About Wisdom Reboot
Wisdom Reboot is my little laboratory.
A place where I slow down enough to think deeply, act with intention, and wrestle with what actually matters in a world that never seems to stop moving.
Most weeks, that happens on Sundays — after my ex picks up the kids and the house finally falls quiet. That’s when I get space to breathe, to reflect, to untangle the noise of the week. I guess that makes me an “easy like Sunday” kind of guy — not in the soft, lazy way, but in the sense that Sundays are when I remember who I am and what I’m building.
This isn’t a polished operation. It’s me, sitting in the messy middle of life, taking notes in public. Writing not because I’ve figured it all out, but because I haven’t — and because maybe sharing the process helps me (and you) see things more clearly.
Why This Exists
My life is messy. I own that. Every mistake, every failure, every bad call — that’s on me. I should’ve known better, done better. And yet, here I am.
For most of my life, I had bottomless wells of information at my fingertips. Books. Courses. Advice. Endlessly more data. But none of it stopped me from making some really dumb decisions. Because when life comes at you faster than you can think, knowledge alone doesn’t save you.
Noise drowns out signal. Choices blur together. You end up reacting instead of deciding. And somewhere in that chaos, you realize:
Information is everywhere.
Wisdom is rare.
I started Wisdom Reboot as a way to push pause. To slow the rush long enough to actually think.
This isn’t about hoarding knowledge. It’s about clarity. About stripping away the noise until what’s left actually matters. About living with intention, not drowning in information.
If you’ve ever felt buried under too much data but still hungry for meaning, then you’re in the right place.
Hard Lessons & Fragile Wins
Most of what I’ve learned, I’ve learned the hard way. Failed ventures. Good intentions gone sideways. A bottom drawer full of unfinished goals. Each one left its mark.
But there’s been joy, too. The most beautiful girl I’d ever seen said “yes,” and together we’re raising two incredible boys. Our oldest survived an illness that nearly broke us. We were blessed with a dream home and even managed three holidays a year — one of them involving flights, which always felt like a luxury.
And then it unraveled. We left with four bags, two car seats, and a one-way ticket to Australia — a fresh start after… well, I’m not ready to go there yet.
The small wins matter more when you’ve been knocked down. They feel enormous because you know exactly what it costs to stand up again.
Resilience isn’t abstract for me. It’s something I’ve had to build in real time — through grief, through loss, through the slow grind of putting one foot in front of the other when quitting would’ve been easier.
These experiences didn’t define me, but they did refine me. They stripped away illusions, revealed what endures, and taught me how to keep moving forward even when the way ahead was fogged with uncertainty.
My Path
I grew up in small mining towns in South Africa. Life was simple but tough: long commutes when we moved out to a farm, responsibility landing earlier than I wanted it.
I clawed through school, stumbled through studies, cycled through jobs and businesses and ambitions. Most didn’t stick. I struggled, restarted, struggled again. Eventually, I crossed borders, changed careers, lost nearly everything financially, and endured the pain of hearing the woman I love say: “It’s over.”
What I discovered is this: comfort is overrated. Certainty is an illusion. What actually matters is resilience, presence, and deliberate action.
Now I live in Sydney, raising two boys who are my daily compass. They remind me that what really counts isn’t speed or success — it’s showing up. Taking responsibility. Choosing love, even on the hard days.
Life keeps testing me. I keep struggling, learning, trying again. That cycle — messy as it is — is exactly what Wisdom Reboot is about.
What You’ll Find Here
Let me be upfront about Wisdom Reboot: you won’t find neatly packaged solutions or tidy “10 steps to success” here. (Though apparently five steps is the magic number these days.)
What you’ll find instead is something messier — and, I’d argue, more real.
You may find fragments: quotes, mantras, sparks of clarity I’ve picked up along the way. You’ll see me holding up a mirror to my own failures, turning mistakes over and over until they finally reveal something useful. You’ll find patterns buried in chaos — dots joined between ancient wisdom, modern noise, and the daily grind of trying (and often failing) to live deliberately.
I don’t finish most of what I start. I protect my routines fiercely, because without them I’d unravel. Literally. I’m not a man of endless action. I’m a man who keeps showing up to wrestle with questions — and sometimes demons — even when the answers stay out of reach.
If that sounds familiar — if you’ve ever felt buried under too much noise but still hungry for clarity — then you’ll feel at home here.
The Compass
I don’t have a map. I never really did.
And if I did, I probably would’ve lost it by now.
What I do have now is a compass. Not the kind that points north — more like Jack Sparrow’s: imperfect, unpredictable, sometimes spinning wildly — but honest enough to point me back to what I want most when I feel lost.
These values aren’t polished slogans. They’re the filters I’ve decided to return to when the noise is deafening, when choices feel heavy, when it’d be easier to lie to myself than face the truth.
Authentic Imperfection — because waiting for perfect kept me silent for too long.
Active Wisdom — because knowing doesn’t count until it reshapes how I live.
Deliberate Unlearning — because half my growth has come from letting go of things I should’ve dropped years ago.
Meaningful Struggle — because the easy paths never changed me.
Present Over Potential — because “someday” was my favorite hiding place.
Smaller Better — because subtraction creates focus, and focus compounds.
Laboratory Mindset — because life is an experiment, not an exam.
I don’t live these perfectly. Most days, I miss the mark. But they give me direction. They’re what I reach for when I’m stumbling, circling, drifting.
A compass doesn’t lay out the whole journey. It doesn’t promise you won’t get lost. But it does one thing that matters most: it keeps you from walking in circles.
The Question That Stopped Me
The other night (and with kids, this could be any night in the last year), my youngest looked at me with that mix of innocence and bluntness only kids have, and asked:
“Dad, if you could go back… would you change things?”
It hit me hard. Like a stone on the forehead. (I know what that feels like too — I once got slingshotted right between the eyes as a kid. If you look closely at my photos, you can still see the dent.)
But I knew exactly what he meant.
All the failures. The false starts. The mistakes that cost years. The marriage that ended. The moves, the losses, the starting over from scratch — again and again.
My first instinct was to give him the quick n easy:
“Knowing what I know now? Of course I’d do it differently.”
But I caught myself. Because that’s only half true.
Yes, I would have made better choices. I would have spared people I love from unnecessary pain. I would have been wiser, sooner.
But the truth is, I only know what I know now because of those exact mistakes. The scars are the tuition life demanded. The failures are the receipts that prove I showed up. The hard road is the only reason I can even begin to answer the questions my kids throw at me.
So I looked at him and said something else instead:
“I don’t know if I’d go back. Because if I did, I wouldn’t be your dad — not the way I am now. And I wouldn’t know half the things I’ve learned by falling on my face. My past is who I am today. And who I am today is a dad who loves you more than anything.”
He looks at me. “Love you more.”
“No. No. No. I loved you first — I win.”
That’s the irony of life: the very things we most want to erase are often the same things that shape us into who we’re becoming.
Why This Matters for Wisdom Reboot
That question from my son stuck with me. It’s one of the reasons Wisdom Reboot exists.
Life doesn’t come with an instruction manual. You stumble. You try. You mess it up. You learn the hard way. And if you're a slow learner like me, then you stumble again.
Wisdom Reboot is my way of making sense of that cycle. Of turning scars into signposts. Of translating failures, false starts, and second chances into something that carries meaning — so maybe my kids, or anyone reading this, doesn’t have to trip on every rock I did.
Maybe, it's more about me, painting those rocks blue so I don't trip over them either. again.
This isn’t about polished answers or guaranteed formulas. It’s about better questions. Lived frameworks. Hard-won reflections from the messy middle of life.
If you’ve ever asked yourself the same question my son asked me — “If you could go back, what would you change?” — then you’ll feel at home here. Because what matters isn’t rewriting the past. It’s walking forward, together, with a compass sturdy enough to keep us moving when the map is unclear.
A Note on Influence
I don’t write in isolation. Some of what you’ll find here is borrowed, reframed, or sparked by people wiser than me. Other parts are scarred into me — tested in the chaos of my own life.
Either way, what you’ll get here is honest. No polish, no posturing, no motivational fluff. Just the raw material of trying to live deliberately in a world that’s constantly pulling us toward distraction.
You made it all the way down here? Respect. One small favor: if you haven’t yet, could you fill in our new reader survey? It’s how I learn who’s in the room.
