Traveling home from the Aspen Ideas Festival 2025, I am ready to celebrate 23 years of Spitfire. I was attending on behalf of the Gambrell Foundation who is always seeking good ideas to try in communities. As I bumped into clients and partners in the Marble Garden on the Aspen campus, I was in awe of the people and issues I get to work on. I love birthdays, and celebrating mine usually involves a trip and a passel of friends. I have a few rules: No bleeding. No local hospitals. That’s it. Otherwise, live large.
I also respect rituals. On my birthday, I read Joan Didion’s “On Self-Respect”; I watch the sunrise and sunset; and I have deep gratitude for all who made it possible for me to be right where I am on that day of celebration. I write their names — usually in sand (I like to escape frigid Montana for my winter birthday) — to honor their deep impact on my life.
As I mark founding Spitfire 23 years ago on July 2, I have a few wishes to offer that came to me from this year’s Ideas Festival.
Practice curiosity. I know curiosity is a hot topic these days. But be accountable to actually practicing it. Look at your calendar right now. Where on your schedule do you prioritize curiosity? Where are you exploring new things or meeting new people? What questions are you bringing into these encounters? It isn’t enough to say it is important. You need to make it part of your normal routine. Now look back over the last few weeks. Where did you recently have these opportunities? Did you use them to full advantage? Did you ask more questions than you provided answers? Be honest.
Take what you’ve learned and do something that scares you (at least a little bit). After you’ve learned new things and met new people, do you take the inspiration that comes from these encounters and turn it into action? Jonathan Haidt spoke about the rewiring of childhood and how we overprotect children in real life and under protect them online. There are concrete steps to take to turn this around from phone-free schools to age limits on platforms. I also realized I could be more disciplined about when my screen time is purposeful and when it is purposeless. Attention is incredibly valuable and where I chose to focus it is something I want to be very intentional about. Each day offers an opportunity to take act with intentionality and integrity. Don’t overthink it. Just do it.
Make reflection a habit. I had the privilege of hearing podcaster Sophie Bearman interview author Walter Isaacson for the “Life in Seven Songs” podcast. Listening to him go through songs that captured his childhood and made him cry about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina on his beloved New Orleans said a lot about the leader he is and what inspired him to write bestselling books about geniuses like Steve Jobs and Leonardo DaVinci. Go ahead — try it. What is your life in seven songs? You know, “Personal Jesus” by Depeche Mode is on my list. Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good” is on there too.
Gather lessons via a failure resume or not-good-at list. So often we want to walk away from failure as fast as we can. Forget it. But failure is incredibly value. I heard recently about failure resumes, and I took time to write down the big misses I’d experienced in my career. It was eye-opening. Every failure I documented led me to some of my greatest achievements. Without failures, I’d have fewer successes. In Aspen, I took a drawing class from Sneaky Artist Nishant Jain and learned that drawing goes on my not-good-at list. But observation and perspective are important preludes to drawing, and those I am an ace at.
Connect people you know every chance you get and see what happens. At this point in my career, I’ve cultivated a lot of relationships. And making connections that will combine the awesome work of one person with the phenomenal talents of another is some of the most important work I can do. At the festival, during each break, I avoided the lure of my phone and instead found a spot in the shade and kept calling people I knew over. The individuals quickly became a collective full of ideas and energy. And soon that energy was building. I don’t know what will come out of it yet, but I can’t wait to hear all about it at next year’s Aspen Ideas Festival.