Episode Details

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This week’s episode started with a simple moment on a flight from Chicago to Cleveland.

Looking down over a calm, beautiful Lake Michigan, I was reminded of something every captain eventually learns: you cannot judge what water is capable of based only on what it looks like right now. 

That thought led me back to the story of the Rouse Simmons — the legendary Christmas Tree Ship that left Michigan in November 1912, loaded with evergreens and headed for Chicago. She never arrived. 

What makes the story powerful is not simply that a ship was lost.

It is the lesson behind it.

Captain Herman Schuenemann had experience. He knew the water. He had made the crossing before. People were depending on him.

But conditions had changed.

And that is where this story intersects with something I talk about all the time:

Follow the plan.

Discipline matters. Consistency matters. Execution matters.

But following the plan does not mean blindly ignoring new information. A good plan requires awareness. Sometimes the destination is still right, but the course has to change. 

In this episode, we talk about the difference between fear and awareness, why experience can sometimes make us too comfortable, and why changing course is not always quitting.

Sometimes it is leadership.

Sometimes it is wisdom.

And sometimes it is exactly what gets you to the destination.