Capítulo 4
Harnessing Insecurity: From Weakness to Weapon
I've spent years trying to prove I'm smart enough to thrive, driven by the chip on my shoulder from a guidance counselor who said I wasn't college material. Never underestimate what insecurity can generate when you're aware of it and exploit it healthily. The truth is, very few sane people are as confident as they seem-we're all tortured in some way.
My insecurity inspired me to outwork and outthink those with advantages. While others relied on pedigree or connections, I developed a relentless work ethic and attention to detail that became my competitive edge. This isn't unique to me-many of history's greatest achievers were fueled by the need to prove themselves. Michael Jordan famously weaponized every slight, real or perceived, transforming them into motivation that drove his legendary career.
The key is recognizing your insecurities without being paralyzed by them. Attack your impostor syndrome by being honest about weaknesses and working systematically to overcome them. When that inner voice questions whether you belong in the room, use it as fuel to prepare more thoroughly than anyone else. Turn "I don't deserve to be here" into "I'll work until I undeniably do."
At the same time, give yourself grace about things you can't change. Not every insecurity needs to be conquered-some just need to be acknowledged and accepted as part of your unique makeup. The goal isn't to eliminate all self-doubt but to channel it productively while preventing it from making your decisions for you.
Remember that insecurity becomes toxic only when it's denied or when it drives destructive behaviors. The most dangerous people in organizations are often those who can't admit their insecurities, leading them to undermine others or make decisions based on ego rather than merit. By contrast, leaders who acknowledge their vulnerabilities while refusing to be limited by them create environments where everyone can bring their authentic selves to work.
The paradox of insecurity is that by embracing it, you begin to transcend it. When you stop pretending to be perfect, you free yourself to become better.
Capítulo 5
Strategic Relationships: Surrounding Yourself with Excellence
If I could change one thing about my ten years running Politico, it would be wasting months complaining about bad actors. Every hour spent exacting revenge or bemoaning bad values is time not spent building good things with good people. The simple truth is that bad people do bad things-nothing we can do will change them. But we can leave them or ignore them.
This principle extends beyond dealing with difficult individuals to the broader question of who deserves your time and energy. We all need an "Autumn" in our lives-someone we trust completely to give wise, tough advice. When starting Politico in 2006, I almost chickened out despite warnings that I was making a "catastrophic mistake." My wife Autumn saw us buckling and sent a note quoting Churchill and Roosevelt, telling us to "suck it up and grow a pair."
Finding your Autumn requires absolute trust, vulnerability about your flaws, willingness to listen, and acceptance of hard truths. Mike Allen once cautioned me against my impulse to attack critics, saying "Make sure when you look back, you'll be glad you did what you think you want to do." We all need coaches-find them, keep them, and actually take their advice.
Equally important is recognizing when relationships have become toxic. At Politico, I realized I was spending 70% of my time fixing others' bad behaviors-a clear sign it was time for change. The hardest-and often best-decisions are what we stop doing. We should quit things that are life-sucking, energy-draining, time-sucking, brain-numbing, or harmful.
My formula for evaluating relationships is simple: does a situation stir more negative energy than positive on a regular basis? If so, it's time to reconsider your involvement. This isn't about avoiding difficult people or challenging situations-it's about being intentional with your most precious resource: your time and attention.
Remember that you become like the five people you spend the most time with. Choose wisely, cultivate those relationships with care, and don't hesitate to prune connections that consistently drain rather than energize you.
Capítulo 6
The Excellence Imperative: Choosing Quality Over Success
Brad McCarty, Messiah University's soccer coach with an incredible 266-19-18 record, preaches excellence over success as a guiding philosophy. This distinction is crucial: excellence is something we can control, while success depends on external factors beyond our influence.
In business, you could work tirelessly with the best pitch and product yet still fail if the client is broke or the market tanks. Excellence is healthier because it avoids perverse incentives; it's more authentic than success that might come from luck; it's achievable because we control our own improvement; and ultimately, excellence produces better long-term results while success is fleeting.
This mindset shift transforms how we approach our work and lives. Instead of obsessing over outcomes, we focus on the quality of our efforts and the integrity of our process. When I launched Politico, I initially made the mistake of publicly taunting the Washington Post, claiming our tiny site would be "better than the Washington Post." It felt good but was a loser's move. Nothing screams weakness like arguing why someone else sucks, and nothing shows strength like demonstrating why your ideas are better.
The excellence imperative means avoiding the behaviors that signal a losing mindset: whining about others' advantages, gossiping behind backs, acting with malice, being driven by envy, or bragging about personal brilliance. When selling yourself, an idea, or a product, you win by making your case on your terms-not by trashing others.
Excellence also requires modulating your reactions to different circumstances. When we launched Politico, I had one speed: fast and furious. I wanted everyone to match my workaholic 4 a.m. start, hunting for scoops to "Win the Morning!" This metabolism was intoxicating to me but soul-crushing for others, creating a sweatshop reputation with high burnout. One speed for all circumstances is reckless, and we make our worst decisions when emotions redline.
Instead, practice what I call the Goldilocks approach: be aware of how you respond to stress; know your triggers; find specific calming practices; practice good-times paranoia to temper optimism; and cultivate bad-times optimism to see challenges as learning opportunities. Excellence isn't just about what you do-it's about how you do it, with consistency and appropriate intensity for each situation.
Capítulo 7
Building High-Performance Teams: The Selfless Superstar Model
At Axios, we call our ideal employees "selfless superstars"-wildly talented people who put others and the company first. No leader or organization thrives with mediocre or self-absorbed talent, no matter how brilliant they may be. The combination of excellence and humility creates an unstoppable force that elevates everyone around them.
Finding these rare individuals requires relentless hunting and careful screening for both capability and character. When interviewing candidates, we look for signs of genuine curiosity about the organization rather than fixation on personal brand. An experienced candidate for a top editing job at Axios once bombed his interview with Mike Allen by focusing entirely on himself instead of showing interest in our mission and challenges.
Once you find selfless superstars, you must demand excellence without compromise while insisting on humility. One of my biggest mistakes at Politico was tolerating brilliant jerks-people whose talent seemed to justify their toxic behavior. I learned the hard way that no individual contributor is worth poisoning your culture.
Kathleen Nisbet Halpin exemplifies the selfless superstar approach. Despite having zero business experience when joining Axios, she became indispensable through her work ethic and attitude. She volunteered for every task, no matter how small, and constantly asked for more responsibility. Her advice is powerful in its simplicity: your past doesn't matter-what counts is what you deliver today with humility and grace.
The most effective leaders follow what I call the "Roy Rule," named after Axios cofounder Roy Schwartz: always hire people who want-and could do-your job. Too many managers hire defensively to protect their position or passively just to fill seats, leading to institutional complacency. Great leaders have the self-confidence to hire people who might outshine them, recognizing that surrounding yourself with exceptional talent is the fastest path to collective success.
Remember that true selfless superstars are worth ten or twenty middling performers. Spoil them with thanks, attention, and compensation-they're the force multipliers who transform organizations from good to extraordinary.
Capítulo 8
Leading with Purpose: The New Power Paradigm
My early leadership at Politico was disastrous-operating at two speeds (fast and faster) that drove people away and earned us a sweatshop reputation. Since then, I've witnessed a revolution where soft power replaces hard power, emotional intelligence trumps IQ, and purpose rivals profit. This shift is essential for modern leadership.
The traditional command-and-control approach is obsolete in today's workplace. Employees, especially younger generations, demand more than a paycheck-they want meaning, transparency, and human connection. The most effective leaders now combine clear vision and high standards with genuine care for their people's wellbeing and growth.
At Axios, we built our culture on radical transparency: sharing everything with everybody often. By revealing all information except individual compensation and departure reasons, we eliminated the suspicion and resentment that plague most organizations. When trusted with sensitive information, people appreciate it and keep it confidential, creating a virtuous cycle of openness and trust.
This new leadership paradigm requires what Ben Horowitz calls eating the whole shit sandwich at once rather than nibbling-addressing difficult situations directly instead of prolonging everyone's misery. Leaders waste precious time avoiding tough actions, whether taking blame, apologizing, killing bad ideas, firing people who aren't working out, or quitting situations that can't be fixed. When something feels off and unfixable, you're almost always right. Don't spend weeks, months or years nibbling-take one big bite and be done with it.
The "radiate out" theory powered both Politico and Axios's success. Rather than targeting the masses first, we focused on hooking the most powerful, difficult-to-reach readers-presidents, CEOs, tech leaders-knowing their inner circles would follow, creating expanding ripples of influence. This concept works beyond media by focusing your time on high-impact activities, amplifying core values that shape culture, designing products for ideal users rather than millions, and communicating crisply with three ideas in three sentences.
Every leader must now be a de facto politician, regardless of how much they might hate it. The modern workplace demands fluency in cultural disputes, media savvy, and attention to competing interests from employees, customers, and shareholders. While you don't need to take stands on every divisive issue, you must understand the dynamics and explain your position clearly. Leadership, like public service, is an honor that shapes minds and lives.
Capítulo 9
Mastering Communication: The Currency of Influence
Every organization must dramatically rethink how it communicates with all stakeholders. Communications has become arguably the most crucial leadership skill, yet most organizations fail at it. The post-COVID reality presents unique challenges: many employees work remotely and will never return to physical offices, while everyone faces unprecedented digital distractions. Simultaneously, workers demand more transparency, meaning, attention, and connection than ever before.
Smart Brevity transformed my communication style, freeing me from long-windedness. We built Axios around efficient, effective communication because people spend just 26 seconds on average reading content, check phones 260+ times daily, and share content they haven't fully read. Despite this reality, most organizations communicate like it's 1990.
Five tips to improve your communication: First, stop being selfish by forcing others to wade through hundreds of words to find your point. Second, grab attention by putting your most important idea in the first sentence. Third, write and talk like a normal human, not with show-off vocabulary that obscures rather than clarifies. Fourth, keep sentences simple and use bullet points for multiple ideas. Fifth, just stop when you've made your point-the greatest gift is respecting others' time.
Most professionals can read books but not rooms-missing crucial body language and social cues that could prevent misunderstandings. Reading rooms requires emotional intelligence and deliberate practice. To master this skill: become a student of human behavior in group settings; know your audience's context before speaking; shift focus from yourself to studying others' reactions; watch faces for engagement, confusion or enthusiasm; let others do most of the talking; defuse tension rather than escalating it; and take literal and mental notes about people's patterns.
Giving feedback well is another critical communication skill. Most people hate delivering tough messages, but there's a better approach: put it in writing first. When people receive criticism without warning, they get defensive and can't truly hear you. Instead, write a note at least 24 hours before an in-person discussion, allowing them time to process and reflect. This creates a more measured tone, focuses on the problem rather than immediate reactions, and creates a record of your efforts.
Remember that candor is a gift. Most people think they're killing it-unless told otherwise. People rarely know how they're falling short without direct feedback. Our instinct to dance around tough conversations isn't kindness-it's selfish to deny someone needed feedback. To give the gift of candor: be specific and leave no room for confusion; be timely and address issues immediately; be prescriptive with clear improvement paths; be encouraging about their capacity to change; be decisive, as keeping problematic people hurts high performers.
Capítulo 10
Living with Intention: The Small Choices That Define Us
My eighty-year-old dad once pulled me aside during a visit to Oshkosh, Wisconsin with a profound thought: "It's the little things." He showed me a note from my niece Ally about their fourteen-year tradition of tending to Christmas lights together. When one strand finally burned out, Ally saved a bulb for each of them as a memento of their special bond. This wisdom hit home as I reflected on my son heading to college-the good stuff truly is the small stuff: long talks, hikes, inside jokes, little rituals.
This insight applies to every aspect of life. I've learned more from studying two men of uncommon modesty-my colleague Mike Allen and the late Fred Rogers-than from countless celebrated innovators and disruptors. Both put deep thought into who they wanted to be, not just what they wanted to do. Their shared qualities include genuine humility, intense interest in others, unusual optimism, minimalist living, and deep faith that manifests in grace toward others.
In 2016, while stewing over work problems in church, I heard nine words that changed my approach to life: "All you can do is the next right thing." This simple mantra helped me navigate leaving Politico when its funder was trying to cheat us out of millions. My instinct was to fight and publicly expose the ugly details, but focusing on just getting the next thing right saved me from my worst impulses.
This approach works because it's doable (focusing on one moment makes good choices easier), clarifying (it puts everything in perspective), life-enhancing (stacking small good decisions creates healthy habits), and practical (start with small choices before tackling big decisions). The truth is, our most common sin is laziness or ambivalence-doing nothing when we should act. The antidote is actively considering what you'd want your kids or parents to see you do, then doing it.
Into my late twenties, I often avoided giving money to homeless people, rationalizing that I might enable laziness or drug use. My wife Autumn, a former social worker, takes the opposite approach-always giving and engaging with people in need. Her philosophy changed my mind: "If I'm going to make a mistake, I want to err on the side of giving a drug addict money rather than not giving a hungry person means to eat." This "help, don't hide" mindset applies everywhere: if you see need, act instead of assuming someone else will step up; if something seems off with someone, push past introversion to ask if they need help; err on the side of generosity.
Capítulo 11
The Good Stuff: What Truly Matters in the End
I track what brings me joy and meaning through what my wife teasingly calls my "Happiness Matrix." We all need a framework for who and what matters, plus a mechanism for allocating sufficient time to each. Otherwise, life throws us from obligation to distraction without purpose.
My matrix consists of buckets that need regular attention: My wife (marriage requires constant work and unconditional effort); my kids (finding one-on-one moments to discuss real stuff); my parents/siblings (whom I speak with daily but struggle to see in person); my friends (focusing on the half-dozen who would visit if I were housebound); my faith (which grounds and humbles me); my work (a bucket that's never dry and needs holes punched in it); my health (non-negotiable daily exercise); and my hobbies (fly-fishing, hiking, golf). When life feels off, it's usually because one bucket is empty or light.
Achieving exceptional success requires extreme effort and discipline. Nearly everyone at the top of their field does extraordinary things to optimize their mind and body. Too many people lose sight of how much control they have over their health, happiness, and career. Until my early twenties, I lived extremely unhealthily-drinking excessively, eating junk food, smoking, and rarely exercising. But I came to realize how much of life we actually steer ourselves.
Joy isn't simply a by-product of good times-it can be an active choice during crappy ones. I learned this from my wife Autumn during her hellish medical journey in 2022. After long-COVID left her with brain fog, migraines, and stroke-like episodes, her entire digestive system shut down. Through emergency surgeries, months-long hospital stays, and ICU visits, she somehow remained at peace. When I asked how she wasn't demoralized, she simply said, "I choose joy."
In 2018, a fourteen-year-old boy named Kelvin who had lost both parents dropped into our lives, asking if we would take him in. I approached adopting him like a startup: taking a big risk few others try, bracing for jarring ups and downs, leaning on others, and recognizing that failure wasn't an option. Though there will be more twists in this story, adding him to our family was the most meaningful thing we've ever done. Often you receive more than you give when bringing someone into your life.
My life is littered with mistakes-wasting time partying in school, getting arrested, eating poorly, feuding with rivals, and losing my temper with my kids. But I've learned from every dumb move to get the Big Things right. Five decades in, that's what matters most: getting the big things right while cutting ourselves slack on daily stumbles. My Good Stuff list is simple: deep relationships with my kids, a healthy marriage, strong bonds with parents and siblings, durable friendships, faith beyond myself, and meaningful work with people I admire.
To nail the big stuff: Identify it (keep your Good Stuff list in mind); Try (work hard through tough times); Have grace (forgive others and yourself); Play the long game (don't measure by a moment); and Finish strong (learn daily, do the next right thing). That's the very definition of the Good Stuff.
