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Some big personal news: I got married last week. It was the greatest day of my life (so far).

We wrote our own vows, which got me thinking about what a vow actually means. Google defines it as a solemn, earnest, and binding promise or pledge.

Sounds a bit intimidating, right? You'll even hear the word 'sacrifice' used synonymously with 'commitment'.

But this framing is all wrong.

Most people experience commitment as sacrifice because they were never actually committed to the thing they promised. They can't commit because they:

  1. Don't believe the person on the receiving end of the promise (themselves included) is worthy of it, or

  2. Don't believe the thing they're committing to beats the options they'd be "giving up."

If either one is true, of course every commitment feels like a loss. Go back to Google’s definition and notice the word “earnest.” An earnest promise is one you actually mean, not one you grit your teeth through. If keeping a commitment feels like white-knuckling through Costco on a Sunday, the answer isn’t more willpower, it’s not making that commitment in the first place.

This all gets flipped on its head when you believe in both the person and the end goal. Because you're not giving anything up. If anything, you should feel like you’re getting the best deal on Earth. That’s what marrying my wife felt like: the promised land of spending the rest of my life with her far surpasses any ‘sacrifice’ I need to make.

Now, to transition from a beautiful personal moment to talking about my business 😂 😂

We see the same pattern in M&A constantly. The sellers who suffer most through a deal are the ones who never fully commit to selling. Every diligence request feels like an invasion and every negotiation point feels like a concession, because part of them still has 1 foot out the door. The committed sellers? They move fast, negotiate clean, and sleep fine. Same process, completely different experience.

Commitment is only heavy while you're still deciding. Once you actually choose, the weight mostly disappears. What's left is just the work, and work you chose barely feels like sacrifice at all.

So stop conflating the two. A vow isn't a cage. It's the door you get to close behind you as to enter your dream state.

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idea of the week 💡

Credit: ideabrowser.com

  • Problem: Vet surgical practices send dogs home after knee and joint operations with generic recovery sheets. Those sheets assume calm animals, open floor plans, and owners who can lift 90 pounds. Reality: high-energy breeds in small apartments, nervous dogs refusing crate rest, and elderly owners managing alone. Callbacks spike. The protocol works inside the clinic and falls apart at home.

  • Idea: Pawscript builds adaptive post-op plans for each case before the patient leaves the building. A vet tech fills out a 5-minute intake covering breed, behavior profile (crate-refusal, separation anxiety), living space, other pets, stairs, and the caretaker's physical limits. The system generates a staged recovery plan: confinement setups sized for the apartment, enrichment routines for high-drive breeds, harness recommendations for caretakers who struggle to lift, and escalation scripts for late-night emergencies.

  • How it works (wedge): Ship to 3 pilot surgical clinics doing large volumes of knee and joint procedures. Build the MVP as a Typeform-style questionnaire feeding a rules engine and template library, with breed-tagged enrichment routines and troubleshooting prompts generated from the intake's behavior flags. Integrate with Cornerstone or ezyVet so the plan lives inside existing workflows, then track each clinic's 30-day callback rate against baseline and refine the sections that move it most.

  • How it makes money: $199 to $499 per practice per month, tiered by procedure volume. Distribution runs through veterinary surgery conferences, partnerships with rehab brands like Ruffwear and Walkin' Pets, and word of mouth in specialist referral networks. Expansion adds a $29 direct-to-caretaker app synced to the discharge summary, plus compliance data packaged for pet insurers as a second revenue layer.

  • Why it might fail: The plan has to survive contact with a 90-pound husky in a studio apartment. If clinics don't see callback rates visibly drop, this is just a prettier discharge sheet and they'll churn. The way through is obsessive measurement against each clinic's baseline and ruthlessly improving the sections that actually move the number.

workouts this week

at-home

14-minute AMRAP:

  • 12 push-ups

  • 16 walking lunges

  • 12 sit-ups

  • 6 burpees

gym

Strength + conditioning. 4 rounds:

  • Back squat: 6 reps (moderate-heavy)

  • Push press: 8 reps

  • Chest-supported row: 10 reps

  • Ski erg or assault bike: 45 seconds hard

Rest 90 seconds between rounds.

outdoors

  • 5-minute easy jog (warm-up)

  • 6 rounds: 400-metre run (hard), 90-second walk (recover)

  • 5-minute walk (cool-down)

tweet of the week

this is exactly why I write this newsletter every week

my plugs

every second counts

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