This year I turned sixty.
I'm re-reading my journals from the beginning…
The ones I started writing nearly thirty years ago.
As I turn the pages, I'm noticing something I didn't expect.
Almost everything that matters in my life today began as a small idea scribbled into one of those notebooks.
Almost everything that matters in my life today began as a small idea scribbled into one of those notebooks.
The businesses. The books. The partnerships. The marketing systems. The friendships.
Even the way I think.
None of them appeared fully formed. They started as questions.
What's even more fascinating is remembering what the world looked like back then.
There was no Google. No YouTube. No Facebook.
Amazon sold only books. Apple was struggling to survive.
Most of the companies that define our world today were still ideas in someone else's notebook.
That perspective changes the way you think about the future.
Thirty years from now, people will look back at today the same way we look back at 1996.
Many of today's giants won't matter. Many of tomorrow's giants haven't even been imagined yet.
That's one of the reasons I kept journaling.
To capture the thinking that will shape my future.
Looking back, I can see my life wasn't transformed by one giant breakthrough.
It changed because of a handful of moments when my direction shifted.
A conversation.
A book.
A mentor.
An observation that quietly changed the trajectory of everything that followed.
Those moments are easy to miss while you're living them. They're much easier to recognize in hindsight.
The question I've been asking myself lately is...
What idea that seems small today might completely change my life over the next thirty years?
The truth is...
You probably won't know until you look back.
That's why it's worth paying attention now.