▲ ACUMEN
Battle Assessment Field Report
High-Level Reality Score (1–10)
Business 7 Family 8 Personal (Soul Score) 6
Business is climbing — the AI thesis is turning into real work product. Family is strong and in a season of launching. Soul score honest: body and pace are asking for attention.
Since Our Last Meeting
| What happened | Significance — the impact on me | Emotion — and I felt… | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Business | Best thingBuilt the "magic whiteboard" and the AI operating system behind my practice — and I'm demoing the method live to this council today. The thesis stopped being talk and became a working thing I can show. | Proof that the bet I'm making on AI is real. It reframes my career: I'm not just a producer in Kansas City — I'm building the way this work gets done next. | Energized. Glad — and a little exposed, in a good way. |
| Worst thingThe career question at NFP is still unresolved. Innovations leadership or out — and the default track (producer-only) keeps pulling while the AI clock runs fast. | Living in the gap between the work I'm doing and the seat I hold. Every month of drift costs optionality. | Restless. Some fear under the pride. | |
| Family | Best thingTake my daughter — back to Smith for her sophomore year, two weeks from now. Flights booked, and she invited Rachel and me to the Indigo Girls with her Friday night in Northampton. She wants us there. | Both kids are launched — Camden's in LA doing film, Tayten's thriving at Smith — and they still pull us close. That's the whole scoreboard. | Proud. Grateful. A lump in my throat. |
| Worst thingThe house is about to get quiet. Tayten flies one-way. Rachel's Hopkins doctorate has her traveling too. The season is genuinely changing. | Roper and Rachel, chapter two — we have to choose each other on purpose now, not by household default. | Sad and glad at the same time. Mostly tender. | |
| Personal | Best thingSummited Mt. Bierstadt July 28 with 33 men from Jacob's Well. Led a pod up in the dark, stood on a 14er at sunrise with my brothers, then built the trip's whole story into a shared archive the crew still uses. | Strength, brotherhood, and a reminder my body and my faith community can still carry real weight. | Alive. Full. Glad. |
| Worst thingMy gut has been off for months and I run hot — high caffeine, jaw clenched, late nights. The workup is underway but the pattern is stress-shaped. | The engine light is on. The same intensity building my future is taxing the body that has to live in it. | Scared, if I'm honest. Tired. |
Council Situation
A Situation I would like to discuss with the Council is…
The fork in my career: pursue an AI/innovations leadership seat (at NFP, Aon, or on my own) or stay on the producer track that no longer fits. AI is moving fast enough that a three-year plan which ignores it is a bad plan — and I'm demoing my answer to you today.
How I'm feeling about the Situation is…
Convicted and urgent — more clarity than I've had in years, paired with real fear about betting the family's stability on it.
Q1 (urgent + important) or Q2 (important, not urgent)? · Overall "HEAT" (1–10)
Q2 — important, not yet urgent, which is exactly why now is the time to work it. HEAT: 7.
Where am I spiritually on this Situation? Spirit-led, or EGO-driven (pride & fear which Edges God Out)?
Mostly spirit-led — this feels like calling, not just ambition. But I'm watching the ego edge: the pride of being "the AI guy" and the fear of being ordinary both live in me. I want the council to help me keep testing which voice is driving.
Favorite Memory OR Next Trip?
Memory: sunrise on Bierstadt with the Jacob's Well men. Next trip: Northampton, August 28–30 — dropping Tayten at Smith and a night at the Indigo Girls with my two favorite women.