to tremble.

I was still in high school and had only been driving for a couple months. Yet, I’d already gotten myself into trouble.

I slowed down and pulled to the side of the road. As I waited for the officer to get out of his vehicle, I stared at my reflection in the rearview mirror.

I was in formal attire and my hair was neatly trimmed. Was I presentable enough to escape with a warning?

I saw the officer approaching. I was about to get my answer.

License and registration please.

I handed the documents over to the officer. His expression did not change.

I clocked you going 82 miles per hour back there under that bridge. You do realize that this is a work zone, don’t you? The speed limit is 45.

I had not realized that. Sure, there were orange cones sitting in the grassy median beside my vehicle. But I hadn’t seen any in the road. And I hadn’t seen a single construction vehicle either.

Still, it didn’t matter. I was getting written up.

The officer went back to his car to print out the citation. With the excessive speed violation and the work zone violation, I was on the hook for more than $1,000.

As I let the numbers on the ticket sink in, the officer gave two parting words of advice.

Slow down.

I drove home in a daze. I had no idea how I was going to pay the citation.

I broke the unhappy news to my parents as soon as I walked in the front door. They were justifiably furious.

Still, after a few moments, cooler heads prevailed. My father offered to cover the fine if I attended defensive driving classes.

I’d essentially be getting a clean slate.

I quickly accepted the terms. A couple of weeks later, I spent a morning in a hotel conference room watching presentations about how to check blind spots and safely pass vehicles. And soon after that, I was back on the road.

It was as if nothing had changed. And that was a problem.

Moral hazard.

This term is a hallmark of risk management circles.

It explains the behavior of those who act with impunity. Free of consequences for their actions, these individuals throw caution to the wind. And everyone else is saddled with the ensuing mess.

This was my experience after my father covered my hefty speeding ticket. I drove nearly as unburdened as I had before, leaving other drivers with little peace of mind.

On its face, Moral Hazard seems both reprehensible and avoidable. But the truth is far more complicated.

You see, institutional forces are out there to buffer us from risk’s implications. Not everyone has a father who will cover a $1,000 speeding ticket. But most drivers have insurance policies to cover the liability they might cause to other vehicles – and the people inside them – while behind the wheel.

The same principle has long held true for houses across our nation. Home insurance would offer financial protection against a variety of maladies. And until recently, this encouraged people to put down roots wherever they fancied.

And the business world? It’s littered with Moral Hazard too. Remember when the United States government bailed out major banks in 2008, and regional bank depositors in 2023? Those actions hardly deterred the risky behavior that preceded them.

The carte blanche – the blank slate – it’s meant to help us boldly plod ahead without being crippled by a one-off event.

But if it leaves us too bold for our own good, what’s the point?

Several months after my speeding ticket, I graduated from high school.

As I prepared to head off to college, I left the car behind. My father stated that I’d need to earn the right to drive around campus. The best way to achieve that right, he said, was with a few semesters of stellar grades.

About 18 months later, it was evident that I’d earned those stellar marks. So, at the end of winter break, my father accompanied me on the 1,300-mile journey to school.

Throughout that two-day trek, my father raved about how much I’d matured in college. He stated that I was ready for the responsibility of having a car.

But behind the wheel, I’d experienced little of that growth. The shadow of my speeding ticket had faded away, aided by the check my father had written. Bad habits were everywhere.

Moral Hazard had become entrenched. I was living on borrowed time.

And eventually, my luck ran out.

During my senior year of college, I totaled my car in a wreck on the highway. It was a humbling experience – and it left me without the means to get from my rental home to campus each day.

A few weeks later, my father surprised me once again. He’d be bringing one of the family sedans down to school that coming weekend and handing me the keys.

My graduation gift was arriving early. There was only one condition.

If I totaled this car, I’d be on my own.

I thought about how hard the past few weeks had been. I’d spend hours walking around campus with heavy textbooks turning my backpack into a boulder. And at the end of the day, I practically needed to beg friends for a ride home.

I thought about my time at the assessor’s lot a couple of days after the wreck. An insurance claims representative took one look at my mangled car and wrote me a paltry check. One that could never make me whole.

I thought about the accident itself. Of seeing the airbags deploy. Of that terrifying moment when I wasn’t sure if my friend in the passenger seat was alright.

I had seen the consequences of my actions. And I never wanted to experience them again.

So, I pledged to become a safer driver. And I’ve held true to that promise ever since.

Moral Hazard has no quarter here anymore.

Back in the 1980s, Nancy Reagan launched a crusade against drugs.

The First Lady sat in front of a camera in the White House and addressed the nation’s youth. She encouraged them to Just say no when illicit substances were bandied their way.

It’s tempting to view Moral Hazard in this way. If we reject it out of hand, we’ll act more responsibly.

But such temptations are nothing more than delusions. Moral Hazard is too embedded in our subconscious to be rooted out that easily.

It takes something more.

Ridding ourselves of this scourge requires a thought experiment. It demands that we actively consider the contours of the safety net around us – who builds it and who funds it. Then, it implores us to consider what would happen if that safety net wasn’t around – and to act accordingly.

These considerations consume plenty of mental bandwidth. They’re unpleasant. But they’re also necessary.

So, let’s take the initiative to open our eyes. To go the extra mile to banish our bad tendencies. And to lean into the responsibility that comes with risk.

We’ll all be better for it.

The Craft

I opened a fresh document on my computer as I prepared to start writing an article. This article.

But instead of seeing the usual blank page on my Microsoft Word interface, I saw a light gray icon and text near the top.

The text encouraged me to select the icon or tap a few keys to draft with Copilot.

Copilot is Microsoft’s Artificial Intelligence engine. When enabled, it writes from scratch on the user’s behalf – a process known as Generative AI.

This whole idea of computers writing for humans is somewhat novel. But it’s already made scores of Microsoft users more productive – saving them time while increasing their output.

It would have been useful for me too. It had been a busy few days, and the thought of typing out some fresh thoughts seemed daunting.

But I wasn’t ceding the pen that easily.

I typed my first words onto the page. And I watched the gray icon and text disappear.

10,000 hours.

That’s the amount of practice time it takes to master a craft.

Psychologist K. Anders Ericsson published this finding in a research paper in 1993, referring to it as Deliberate Practice. Acclaimed author Malcolm Gladwell later highlighted Ericsson’s work in a bestselling book, leading many readers to consciously adopt Deliberate Practice.

A 10,000 hour commitment is no picnic. If someone were to spend 4 hours of their day – every single day – practicing a task, it would take them nearly 7 years to attain “world class mastery” of it. Factor in the days skipped for holidays, illnesses, and other commitments, and that timeline is likely to stretch beyond a decade.

And yet, many of those who have accepted the challenge have seen its rewards. James Earl Jones went from being a man with a stutter to a versatile actor with a booming voice. Mike Piazza went from being a 62nd round draft pick to a Hall of Fame baseball catcher.

Commitment can change our destiny, transforming the impossible into the probable. Persistence pays off.

But only if we let it.

On February 6, 2005, the New England Patriots took on the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl.

Just a few years earlier, such a matchup in the championship game of American football would have been improbable. The Patriots and Eagles spent most of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s as also-rans.

But fortunes had shifted with the turn of the millennium. Philadelphia had a creative head coach and an up-and-coming quarterback. And New England had Bill Belichick and Tom Brady.

Belichick was a football lifer – a champion assistant coach who had fumbled in a prior head coaching stint in Cleveland. But his fortunes had changed in Massachusetts. He took his spot on the sidelines seeking a third championship in a four-season span.

Brady was Belichick’s quarterback through that entire run of success – but an unlikely one in that. New England had selected him in the 6th round of the draft some years back, hoping he would serve as a backup signal caller. But an injury to the starter had vaulted Brady to the top spot early on, and he never relinquished the role.

Both Belichick and Brady appeared to be Deliberate Practice success stories. And yet, they somehow made the business of winning high-profile football games look easy.

Perhaps that’s why a certain commercial – shown to millions of viewers during a break in the action – seemed to fit like a glove.

The commercial was for Staples, then a dominant office supplies store. It showed a student, a rancher, a young parent, and a surgeon – all facing challenging situations. Each of them pressed a red button that read Easy on it, presumably offering a resolution.

The message was straightforward. Life could be challenging, but procuring office supplies didn’t have to be. Staples made it look as easy as New England Patriots did while winning championships.

In the months after the Super Bowl, Staples started making replicas of the Easy button. Americans put them next to their computer keyboards, leaning into the mantra.

The Easy button craze was upon us.

Two decades have passed since that iconic Super Bowl ad. But the more I hear about Generative AI – and the more I see people flocking to it – the more I’m brought back to the Easy button craze it yielded.

Having someone else tackle the difficult and the monotonous is a shared dream. It reduces friction and leaves more room for joy.

Still, there are clear dangers to this approach.

For one thing, the resource we hand off to might not prove trustworthy. This has proven true at times with Generative AI, which has committed some notable blunders.

But beyond that, ceding tasks to the machines jeopardizes deliberate practice.

Generative AI, you see, can unlock enhanced performance in a fraction of the 10,000 hours it takes us. But in doing so, it robs us of opportunities to work through problems, prove our resilience, and hone our craft.

And that’s hardly insignificant.

You’re a good writer.

My mother told me this repeatedly back in 2005.

I was in high school back then, trying to figure out my future. Getting accepted to college was the immediate goal, but then what? I had no idea what I wanted to study there, let alone what I would want to do for a vocation afterward.

My mother left those decisions to me. But she kept dropping hints about my writing prowess.

I didn’t understand the praise. Writing always felt arduous to me. And my grades on essay assignments were never exemplary.

Still, I ended up focusing on writing in college – initially as a film major and later as a journalism student. That led to three years in the news media and several more in the realm of content marketing.

As the years passed by, it was getting harder to dismiss my writing abilities. After all, that skill was now putting a roof over my head and food on my table.

Yet, I still felt the urge to perfect my craft. To practice, iterate, and grow on my own terms.

That’s what led me to launch what is now Ember Trace nearly a decade ago. It gave me a forum to share my thoughts and reflections. But it also allowed me to practice my craft, week in and week out.

This process hasn’t always been peachy. But I’m a better writer and a stronger person for it.

And that’s why I didn’t even consider clicking on that gray button in Microsoft Word and letting Copilot do the work.

Not this time. Not any time.

There’s value in honing our craft. In sticking to it and doing the dirty work.

I’m committed to that pursuit. Let’s hope that I’m not alone.

Testing the Limits

The sign appeared in the distance. A rush of bright colors emerged from the darkness.

As my SUV got closer, the red and yellow hues came into focus. I saw a large circle with a cartoon beaver head inside it.

I was approaching Buc-ee’s.

Buc-ee’s, for the uninitiated, is part of the Texas Trinity of iconic brands. Buc-ee’s, Whataburger, and H-E-B grocery stores are the three chains most Texans can’t get enough of.

But even in that crowd, Buc-ee’s stands alone. For it reinvented an American tradition – the road trip pit stop.

Such rites of passage had long been unceremonious. You’d pull into a travel center along the highway, use a dingy restroom, fill up your vehicle’s gas tank, and maybe scarf down some greasy fast food. Then you’d be back on your way.

But Buc-ee’s has turned all of this on its head. Its travel centers – often located by the interstate in rural Texas towns – are the size of Walmart supercenters. Dozens and dozens of gas pumps bracket the large edifices, with low fuel prices luring drivers to fuel up.

Inside the travel center is a little bit of everything. Home décor. Buc-ee’s branded apparel. Snacks and drinks. Freshly prepared food. And the world’s cleanest travel center restrooms.

It’s a Disneyfied, Texas-sized travel center experience. And many a traveler just can’t get enough – including me.

Well, most of the time at least.

The illuminated beaver sign got bigger and bigger.

I was nearing the exit now. And I had a decision to make.

Normally, you see, I would stop at this travel center. I had done so two days prior when I was heading in the other direction.

But it was already past 8 in the evening. And I needed to get home as quickly as possible.

After all, I was embarking on a work trip the next morning.

I still needed to unpack the remnants of this trip from my suitcase. Then I needed to repack the bag with fresh clothes — all in time to make it to the airport for my flight.

It was a lot to do. And there was no time to waste.

So, I let the exit pass me by. I watched the beaver sign fade into the rearview.

Hopefully, I don’t regret this, I told myself.

The lines of the interstate are the definition of monotony.

Solid white and yellow strips mark the edges of the roadway. And white dotted lines differentiate the lanes in between.

It’s mesmerizing. Hypnotizing. And potentially dangerous.

I figured this out the hard way a few miles past the Buc-ee’s sign. That’s when the lines on the highway started to fade.

The dotted lines became faded white streaks. The darkness of the Texas night took over the cabin of my SUV. I felt my head leaning forward into the steering wheel.

I was drifting off.

It had been a long time since I’d felt this sensation from the driver’s seat. Maybe a decade or more.

And that prior time was after 12 hours of driving. I just had to make it to the hotel down the road then. No big deal.

This time was different. I hadn’t even been on the road for two hours. And I had more than two hours left to go.

I thought for a moment about doubling back. Of turning around at the next exit and beelining it back to the Buc-ee’s.

But how much would that extend my drive? And how late would I ultimately get back home if I did that?

It was too much for my drowsy brain to process.

So, I kept driving.

In the midst of the faded lines and the all-enveloping darkness, I spotted a sign along the side of the road.

I squinted my weary eyes, reading the words Picnic Area, 1 mile.

Salvation was nigh — if I could reach it.

I struggled my way down the highway, straining to find the exit ramp. Finally, it mercifully appeared.

I followed it off the highway, and I parked in the darkness behind another vehicle. I cut off the engine and turned off my headlights. I made sure to lock the doors, wary of suffering the same fate as Michael Jordan’s father.

Then I fell into a deep slumber. For a while, at least.

You see, the night was cold. And with my car engine turned off, there was nothing to keep that chill from slowly permeating the cabin.

So, after a bit, I felt my legs shaking. Then my arms did the same, followed by my torso.

A jolt of energy rushed through me. I was fully awake now.

I turned my key in the ignition, reading the digital clock on the dashboard.

Twenty minutes had passed. I could still make it home at a decent hour.

I hit the gas pedal and headed to the exit of the picnic area. As I merged onto the interstate, I took stock of my surroundings.

The dotted lines were distinct now. The road signs were clear.

I was going to be fine.

Years have passed since that road trip. And I’ve been up and down that interstate quite a few times since then.

Sometimes, I’ll stop at the Buc-ee’s to grab a bite or use the facilities. Other times I glide by that giant beaver sign at 80 miles an hour.

But no matter which option I choose, I always feel a shiver down my spine about 10 miles later. That Picnic Area, 1 Mile sign always brings it back.

If it hadn’t been there, I might not be here today. For I’d tested the limits of my ability. And I’d nearly lost it all as a result.

I consider all this for a moment or two. I remain in silent repose as the prairie and the cottonwoods pass me by.

Then I move on to the next thought rattling around in my head.

There are still hours to go, after all.

I’m grateful I get to experience them.

Re-Prioritization

It all started with a question in a job interview.

Where do you see yourself in five years?

I froze in my chair at the conference room table, unsure how to respond.

I didn’t have the luxury of thinking five years down the road. I’d recently gotten laid off, less than a year into my marketing career. I was still new in town and devoid of a support network.

I needed this job, now. I needed the income to pay the bills. And I needed the legitimacy of a stable assignment to prove my professional worth.

So, I came up with a boilerplate answer. And I ultimately landed the job.

I was set, but far from settled.

For even as I sat in my cubicle – with a full list of clients to support and a steady salary – I thought about the question from the interview.

I was still in my mid-twenties, but I’d bounced around a bit already. And I’d seen the costs of such transience.

I needed a five-year plan badly.

So, I gave my future some thought. I put a plan together. And I strove to make it a reality.

My journey to better started quietly.

I was doing well enough in my job, but I knew more mastery was on the horizon. So, I earned some Digital Marketing certifications, proudly displaying the badges in my cubicle and on my social media profiles.

Still, I knew that a certification badge could only get me so far. I resolved to think bigger.

So, I took the GMAT and applied to business schools. Then I enrolled in a Masters’ of Business Administration (MBA) program that held classes in the evenings. This allowed me to obtain full marketing training in the classroom and earn a prestigious degree – all without requiring me to quit my job.

I earned my MBA roughly five years after I had hashed out my five-year plan. Now, there was just one more step to fully attain it.

I started looking at other jobs, hoping to land a prestigious role with a prominent company. My post-MBA job, as it were.

I set a hard deadline for myself. By the time the new year arrived, I’d be in a new place professionally. Since the upcoming year was 2020, I dubbed this plan 2.0 in 2020.

But despite my best efforts, I didn’t land that job by the dawn of the new decade. And a few months after New Year’s Day, a global pandemic turned the world upside down.

My five-year plan was now in limbo. I hung on to my existing job for dear life. And my grip tightened further after my employer was acquired by a larger company – leading to job redundancy fears.

Everything I had hoped for was hopelessly off-course.

What on earth was I going to do?

Plans be damned. Seize opportunities.

That’s what I told myself as 2020 faded into the rearview.

The most restrictive portion of the pandemic had passed. My job had not been made redundant. And the holding pattern hanging over my life had started to lift.

So, I jumped on an opportunity to move over to my new employer’s corporate marketing team. I dove headfirst into the new role – making connections, drafting materials, and traveling coast to coast to evangelize the business segment I was now supporting.

Off the clock, I seized the opportunity to exercise more frequently. I joined running clubs, entered in races of longer and longer distances, and started taking home hardware from them.

None of this had been in my prior plans. All of it seemed like a happy accident.

But I wasn’t complaining about the result. I was just hoping the good times would continue.

They didn’t.

Economic headwinds led my employer to reorganize itself several times, with the shifts changing the nature of my role. Meanwhile, a series of injuries stopped my running exploits in their tracks.

Once again, I was trapped. The five-year plan had already stalled out. And now, the Carpe Diem approach had also run aground.

What on earth was I going to do?

What are you chasing?

This question was at the heart of the inquiry into my five-year plan, whether the job interviewer knew it or not.

And even after drafting that plan, I struggled to adequately address the core premise.

I found myself oscillating between prestige and stability over the intervening years, striving for one and falling back on the other when the rug inevitably got yanked from below my feet.

This process left some scars. But as those scars accumulated, my determination only deepened.

I would get this right. I would uncover the answer.

But recently, something has changed. I’ve started to wonder whether I’ve been asking the right question.

You see, I’ve been blessed with a great support network throughout. Family, friends, and peers have been there for me on every step of my winding odyssey through life.

But I’m not so sure the inverse has been true.

Sure, I’ve supported my supporters through the years. But only to a point.

For as I worked on my five-year plan – and the carpe diem era that replaced it – I mostly lost track of what was going on with my friends and family. Sometimes, I lost touch with them entirely for months on end.

It was easy to overlook this development. After all, with every twist and turn in my journey, I grew my social circle.

There were new people to connect with and new sources of support to rely on. So, I missed the obvious signs that things had gone awry with the others in my orbit.

But my eyes are wide open now.

I realize how much what I missed matters, and how little what I was chasing really meant.

Sure, it’s nice to have objectives, and the trappings of a profession can help maintain a lifestyle.

But the connections with our community are the ties that bind. Being there for those who support us — in the good times and the tough ones — is nothing short of essential. It can sustain us — enriching our experience on this rock and enhancing our legacy after we leave it.

So, consider this my re-prioritization.

I might continue to demand more of myself professionally and recreationally. But I will no longer act as this venture is Item 1A, or even 1B.

Where I’ll be in five years is hardly the point. Who will be in my orbit means far more.

What We’re Fighting For

How bad do you want it?

The twangy tones of Tim McGraw were living rent-free in my head as I sat on the training table, staring at my compromised ankle.

A surgeon’s scope had methodically made its way through that ankle’s interior about a month prior, while I was sedated with anesthesia.

Now the stitches were out, and the swelling had mostly receded. I could walk in a straight line without any noticeable limp. And if not for my bulky walking boot, most passersby wouldn’t even know I was at less than 100%.

But I knew.

I realized how limited my ankle rotation had become. How tough it was to take the stairs or get into the shower. How tentative I was when getting out of bed in the morning.

If I ever wanted to run again, I needed to fix this.

It was all up to me.

Running is what had got me to this spot on the training table. The thread tying this lightweight Greek tragedy together.

It had become a hobby of mine in adulthood. First on the treadmill, then out on the streets and sidewalks.

I never went all that far, and I never expected all that much of it. Much like Forrest Gump, I was just…running.

But eventually I got bored of this routine, and I signed up for some local races. That led me to local running groups, who talked me into training more and entering longer races.

Suddenly, everything started to click. I was putting up faster times than I ever imagined I could and collecting a ton of hardware along the way.

I set loftier goals and began to picture attaining them.

But then I got hurt.

A stress fracture in my left leg brought running to an abrupt halt. I was forced to withdraw from the marathon I was training for, deferring my entry to the following year. As my leg healed, I clung to the silver lining. With a full year to prepare for this race, the sky was the limit.

But once I got clearance to run again, I realized how tall a task this would be.

My stamina was poor, and I got winded easily. But beyond that, my right ankle was starting to bother me.

Whenever I made a left turn on the street or the track, it felt like someone was whacking my ankle bone with a wooden mallet. Sometimes, this dull pain would slow me down. Other times, it would cause me to shift my running gait.

Eventually, I found my way to an orthopedist, who recommended surgery. And after some thought, I agreed.

So now, here I was on the training table. My deferred marathon entry was still waiting for me 10 months in the future. But I had to get there.

It was all up to me.

The physical therapist started with some light exercises. I turned my ankle in a circle a few times. Then I flexed it back and forth while a resistance band applied tension.

It wasn’t much, but I attacked it all with vigor.

As the weeks went on, the exercises got more challenging. But my determination never waned. If anything, it got stronger.

I would power through my reps, re-doing any that seemed off. Rather than dawdling between assignments, I’d add in old exercises the physical therapist had dropped from my routine.

There was a fire in my eyes through it all. This was more than a doctor’s prescription or an insurance requirement to me. It was my Normandy, my Gettysburg, my Saratoga.

If my future as a runner was what I was fighting for, this was the battle I had to win.

How bad did I want it?

Day by day, session by session, I was providing the answer to Tim McGraw’s question.

It was all up to me. And I was up to the challenge.

After four months of physical therapy, I found a semblance of victory.

My ankle had regained its strength. My range of motion had returned. And I was even doing some light jogging as my physical therapist looked on.

I was elated when I got the clearance to graduate from the biweekly physical therapy sessions. I started running again. And I reacquainted myself with the local running groups.

The tide was turning. My goal seemed attainable.

But a couple months later, I sustained yet another bone injury. And follow-up testing uncovered a degenerative condition.

My racing days were done — for good. Even recreational running seemed dicey.

I was devastated.

I felt waylaid by the diagnosis, and I was furious at my own body for betraying me. I withdrew from everyone and everything for a time, finding sanctuary in solitude and silence. As the holidays approached, I glumly referred to that year as the worst of my life.

It was all up to me. And I’d failed.

Quite a bit of time has passed since those dark days. And I’m picking up what I’d missed back then.

Namely, my four-month crusade to get my ankle right again.

It might not have led me to the starting line of my marathon. But it still amounted to something.

I’d set my sights on a goal. And I’d fought like heck to attain it.

That was a noble undertaking. And looking back now, I am proud of what I did.

But it needn’t be a one-off.

While I have no designs on reprising my post-surgery rehab, there are still things in life that I can prioritize. There’s still plenty I can fight for.

Much of that has come into focus for me in recent months. And as we embark on a new year, I’m eager to thrust myself into the battle.

Perhaps this is a better way to approach the calendar change. Rather than rewriting our core narrative or checking off items on a self-improvement list, we can reacquaint ourselves with what we’re fighting for.

In doing so, we can give ourselves the spark to go after it. Not for the calendar’s sake. But rather for us.

How bad do you want it?

It’s more than a Tim McGraw song. It’s an invitation.

Take it.