The in Motion Lab
When I was a kid, I would spend entire evenings in the apartment complex hot tub unraveling the principles of consciousness with my dad. He was the first philosopher I’ve ever known.
He carried wisdom lightly, offering it through whatever book he had just finished. Pulling concepts from The Tao of Pooh, my dad showed me that life becomes harder the moment we complicate ourselves with expectations, ego, and overthinking. He understood that his favorite Clive Cussler novels were more than action-packed adventures. He dissected those stories and taught me that adventure is born from chaos, and that the unknown is not something to fear but something to meet with openness.
From Lord of the Rings, he branded something deeper into my psyche: You do not need to be destined for greatness. You only need to choose courage over comfort.
And from the shortest book of them all, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, came a lesson that stayed with both of us. Your life gains meaning when you pursue mastery, curiosity, and freedom, even when no one else understands why.
I should probably sit down and write them all out someday, if only to honor the constellation of ideas that shaped me.
Now, as a professional skier waiting for winter to fully arrive, I find myself returning to those conversations. Utah is off to a slow start this season, and the quiet has created space. The same kind of space I felt as a kid wearing goggles and flippers, pausing my underwater treasure hunts to hear my dad explain a passage. (The treasure I was diving for in the 10x6 hot tub for was his waterproof G-Shock watch.)
That stillness has pulled me into a different kind of reflection. I feel myself standing at an intersection of identity, purpose, and the way I choose to move through the world.
Through Instagram, people see fragments of me. My preferences, my routines, the friends I love, the mountains I move through, the adventures I chase. I share stories, snapshots, and even some personal details about my life. But recently I have realized that I want to share from a place of deeper honesty, intention, and understanding. Not more content, but more truth.
At our core, we connect through the real things.
Music while skiing, or none at all.
Dating in a small mountain town.
Lessons we wish we had learned earlier.
Philosophies we build our lives around.
The nonnegotiables that protect our energy.
Workouts that strengthen our bodies and sharpen our minds.
Dreams that carry us forward
Fears that hold us back.
And the other small or overwhelming topics in between.
The more I write, the more I understand that these pieces are not really about skiing or my training or even the details of my life. They are about humanity. They are about how we commit, how we face fear, how we chase passion, how we protect our independence, how we focus and how we lose control. These are questions that matter to anyone carving their own path.
Moving forward, I will be writing op-eds and essays as both a personal excavation and an invitation. I want to share my approach to choice, relationships, ritual, momentum, and meaning, and I hope it can meet you wherever you are in your own process.
I am excited, and a little nervous, and hopefully it becomes a mirror for anyone building a life with intention.
More soon.
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