Author: adam

The elephant in the egg carton

I had been ordering my groceries online and having them dropped off on my front porch well before the virus hit.

The delivery service made grocery shopping safer and more convenient than the traditional method of driving out and back to the store every week.

What used to take me over an hour now only cost about five minutes and a $10 tip.

Aside from the occasional cracked egg or overripe avocado, they usually fulfilled my order accurately and met my expectations.

Back then food delivery was a valuable service offering I was happy to pay for. But after the virus erupted into a pandemic the authorities took over.

Continue reading The elephant in the egg carton

Colorado COVID-19 communications

A case study in crisis communications and effective leadership from Governor Jared Polis

At a press conference earlier this week, on March 30, 2020, Governor Jared Polis gave a great presentation and update on the COVID-19 situation in Colorado.

I was impressed by the honesty, empathy and strategic messaging. It was a breath of fresh air compared to what I typically hear from politicians.

Gov. Polis’s presentation serves as an example of authentic leadership and effective crisis communications. It also shows how you can — and should — speak conversationally, with a personality, and at the same time maintain appropriate tone and professionalism.

In this post I’m going to break the presentation down into its broad components, comment on strategic communications tactics, and highlight the key messages that jumped out at me. I include excerpts below that I edited lightly for clarity, and I added emphasis to sections that particularly relate to my points.

Continue reading Colorado COVID-19 communications

Antifragile and COVID-19

Book recommendation, insights and inspiration to get stronger during the crisis

I spent most of the past two weeks devouring the book, “Antifragile: things that gain from disorder” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I highly recommend you pick up a copy for yourself and dive in too, sooner rather than later.

I cracked this book open after my Winter Expedition in Iceland and spent most of the past two weeks poring over its pages as I adjusted to COVID-19 changes and hunkered down to figure out my next steps in the new world we’re living in.

Antifragile is a dense and inspiring read that’s particularly powerful and relevant in this time of great disorder and uncertainty.

In this article, on top of passing along a book recommendation, I’m going to list out some of my takeaways and excerpts from the book that I think are particularly useful as we all work through this COVID-19 crisis.

Continue reading Antifragile and COVID-19

Collapse in the cold

The wrong way to do the Wim Hof Method, and how it relates to COVID-19

This is not a particularly fun article to write, and we’re not living in fun times right now.

I acted like an idiot yesterday and made a big mistake that put myself and my family in a compromised situation.

Thankfully everyone is OK, and there’s relatively minor structural damage.

Still, I feel terrible and I wanted to share it with you here to:

1) Emphasize the safe practice of WHM,

2) Help me get this episode off my chest, learn from it, and move on, and

3) Offer a lesson to keep in mind as we trudge through the COVID-19 nightmare.

Continue reading Collapse in the cold