Journal on Kane G. Anderson

How Do Others Perceive You Regarding Leadership?

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 14:33:47 +0000

Today I had a conversation with an engineer in my company with who is working on self improvement. He wants to build his leadership skills, although he is currently an individual contributor at our company. He enrolled in an online course full of videos and journaling exercises. Seems like it’s entirely self-led which paradoxically both proves you can lead yourself, and also falls short insomuch as it misses the human relationship part of leadership. Where is the sympathy, coaching, mentorship, and emotional intelligence? How can he learn to lead if that portion isn’t modeled for him? Key elements of leadership include but are not limited to:

J.W. Marriott on Leading

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 17:08:39 +0000

Listened to Shane Parrish on the Knowledge Project podcast, as he spoke about J.W. Marriott, the founder responsible for the Marriott international hotel brands. It’s a member-only episode, so you’ll have to join to get access. I really like this series, so I feel it’s worth the money. Check it out at https://fs.blog/

Something that stuck out to me were Bill’s business and leadership principles. 3 concepts and 15 rules that he outlined for his son.

I Asked Claude to Roast My AI Prompting

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 01:54:04 +0000

I’ve been a paid Claude user for about a year. Before that, ChatGPT — and I’ve been consciously writing my Google searches more like prompts to nudge Gemini in the right direction. So I’m not a beginner. But “not a beginner” doesn’t mean “not leaving value on the table.” So today I ran an experiment: I asked Claude to evaluate me.

Me:

I’m trying to optimize my usage of this chatbot. using whatever you know about me from our chats, please suggest tips for me to improve my throughput using ai to help me accomplish my tasks (mostly coding, but also bouncing ideas and doing investigating). Please give me no more than 10 helpful tips. Be harshly honest if I’m doing anything dumb.

.claudeignore

Sun, 15 Mar 2026 15:57:52 +0000

Claude just told me about a cool feature .claudeignore. You put in there directories where Claude shouldn’t look or touch. Sounds great!

Is there a way to configure GitHub to flag modifications to certain files as illegal? I have a little bit of third party code we bought and want to make sure nobody (I’m looking at you Claude…) touches it. I’d prefer the administrative controls to be in the GitHub level if possible.

Claude Access to Jenkins MCP Server

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 22:50:48 +0000

Spent some time getting my claude code agent hooked into our Jenkins CI/CD MCP server.

Just put your username in plain text, and convert you api token to base64.

Documentation is here: https://plugins.jenkins.io/mcp-server/

It’s kinda handy asking Claude to review a failed build and plan a fix for the it.

Steve Wozniak

Sun, 01 Feb 2026 14:54:17 +0000

I just listened to a biography podcast of Steve Wozniak by Shane Parish at The Knowledge Project. I loved the episode, and Wozniak is one of my new heroes.

Check out the podcast here https://open.spotify.com/episode/0xtDFvUwvEHcw2piq8JInE?si=fXiQMq_jQ0mxemG9ekTWOg&t=2357&pi=3OYLrq7LTUaSA

Proton Mail

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 15:31:45 +0000

Proton is end-to-end encrypted, meaning that your emails are private and secure. I believe in internet privacy and think this is a good product. I’m not affiliated in any way with Proton, I just like it.

Use my referral link to and we’ll both get a small credit for our subscription fee. https://pr.tn/ref/3ACM5K07

Heroic Activation 2026-01-10

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 13:32:14 +0000

Are you interested in personal development? Make 2026 your greatest year ever. Kick it off with a workshop on Heroic Clarity and Confidence. https://go.heroic.us/kane-anderson-2xtu .

Want to buy me a coffee?

Fri, 05 Dec 2025 14:57:44 +0000

buymeacoffee.com/cliuqlkh45

The Fisherman

Fri, 03 Oct 2025 11:14:56 +0000

In the prologue of Matthew Kelly’s Off Balance, he tells a familiar story about an investment banker and a fisherman.

A powerful, wealthy man, worn thin by stress, visits a small coastal village in Mexico to rest. One morning he notices a fishing boat returning early. Curious, he walks to the dock. The fisherman has several large tuna.

“Why come in so early?” the banker asks.

“This is enough for my family,” the fisherman says. “We’ll eat some and trade the rest for what we need.”

Heart Health 2025

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 15:20:21 +0000

Since reading Outlive this year, I have been more convinced about the importance of making healthy diet choices. It also got me curious about my heart health, since Dt. Attia talks about several tests he uses to check his patient’s heart health, and he recommends the reader to get done. So I followed his advice. During my annual checkup I requested several tests, and the doctor was kinda shocked. She was like… “how come you’re asking me this?”. She said I was more on top of my health than most doctors she knows. Cool - I’ll take it!

The Last 8% - High Performing Teams

Sat, 27 Sep 2025 13:38:31 +0000

I read an article by JP Pawliw about creating an organization of high performers. Check out the article here: https://hbr.org/2025/09/the-secret-to-building-a-high-performing-team.

The article points to a multi-year survey of 34,000 people which says that employees are comfortable enough discussing 92% of what they want to say. The last 8% is what they leave out, which may be just the thing that needs to be talked about to bring the org into the realm of ‘high-performance’. It’s the same with risk taking, and with difficult decisions that managers are not comfortable making because of fear.

About Kane

Mon, 25 Aug 2025 12:15:08 +0000

About Kane Anderson Kane Anderson is the Electronics Engineering Lead at Q-PAC, where he heads the Watt Wizards team. With a B.Sc. in Computer Engineering and a background in physics, Kane has spent nearly two decades designing and building complex systems — from satellite-connected IoT devices to distributed HVAC controllers in critical environments like hospitals and labs.

Throughout his career, Kane has led interdisciplinary engineering teams across hardware, firmware, mechanical and software domains, championing a pragmatic, high-accountability approach to technical leadership. He’s fluent in tools like Altium, C, C++, and C#, and has shipped production systems involving embedded networking, RF, BLE, and control firmware. He’s also deeply interested in how engineering excellence intersects with clarity of thought, discipline, and personal growth—a topic he explores occasionally as a certified Heroic Coach and writer at kaneganderson.com .

21 Days - No Complaints

Mon, 25 Aug 2025 11:59:14 +0000

21 days. No complaints. What I learned surprised me.

I just completed a 21-day challenge of not complaining, gossiping, or criticizing. It took me five months of resets to finally make it, but the impact has been huge. The practice helped me reduce barriers to gratitude and shifted how I show up with presence and warmth. My favorite part? Inspiring my 6- and 8-year-old kids to take on their own 2-day mini-challenge (yes, ice cream was involved). I found it through Heroic , but the idea comes from Will Bowen’s book A Complaint Free World. The challenge began with a simple bracelet you switch wrists each time you complain, resetting the clock to Day 1. Millions have tried it since—and I can see why.

Cicero on Epicurus

Thu, 05 Jun 2025 14:33:32 +0000

Today I wondered if Lorem ipsum meant anything. Turns out it does! It’s an excerpt from something the philosopher Cicero wrote in 45BC. Source: https://www.lipsum.com/

Here’s a translation of Cicero’s text: https://epicurus.net/en/finibus.html

Interesting read - check it out.

Rose Blumkin

Tue, 03 Jun 2025 12:45:12 +0000

I listened to a podcast episode that I really loved. It’s the story of Rose Blumkin, the business owner behind Nebraska Furniture Mart. The podcast transcript can be found here, https://fs.blog/knowledge-project-podcast/outliers-rose-blumkin/

Here’s an excerpt, that sounds like a move tag line, which sums it up:

In a world where MBA programs teach complex business strategies and consultants sell elaborate frameworks, one woman built an empire by taking three simple ideas very seriously: “Sell cheap, tell the truth, don’t cheat the customer.”

Mooncast wireless power

Fri, 10 Jan 2025 13:07:18 +0000

Crazy idea popped into my head last night.

I was reading a newsletter from this company called Powercast . Cool stuff. Imagine a wireless charger for your phone, except the phone doesn’t have to touch the charger. It can be delivered from farther away.

Anyways, my insane idea was that there could be some insane nuclear power plant on the moon, and transform the ‘Earthward side’ (is that a word?) into a giant wireless power transmitter. Then energy harvesting devices could be placed around the surface of the Earth, and at night they would charge up. It would be like the electrical grid recharges at night. Kinda like how humans recharge at night! It could also power satellites orbiting the moon and Earth.

2024-11-25

Tue, 26 Nov 2024 04:51:19 +0000

Disjointed Thoughts

Please forgive the disjointed thoughts. This is more or less a brain dump therapy for me, not really intended for anyone else to read. Sometimes just putting things down helps air them out. The following paragraphs came out, and have almost no relation to each other.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the bigger picture. Zooming out and taking the view from above. Ken and I came up with a couple of cool new patent ideas in the last few months, and we’re engaging our lawyer for one. We should have another provisional patent filed soon. This could be huge for the HVAC commercial high volume fan industry. Another (more fun) patent I’ve been thinking on and journaling about is a product of my own imagination. Ken seems equally invigorated by this idea too. It has to do with AI, and it could be huge. It could also have the potential to bring a lot of smiles to the world. I promised LeBaron in a coaching practice session that I’d journal on it until the end of the year, but I’ve almost reached the end of what I can journal without being redundant. I wish I could start my own company and pitch this idea, I really love the idea.

Certified Heroic Coach

Fri, 15 Nov 2024 15:05:19 +0000

Just a quick update - things have been insane lately with our new microcontroller project being late for release. It feels like 9 months of ‘crunch time’. It’s finally coming to a head, and we’re releasing for real this time. Dec. 1. That’s the big day. We’re ready. Today we finished our production firmware MVP draft.

But this post isn’t about work - that was just my weak excuse for being absent on my blog. This is a celebration of my recent achievement! I completed the 300 day Heroic program, and earned this bad boy (see the image). Go me! I’m excited to use my coaching skills to help my team and my kids reach their full potential.

My Heroic Enchiridion

Fri, 25 Oct 2024 04:53:29 +0000

Preamble

Last November (2023), I listened to a podcast I like called Front Row Dads (thanks Tom W). The guest was Brian Johnson, and he was on a podcast tour promoting his book, “Arete” (pronounced are-uh-tay). His message instantly resonated with me. Sometimes there’s a profound truth you can physically feel (somehow). I could feel it deep down - Brian was on to something important. He was talking about stuff I had studied in Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations (my favorite book). He was making connections with CBT (which I learned when I was a kid). He was talking about changing (a profoundly sick) society from victims into heroes, starting with you and me. I was attracted to his company Heroic like a compass is drawn to North. So I downloaded their app, plugged at the end of the podcast. From there I got on their email list, where I learned about their coach training program. As somebody who leads a team every day, I knew that upgrading my coaching skills would be directly applicable to my effectiveness with my team. So I convinced my HR director to foot the bill.

Homeless

Mon, 08 Jul 2024 11:13:38 +0000

While my family’s new house is finishing construction, with a tentative possession date of August 9th, we have allowed our lease to expire on our rented home. So for the next month or so we will be homeless. My wife and I decided that now is the perfect time to do a Canada visit, since it’s been a while since we visited, and will be broke for the foreseeable future after our monthly expenses increase. I’m writing this from my in-laws’ dining room table, where I’ll be working remotely for the next few weeks.

2024 Father's Day

Tue, 18 Jun 2024 18:11:50 +0000

We had a great Father’s Day weekend this year!

Happy hour at our friends’ garage bar (see also: Bourbon Sweet Love ). Swimming lessons with Mrs. Bubbles. My darling’s first 25m swim, my boy crushing it as usual (unlimited energy), demonstrated another 25m + 60s tread. Super cute ballet recital . Packing with excitement for our new home . Grilling / smoking a roast.

Thank you to my amazing wife and family for all the love you create in our home, and for the gifts.

My Favorite Colors

Tue, 11 Jun 2024 15:57:56 +0000

Here are my favorite colors!

light: https://colorhunt.co/palette/f8f8f8b180f037b5b6222222

dark: https://colorhunt.co/palette/07133737b5b6b180f0f7bb7f

No Pressure No Diamonds

Thu, 30 May 2024 12:46:07 +0000

It’s been a while since I put anything here. Things have been a bit hectic in my life (in a good way). Here goes:

Heroic

I’ve been training to become a Heroic Certified Coach (class XX), and I attended Heroic Workshop Instructor Training (class I). As part of that training, I ran my first-ever Spartan race. I completed a 5K race with 20 obstacles, finishing 18 of them. If anyone is interested in Heroic (it’s for you; it’s for everyone), please use my referral code: Heroic Referral Code . If you are interested in Heroic coaching or workshops, please get in touch with me.

2024-Mar/Apr New PCBs

Wed, 03 Apr 2024 20:56:05 +0000

Over the last few days, my team received our new PCBs. This represents the culmination of around 9 months of effort from a team of 5 people. It feels great to see them coming to fruition and seeing the board bring up happening. I’m relieved that many of the functions are working right the first time. Whoa. Seriously. We are a bit of a junior team, and the company has never produced a design before this in Altium. I am so grateful for my team and all the long hours they worked to make this a reality. I hope that we can deliver on time in July :).

Criticism, Condemnation and Complaints

Wed, 06 Mar 2024 16:38:31 +0000

I finished reading Plato’s The Republic this week, notes on that coming soon. Around the same time, I listened to Brian Johnson’s summary of How to Win Friends and Influence People, where he quotes Benjamin Franklin saying “I will speak no ill of any man, and speak all the good I know of everybody. Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain, and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving”. This resonated with me.

Heroic Social

Mon, 26 Feb 2024 04:06:08 +0000

Hey just throwing it out there! If you all haven’t tried this app called Heroic.us yet, do yourself a favor and get it!

When you do, add me as a buddy or follow me on the social part of the app.

https://link.heroic.us/3ump

Heroic Vocabulary

Mon, 12 Feb 2024 13:17:57 +0000

In my heroic coach program, Michael sent out an email saying “we often get feedback that it takes a little time to get used to the terminology we use in the Heroic Coach program”… “take a stab at defining the following terms for YOU in your own words”.

Here goes nothing.

1 - Eudaimonia: “good soul”. This is a state of being when you’re living in integrity with your highest ideals. 2 - Arete: It’s another word for virtue, but with an added connotation. When you close the gap between who you could be and who you are being, you live with arete. This is a moment-to-moment decision, in the space between stimulus and response. 3 - Daimon: your inner genius. Your conscience, your higher self. Inside you have two voices, your daimon, and your demon. The demon is a.k.a. part X. Your daimon is a vision of your best self. 4 - Hero: A protector who has the strength for two. A hero’s secret weapon is love. A hero goes on a journey, faces challenges, and returns victorious with a boon. 5 - Virtue: Traits and characteristics that are noble and admirable. There are 5 universal virtues that lead to flourishing, and we each have a unique top 5. Mine are self-regulation, love of learning, leadership, honesty, and love. My most important one and deepest held value is commitment. 6 - Wisdom: One virtue, of which the others are said to be an expression of. Wisdom is the knowledge of how to live well. 7 - Discipline: Self mastery and the ability to be in control of your thoughts, actions, words, and ultimately your life. The ancient philosophers called it ’temperance’ but it goes beyond just moderation in eating and drinking. It’s the practice of living the way you decided to live (rather than defaulting to your impulses). 8 - Courage: Doing what needs to be done, regardless of how you feel (weak, tired, lazy, afraid, uncomfortable). Just get it done. 9 - Love: The ancient philosophers called it Justice. This represents what is fair and right. Love can have different scopes… self-love, romantic love, family love, plutonic love, loving your work, loving micro-transactions, and ultimately amor fati - loving all that is. 10 - Hope: Hope has 3 parts. A belief that the future can be better than the present. A sense of agency, that you are capable of influencing the future. And multiple pathways or plans that you can use to exercise your agency. 11 - Gratitude: The quickest way to improve your emotional outlook is to keep a gratitude journal. Even better you can do a gratitude meditation where you just let gratitude “flow”. You focus on any stream of things you’re grateful for. Just let the river flow. 12 - Curiosity: The virtue that helps you seek more wisdom. Curiosity spurs you to discover more. It is the aroma of the pie in the cartoon. The mesmerized cat will float like a ghost in the direction of that heavenly scent. Just as you will be drawn to know more about the things your curiosity is leading you to. 13 - Zest: The number one indicator of emotional well being. Your zest is the tendency to want to move. To energize. 14 - Antifragile: The opposite of fragile. There’s fragile, resilient, then antifragile. The more you get kicked and beaten the stronger you get because OMMS. Fall 7 rise 8. 15 - Confidence: Extreme trust. Not trust in the future working out. In yourself to deal with life’s challenges. 16 - Protocol: Your protocol is the procedure you’re committed to. If-then type stuff, where you have predetermined the response you’ll take to a foreseen action or event. 17 - Response-ability: The ability to respond. The belief that you can choose your next step, go between stimulus and response, and be the one accountable for taking action. 18 - Emotional Stamina: The level of punishment you can take and still get back in the boxing ring. The amount of resolve you have. Determination and willpower to keep going when similar challenges might deplete another person’s emotional reserves. 19 - Exonerated: The time when you get excused from obligation and challenges. The time when life gives you a free pass. You will never be exonerated. 20 - Challenges: Challenges are fuel for the fire. The inevitable difficulties that come as part of your life. You can either avoid challenges or you can face them. BRING IT ON!

Top 10

Wed, 06 Dec 2023 04:01:35 +0000

I recently got really interested in Brian Johnson. I first discovered his stuff because he was on a podcast I listen to called ‘Front Row Dads’. I loved what he had to say. Then he appeared on another of my regular podcasts, ‘Learning Leaders’. I’m hooked. Everything this guys says resonates with me. I’m all in. I picked up his new book that just dropped Arete and so far it’s great. I joined his heroic.us app as well. I just kept on getting deeper and deeper - I’m kind of obsessed. All of this took place over the last few weeks, and I convinced my workplace to invest in my training by signing me up for Brian’s heroic coach program while it was on sale for Black Friday and 51% off.

Habits of Resilience

Wed, 18 Oct 2023 01:38:23 +0000

On the Daily Stoic community platform, I’m delving into a course focused on leadership. The aim is to apply Stoic principles to management. Today’s lesson deals with life’s challenges. The key question is:

How are you managing daily inconveniences rather than hypothetical, monumental adversities? These minor setbacks can serve as a litmus test for your overall resilience.

While bad driving or an incorrectly placed toilet paper roll may irk me, I don’t lose composure. Drivers are outside my control; fussing about them is futile. A toilet paper roll can be easily corrected. The biggest thing I tend to get upset with is my kids behavior. Sometimes I wonder where they learned such petulance and obnoxiousness. And no matter how many times I ask them to pick up after themselves it just doesn’t happen. It’s in that gray area of a thing I can/can’t control. I can and will try my best.

Leadership Scorecard

Tue, 17 Oct 2023 03:24:51 +0000

Here is a Google Form that I’m going to use for scoring leadership:

https://forms.gle/F8hyFhHZk6xQx3Ph7

This is a combination of things I’ve picked up from J-Mac, Square, and Napoleon Hill.

FYI this is anonymous. I could see the responses but not the email addresses. If you fill it out, you’ll be sent a copy of the responses. You can be vague in the “who’s this regarding?” field.

Annual Self Assessment

Tue, 17 Oct 2023 03:01:00 +0000

Here is a link to a self-assessment which you can do.

https://jianajavier.github.io/annual_self_review/

This is based on Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich.

Here is the link to my personal google form to fill. This links to a google form which is anonymous (I won’t know whoever fills it in but I’ll be able to read the responses). As long as you are signed in to google, you’ll receive a copy of your responses, so this may be useful to you (whoever you are reading my blog).

Be Strict With Yourself, Lenient With Others

Sat, 14 Oct 2023 13:56:29 +0000

Be Strict With Yourself - Lead by Example

Carve out time to focus on high priority tasks
Take extra care to do things the proper way, with discipline, so that your work is done well and delivered with the confidence that you did your best
Talk about your day and what you did with your kids. You always ask them what they did and they resist you on it. Maybe if you take more time out to talk about yourself, they will follow suit.

Be Lenient With Others - What Behavior in Others Infuriates You?

Complaining! It’s particularly vexing to hear persistent complaints from others.

Who Do You Want to Be?

Fri, 13 Oct 2023 18:14:53 +0000

“Fight to be the person philosophy tried to make you.” - Marcus Aurelius

Here’s who you want to be:⁠

To be cheerful, humble, truthful, brave, clean, reverent, equanimous, moderate, considerate, thoughtful, present, curious.

⁠Not to lash out, envy, or lust. Not to be greedy, ambitious, deceitful, and petty.

To do what’s right. To stand by your convictions. To judge according to reality, and not delude yourself or give praise where it isn’t deserved. To be social and friendly, taking time to enjoy life. To never mourn the loss of anything.