13 Words From a Nike Insider That Changed My Entire Business

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Welcome along! We found a golden nugget this week, so I’m going to jump right into our wins and wobbles.

So, that G14 classified, secret thing I was doing? During it, I heard something profound and wanted to share with you all.

“Perception is what you are seeing. Insight is why you are seeing it.”

Those 13 words flipped the script on how I saw everything related to my business in a matter of seconds. It reminded me of those Tom & Jerry scenes where you see the light bulb go off above Tom’s head when he thinks of another way to catch Jerry.

The person who spoke those words is an ex-Nike employee who had the opportunity to closely with Phil Knight and Steve Jobs throughout their career. And whenever you get 1-on-1 time with someone like that, you better activate “Sponge Mode” rather quickly. So, that’s exactly what I did.

-Time Out-

Disclaimer, I’m going to get a little nerdy for a bit. It’s said that humans process ~100,000 words a day. That’s equivalent to 74 GB (gigabytes) of data that our brain sifts through from the moment we open our eyes until we close them.

Talk about information overload.

Why is this number relevant? Because out of the 74 GB my brain processed that day, the most important thing was a mere .07 KB (kilobytes) of data. Wild, right? Life comes at us fast and, often times it’s too fast for us to fully process. But sometimes, something so small in processing size is equivalent to the entire hard drive in value.

-Time In-

As we got deeper in discussion about entrepreneurship, scaling ideas, and the need to always problem-solve, I realized I was getting millions of dollars of game for free. As a former “know-it-all”, I can gladly say I’ve learned the art of just shutting up… especially when I’m not the smartest one in the room.

Now, back to this standout line from the conversation. The reason it caught my attention is because it made me think about what could make my company’s offerings different. In a world full of copycat trends, products, and services, what makes someone or something truly stand out? Insights.

The beauty of an insight is that it’s an observation you make from your unique collection of experiences and knowledge.

At this point in world history, I’d argue that original ideas don’t exist anymore. Yet, original insights do and are constantly iterated upon. To be a standout product or service, you’ll need to blend your specific “life lens” with whatever it is you’re solving for to provide an insight that people will pay you for.

So, how can we create and provide insights that someone will pay us for? A little term I’ve made up called “contextual resolution.” Just as your cones and rods use biological structure to resolve light into vision, contextual resolution is how you use your unique experiences and knowledge to resolve perceptions into insights worth paying for.

Now, let’s talk strategy. Here’s my process of harnessing contextual resolution:

1. Identify Your Unique Contexts: What life experiences, skills, or knowledge do you have that most people don't? For me, it's being a minority, an ex-pro athlete, working in tech, and building leadership programs. These are all “life lenses” that apply to me.

2. Observe the Perception: What problem or situation are you looking at? This is the "what you're seeing" part. Most people stop here. They see the surface level issue and either ignore it or apply a generic solution because life’s typically on autopilot. Remember, 74 GB of data and nearly all of it just goes by without a deeper level of processing.

3. Apply Your Contexts: This is where the magic happens. Run that perception through your unique life lens. How does your background change how you see this problem? What patterns do you recognize that others might miss? What solutions does your experience unlock?

4. Extract the Insight: Now you've got something valuable. You're not just seeing what everyone else sees, you're understanding WHY it's happening and WHAT to do about it in a way only you can. Communicate it effectively and you have an insight people will pay for.

Why am I telling you all this? Because contextual resolution is exactly what separates good leaders from great ones. It's what helps people navigate major life transitions without losing themselves. And it's what I've been fortunate enough to develop through every challenge, victory, and setback along the way.

These are the types of insights I teach in my workshops and programming. Not cookie-cutter leadership advice you could get from a book, but frameworks I had to build with my own mind through life’s struggles. When you can apply contextual resolution to your leadership style or your current transition, everything shifts.

You stop copying what everyone else is doing and start leading in a way that only you can. Because your contexts are uniquely yours, and the insights you extract from them? Those are irreplaceable.

If you’re always copying those around you, your end result will only match their success. And that’s ok! However, you’re subscribed to this newsletter so I know you can AND want to do better.

Go use your life lenses this week to see past the “what?” and discover the “why?”

Talk to you next Sunday! 🏁