The Inside Track: People, Ideas, & Stories shaping how we work, live, and build the future.

Why it matters: Most ambitious people don't fail from lack of talent—they fail from scattered attention across too many things that don't compound.

The big picture: The greats operate like Buffett: they pick one dominant project (Project X) and protect it ruthlessly. Diversification is what you do when you don't know. Focus is what you do when you do.

Between the lines: You probably already know what your Project X should be. The problem isn't ignorance—it's permission to go all in on what you actually care about most.

What it takes: Courage to choose one mountain. Wisdom to choose the right one. Discipline to keep climbing when motivation fades.

The question: If you only had 20 punches for big decisions this decade, would you spend one on what you're doing today?

I picked a theme word for the year: monomaniacal.

Not exactly cozy. But honest.

For me, it means choosing one thing that matters and letting it dominate how I spend my best hours. One problem, one product, one outcome that gets the first and sharpest version of me, day after day.

Picture it: one screen, one file, one problem. Same desk, same hours, same routine. The phone is flipped over. The inbox waits. Invitations pile up unanswered. Outside that spotlight, life is soft focus. Inside it, every variable is sharp.

As you read this, quietly ask yourself: What would that tunnel be for me?

We like to tell ourselves that genius is DNA. Destiny. Lightning striking the lucky few. That story is comforting because it lets us off the hook.

But when you actually study people who build things that last—companies, books, movements—you see something much less mystical and far more accessible: habits, not magic. Focus, not chaos. Fewer bets, not more.

Here's the truth most of us need to hear: we don't fail because we're lazy or lacking talent. We fail because we're scattered.

We confuse busy with useful. Motion with progress. The calendar is stacked, the inbox is full, and five years later, none of it mattered. We're in permanent beta mode: new idea, new app, new channel, new initiative. Impressive motion. Zero compounding.

I've been there. Ten tabs open. Three half-started projects. Feeling productive while creating very little that would survive a bad quarter. If you've felt this way too, you're not alone—and more importantly, it's not permanent.

We also tell ourselves we're "too late" to everything. Too late to AI, crypto, remote work, podcasting. But here's what changes everything: big economic waves don't run on startup timelines. They play out over decades. You're rarely too late to a macro trend. The real loss isn't missing the first inning—it's never staying in the game long enough, in one lane, for the tailwind to work.

This is actually encouraging news. It means the opportunity is still there. The question is: what are you willing to do with it?

The people who break out don't have a secret advantage. They do something anyone can do but few actually commit to: they pick one thing and get almost irrational about it.

I call that Project X.

Project X is the thing that, if done well, pulls everything else forward—wealth, status, freedom, bargaining power. Your Taj Mahal. Your Sistine Chapel ceiling. Your Moonlight Sonata. The flagship asset you'd still want your name on in 20 years.

Not ten products. Not five businesses. One.

And here's what makes this both challenging and liberating: most of us already know what our Project X should be. Deep down, we know. The problem isn't ignorance. It's permission. We're waiting for someone to tell us it's okay to go all in on the thing we already care about most.

Consider this your permission.

Most founders resist this because committing to one thing feels expensive. Not in dollars—in attention. Once you commit to Project X, everything else becomes a tax. And distraction has become our preferred addiction because it feels safer than betting everything on ourselves.

Look at how most ambitious people operate:

On paper, it looks like range and sophistication. In reality, it's leakage. And the encouraging part? Once you see this pattern clearly, you can change it immediately. Today, even.

Great operators act like brutal capital allocators. They don't spread their best hours across 50 "nice to haves." They concentrate time, energy, and reputation into one dominant asset. The beautiful part is that this isn't about working harder—it's about working on what actually compounds.

Warren Buffett offers us a masterclass in this kind of thinking, and his wisdom applies far beyond investing.

He says diversification makes sense for the "know-nothing" investor. But if you actually understand what you're doing, he's blunt: "Diversification is a protection against ignorance. It makes very little sense for those who know what they're doing."

Think about what that means for your life. If you've spent years developing expertise in your field, if you've figured out what you're genuinely good at, spreading yourself thin across multiple directions isn't prudent—it's self-sabotage dressed up as strategy.

Buffett goes further: "Very few people have gotten rich on their seventh best idea." If you can identify your top few opportunities, that's enough. Going into a seventh instead of doubling down on your best one is, by definition, watering down your edge.

Then there's his punch-card thought experiment, which might be the most clarifying mental model I've encountered.

Buffett once said you'd be better off if you had a punch card with 20 punches, and every major decision used one punch. You wouldn't dabble. You wouldn't chase tips. You'd think deeply and act big on the handful of things that were obviously right to you.

Here’s the part that resonates with me most - "Big opportunities in life have to be seized," he said. "When it's raining gold, reach for a bucket, not a thimble."

Translate that to your calendar: when the odds are tilted in your favor—great model, big secular trend, real edge—you don't scatter your best hours across twenty "interesting" projects. You push your attention into the one bet that actually moves your life.

Here's the empowering realization: diversification is what you do when you don't know. Focus is what you do when you do.

So ask yourself: If you only had twenty punches for big decisions in the next decade, would you really spend one on what you're doing today? If the answer is no, that's not depressing—it's clarifying. It means you can stop, redirect, and use that punch on something that matters.

Now, here's what nobody tells you, and you need to hear this before you commit: the second you pick one mountain and start climbing, you guarantee criticism.

The moment you say, "This is what I'm doing," you paint a target on your back. Everyone with unresolved dreams and idle time suddenly has a view on your choices.

But here's the part that might surprise you: critics are often deteriorated dreamers. They once wanted to start the fund, write the book, run the race. They didn't. Now, the easiest way to feel safe is to question anyone else's ambition.

Understanding this changes everything. Their criticism isn't about you—it's about them. And once you see that, their opinions lose their power.

The people I admire most seem strangely calm about criticism. They're not reckless, but they're willing to be misunderstood for a long time. That willingness is itself a competitive advantage, and it's one you can develop.

Think about Steve Jobs pushing ideas that sounded insane—computers in every home, a thousand songs in your pocket?! That was a crazy idea.

People inside and outside Apple thought he was out of touch. What changed their minds wasn't a survey or committee approval. It was proximity to his conviction. That intensity pulled people into what one colleague called a "reality distortion field."

When someone is fully locked in on a vision, they temporarily override the group's default settings. They bend expectations long enough to ship something the group never would have approved by committee.

You have access to this same force. It's not magic or charisma—it's the natural result of unwavering commitment to something that matters to you.

The great ones have three qualities that most people admire but avoid when it gets uncomfortable. Courage, Wisdom & Discipline. The encouraging news? These aren't innate talents. They're decisions you make repeatedly until they become who you are.

Courage is choosing a mountain and accepting the target on your back. It's saying "This is my Project X" and letting people doubt you. You move anyway. And here's what courage looks like in practice: it's not the absence of fear. It's deciding that your Project X matters more than managing everyone's opinions about it.

Wisdom is picking the right mountain. Not the sexy one of the moment, not the one that flatters your ego, but the one that actually compounds power over time. Wisdom is knowing which single bet, if it works, would change the slope of your life. And the wisest choice is often the one you've been circling around for years—the thing that keeps calling you back.

Discipline is showing up after the motivation wears off. The unglamorous repetition. The daily block on the calendar. The twentieth iteration of the same deck. Discipline is what turns a bold decision into an actual result. And discipline gets easier when you're working on something you've chosen deliberately, not something you stumbled into.

These three qualities reinforce each other. Courage helps you choose. Wisdom helps you choose correctly. Discipline helps you follow through. Together, they create momentum that eventually becomes unstoppable.

If someone audited your time—your meetings, your apps, your "opportunities," your projects—would it look like the life of a person building a masterpiece? Or the life of a person avoiding the discomfort of choosing?

This isn't a judgment. It's an invitation. Your move is simple, not easy:

The gap between where you are now and where the greats operate isn't genius or luck or connections. It's the courage to choose one thing, the wisdom to choose the right thing, and the discipline to stay with it long enough for compounding to work its magic.

The economy rewards people who are long the right trends and patient. The opportunity is real. The tailwind is there. What's missing is your decision to stop hedging and go all in on the thing that matters most.

You don't need permission. But if you're waiting for it anyway, here it is: Pick your mountain. Ignore the critics. Start climbing.

The world has enough dabblers.

What it needs—what you might become—is someone monomaniacally committed to building something that lasts.

Michael Wildes is the founder and CEO of Drive Phase Holding Company, a permanent-capital firm focused on building category-defining companies across business, media, aviation, and impact. After leaving a career as a professional pilot, he spent a year as Business Editor at FLYING Magazine writing 330+ articles on aviation's transformation. Now he builds permanent-capital companies focused on long-term trends that compound over decades. Based in Arlington, Virginia.

Connect: mikewildes.com | [email protected]

/