01
rule one
Where it came from, and the time I broke it.
Almost nothing I am any good at started with me. It started with somebody who bothered to show me, and mostly did it without making a speech about it.
My grandfather put a golf club in my hands. That is the earliest thing I can point at and say: this is where the rest of it came from. Not a lecture about discipline. Just a game that would not let me lie to myself, handed over by somebody who already knew that.
Most of what he understood never got written down. That is normal, and it is a waste, and it is most of the reason this site exists.
There is a version of a man that other people never meet. The one who was twenty three with nothing figured out. The one who sat in the truck outside the house for a minute because the day had gotten the better of him. People get the finished version, which is why everybody ends up learning the same things the slow way.
So I am leaving the drafts on purpose. Not the tidy story. The part where I was unsure and did it anyway.
Short list on purpose. A rule you cannot recite is not a rule.
Where it came from, and the time I broke it.
Where it came from, and the time I broke it.
Where it came from, and the time I broke it.
Where it came from, and the time I broke it.
The things I would actually want somebody to have, whoever ends up needing them.
What it means, what it does not, and what to do in the ninety seconds after.
The signs I missed for years, and the ones I would want somebody to catch in the first month.
What I did, whether it worked, and how close I actually came.
Why the boring part is the part, and why nobody will clap for it.
These will be my own. Every photo on this site is used once and nothing repeats.
His grandfather. He put a golf club in Mark's hands, and that is the earliest thing Mark can point at and say this is where the rest of it came from. It was not a lecture about discipline, just a game that would not let him lie to himself, handed over by somebody who already knew that.
Because most of what his grandfather understood never got written down, which is normal and is also a waste. People mostly meet the finished version of someone, never the one who was twenty three with nothing figured out, so everybody ends up learning the same things the slow way. He is leaving the drafts on purpose, including the parts where he was unsure and did it anyway.
Not things. Judgment, and the reason for doing it this way. The pieces he is writing toward cover the first time somebody tells you no, who you let close, the day you want to quit, and why the boring part of being good at something is the part, even though nobody claps for it.