A Year to Rest, Listen, and Move

John Mayer and I have a lot in common. Between the two of us, we have seven Grammys, one of the most extensive Rolex collections in the world, and we share a fascination with time. It’s as constant as gravity. It progresses no matter how hard we try to manipulate, move, or rename it. It can feel never ending when we’re young. But as we do with anything in abundance, we kill it, waste it, and let it keep on slipping into the future.

Today marks 47 for me. Somewhere around the Wednesday of life, if I'm lucky. Frankly, I'm more happy than ever before just to be here.

So inspired by Ryan Holiday, in what is now a pseudo-personal tradition, this is my summation of another year. A year that taught me how to rest, how to listen, and how to move.

The Sound of Silence

I took my PTO. All of it. 

I had formed a bad habit of not paying attention to myself. The Winter of Will became my correction. A self-assigned decompression sabbatical. No agenda, no checklist, and no plan. I chased boredom. I baked sourdough because patience is a virtue and tangy crumbs are the reward for waiting. I ran past homes my great-grandfather built 75 years ago in Pittsburgh, up streets named after my great-grandmother and grandmother. I forgot what day it was. That was the mission.

Rest was my correction to a world that lionizes hustle.

When you stop long enough, your brain turns back on. I rediscovered hope by meeting Amy Acton, someone fighting for Ohio with more optimism than I'd felt in years. I relearned that slow is smooth and smooth is fast. I proved to myself that distraction is the destruction of good intentions, and the escape from my own overactive thoughts is a type of time travel.

The Winter of Will worked because I listened to the advice I've been giving everyone else for years: be 100% on and 100% off.

Lend Me Your Ears

I spent this year doing a lot more listening. Then I got called out for not practicing it myself.

Starbucks hired a CEO for $96 million to do one thing: listen to customers and reposition the company to serve them. He's simplifying the menu. Fixing broken power outlets. Closing dystopian pickup-only stores that stripped the soul out of the brand. Bringing back the third place that made Starbucks worth visiting in the first place.

McDonald's CEO posted a video calling a burger "product" twice in 30 seconds. The internet spent three days making memes. One word. Endless ridicule. He spoke corporate when customers speak human. Drill bits versus holes. Re-accommodate versus dragged off a plane. Words matter because they reveal who you're serving: the spreadsheet or the person.

I observed the grammatical jujitsu being done in Cascade commercials. That A&W Root Beer failed because 4 is bigger than 3. That great marketing means talking like my mom. I reminded homebuilders that customers don't talk about "inventory" and "product mix". They talk about "having a place of our own" and "not asking permission to paint a wall."

I heard what Pelotonia has been saying for years and finally joined the cause. I walked into Surve and saw their mission on the wall. And after twenty years, I started understanding what Ranger Bob was trying to teach me. Some listening is just paying attention to what was already there.

Then I realized: the Winter of Will was more than rest. It was me finally listening to myself. Hearing the signals I'd ignored all year. Taking my own advice before preaching it to anyone else.

Born to Run

My body moved more than it has in decades. Ran 659 miles. Kicked a soccer ball for the first time in my life. I barely understand the rules of the game. I looked ridiculous. Forty-seven years old, never kicked a soccer ball, surrounded by people half my age who'd been doing it since childhood. But that's the point. I'm done waiting to be good at something before I try it. I felt proud for trying something new.

Meaningful movement is physical, and mental, and philosophical.

I left Twitter after 14 years and 6,574 tweets. The platform had changed and so did I. Replanted my roots on Threads. Same words, different soil. Unencumbered, I wrote more than I have in a long time. Monthly Instagram recaps. Essays on McDonald's and Starbucks. Viral hits on the greatest Tom Hanks movie ever made, Super Bowl ads, paperclips, and Pittsburghese. Some posts flopped and died quietly at the hand of the algorithm. But I kept posting. Silence out of fear felt worse.

Steve Jobs said you can't connect the dots looking forward, only backward. The treadmill miles, the sourdough loaves, the platform migration, the viral Threads. They all connect now. Rest gave me space. Listening gave me direction. Moving gave me proof.

A rolling stone gathers no moss. To avoid becoming stale, I’m not waiting for permission. I'm not waiting to feel ready. I'm just moving.

And in the End

At mile marker 47, here's what I know:

Rest isn't lazy. Listening isn't passive. Moving isn't frantic.

Rest is the reset that lets you hear clearly. Listening is the work that shows you where to go. Moving is the proof you were paying attention.

On weekends I stand in my kitchen covered in flour. That's rest. I heard myself say “product“ in a meeting and stopped mid-sentence. That's listening. I ran on a soccer field in front of strangers. That's moving.

Time will keep on slipping. The years will pass like a tongueless muse of time. You can't turn back the hourglass glued to the table.

As for my personal tradition, it’s just a short look back and a long look ahead. The rearview mirror is smaller than the windshield for a reason.

I'm 47. I rested. I listened. I moved.

 Now I'm just getting started.