You don't need my whole life story. You do need to know whether this book is coming from someone who likes drawing boxes on whiteboards—or someone who's spent years making messy, real-world work actually flow.
I've been doing the second one for about twenty-five years now.
Where the Obsession Started
In my junior and senior years of high school, I spent half of every day at Pinckney (MI) High School's cooperative Robotics and Automation program. While my friends were in general classes, I was:
- → Programming industrial robots and logic controllers (PLCs)
- → Wiring sensors, control panels, and safety circuits
- → Designing workcells where parts moved from station to station
Two years in a row, our workcells won Best of Show.
I didn't have fancy language for it then. I just loved making systems where the right "part" showed up in the right place, in the right order, with as little babysitting as possible.
You pushed the green start button and the system just worked.
That feeling has driven everything since.
The $0.75 Donut
Toward the end of my first business, I was so broke that spending seventy-five cents on a donut at the grocery store was a real decision.
My bank account fluctuated between negative and positive on a weekly basis. Overdraft fees stacked up. My banker called to remind me that if my car payment went past sixty days, I'd lose my only way to get to work.
I was a starving entrepreneur, and I stayed on that train longer than I should have.
Here's the part that still stings:
During that same period, I was delivering systems and workflows to my clients. I was helping other businesses get organized, get efficient, get their work to flow.
And my own business? Pure chaos. Accidental Work at its finest.
I just had no clue how valuable systems and process were for me—even though that's exactly what I was building for everyone else. That irony took years to fully absorb. But once I did, everything changed.
Twenty-Five Years of Building Flows
Industrial Automation
Started in industrial automation, working full-time for a distributor of sensors and components while continuing education in robotics, automation, and business.
2004 — Mobile Office Systems
Left the auto industry and built my first business around keeping people out of the office and in front of their customers—tablet PCs and the workflows that made them useful.
2005 — BuyJoe.com
A "point and click" local directory for early smartphones. Instead of typing a query, you tapped one of 36 common needs and got nearby options. Workflow decision: remove friction.
2009 — eCommerce Consultancy
Helped brick-and-mortar businesses move online. They thought they needed "a website." What they actually needed were systems and processes. We built flows, not just pages.
2013 — PaymentScholar
An eCommerce and reporting platform for schools and districts. Raised investment capital. Turned paper forms and manual payments into an end-to-end digital workflow.
2016 — AthleteProgress
A mobile coaching app used by coaches and athletes around the world. Turned feedback into a flow: capture, attach, deliver instantly.
2019 — Ski Club Leadership
Ran a non-profit ski club. Implemented eCommerce, communication systems, and coaching systems rooted in deliberate practice. Another laboratory for Deliberate Work.
2023 — The Solar Operating System
Built a web-based operating system for solar installers. From lead capture to system turn-on.
If I had to summarize those twenty-five years in one sentence, it would be this:
I've been going deeper and deeper on understanding what an atomic unit of work actually looks like—and what happens when you design it on purpose.
The Other Laboratory: Ski Racing
There's one more thread that shaped this book: I've been coaching alpine ski racing since 2004.
2013
Technical Coach for Brighton High School Ladies Ski Team. Michigan State Champions—MHSAA Division 1. That wasn't luck. That was deliberate practice at work.
Today
Top-ranked Masters Ski Racer in the USA. Still competing, still learning, still refining.
Athletes don't improve by accident. They improve through deliberate practice.
And then I looked at how businesses operate.
Most companies are doing the equivalent of "just hitting balls at the range." Lots of activity. No structure. No feedback. No systematic improvement.
Deliberate Work is what happens when you translate the principles of deliberate practice into business operations.
Standing on Shoulders
This book didn't emerge from nowhere. It stands on the shoulders of thinkers who shaped how I see work:
Peak
Anders Ericsson & Robert Pool
The Four Hour Work Week
Tim Ferriss
The Goal
Eliyahu Goldratt
The Checklist Manifesto
Atul Gawande
Unreasonable Hospitality
Will Guidara
Inbound Marketing
Brian Halligan & Dharmesh Shah
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