Dan Waldschmidt

Kickass dad. CEO. Ultra-runner. B2B tech nerd. 10th person on the plan

Oct 13, 2026

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3 min read

You Don't Have to Be Fixed First.

Six books about people who were scared, stubborn, broke, or burned, and still got better. A boy told he'd never walk. A pilot nobody promoted. A CEO who failed. Their flaws were part of the work.

Dan Waldschmidt

The Man Who Invented the Shopping Cart and Watched Nobody Use It.

Oct 6, 2026

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11 min read

The Man Who Invented the Shopping Cart and Watched Nobody Use It.

Sylvan Goldman invented the shopping cart in 1937. Nobody would touch it. What he did next is the whole lesson: work only the part you can control.

Dan Waldschmidt

The Truth Is That The Fear Never Really Goes Away.

Sep 29, 2026

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3 min read

The Truth Is That The Fear Never Really Goes Away.

Thoughts on uncertainty from Elizabeth Edwards, Nelson Mandela, Charlie Munger, Van Gogh, Joseph Campbell, and Elisabeth Elliot. Plus, in case you missed it, the prisoner who saved 63 lives by getting called stupid.

Dan Waldschmidt

While They Called Him Stupid, He Was Counting Names.

Sep 22, 2026

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8 min read

While They Called Him Stupid, He Was Counting Names.

They called him too stupid to interrogate. In the Hanoi Hilton, he couldn't control the guards, the torture, or the war. So he controlled a broom, a song, and 256 names.

Dan Waldschmidt

Everything That's Happened To You Has One Thing in Common: You.

Sep 15, 2026

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3 min read

Everything That's Happened To You Has One Thing in Common: You.

Five insights that got stuck in me this week, from Mark Manson, Shane Parrish, Tim Urban, Napoleon, and Bertrand Russell. Plus the full list of everything Resurgam has covered so far.

Dan Waldschmidt

Your Motivation Is Fine. Your Fuel Is Not.

Sep 8, 2026

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13 min read

Your Motivation Is Fine. Your Fuel Is Not.

Ten years after a fueling failure ended his Keys 100, Dan returned with a better plan and finished third. Motivation cannot rescue a body running on empty.

Dan Waldschmidt

Sep 1, 2026

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1 min read

The Dirty Secret of Leadership

We call it micromanagement when someone asks hard questions. Then failure lands, the details were missed, and blame gets spread around. The real danger is refusing to look before it costs us.

Dan Waldschmidt

The Dysfunction Is the Work: The 50-Year Struggle Behind Frederic Tudor’s $200 Million Ice Empire

Aug 25, 2026

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16 min read

The Dysfunction Is the Work: The 50-Year Struggle Behind Frederic Tudor’s $200 Million Ice Empire

Frederic Tudor went to debtor's prison three times, was mocked by newspapers, and abandoned by family — then built a $200M ice empire. The dysfunction isn't a bug in the success story. It's the forge creates the sharpened blade.

Dan Waldschmidt

Why 99% of Resilience Has Nothing To Do With Your Mindset.

Aug 18, 2026

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1 min read

Why 99% of Resilience Has Nothing To Do With Your Mindset.

Resilience is not a mindset you summon when life gets hard. It is a way of living, built into your habits, relationships, finances, and the choices you make long before the pressure hits.

Dan Waldschmidt

Story

Aug 15, 2026

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9 min read

The Stone in the Rubble. The Untold Resurrection Story.

The untold story of St. Paul's Cathedral, rising from the ashes, and the playbook for elite performers who think their best days are ahead of them.

Dan Waldschmidt

Story

You Control Almost Nothing. Become Dangerous Anyway.

Aug 15, 2026

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11 min read

You Control Almost Nothing. Become Dangerous Anyway.

Hannibal stood trapped on a frozen ledge, two miles up, where working harder was useless. The five things you actually control—and how they make you dangerous.

Dan Waldschmidt

Story

Aug 15, 2026

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15 min read

The Boy Who Ran Out of the Fire And Into the Olympics. Fastest Miler In History.

A seven-year-old burns in a fire that kills his brother and is told he'll never walk again — then outruns the world. His story is the difference between the fire that breaks a person and the same fire that forges one.

Dan Waldschmidt

Personal

The Quote Everyone Misunderstands. Maya Angelou Didn’t Mean That.

Aug 14, 2026

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8 min read

The Quote Everyone Misunderstands. Maya Angelou Didn’t Mean That.

Managing compassion, trust, and boundaries in a messy world where people are human and it's easy to get hurt

Dan Waldschmidt

Personal

Aug 14, 2026

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14 min read

How to Live When It’s Dead Easy to Die

He hung 14 feet down in an Antarctic crevasse with a knife in his jacket. A line from Robert Service stopped him. It's dead easy to die. It's the keeping-on-living that's hard.

Dan Waldschmidt

Collection

What Do You Do When The Results Have Not Shown Up?

Aug 13, 2026

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3 min read

What Do You Do When The Results Have Not Shown Up?

The not-yet zone is where most people quit. I think it is where the real work happens. This week, I am sharing a conversation with Mark Minard about staying in the fight.

Dan Waldschmidt

Story

What One of the Greatest Basketball Player of All Time Can Teach You About Sleep and Closing Out the Day.

Aug 13, 2026

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10 min read

What One of the Greatest Basketball Player of All Time Can Teach You About Sleep and Closing Out the Day.

Most people who think they're fine at midnight are wrong. A 38-year-old in his 20th NBA season, a driver awake 33 straight hours, and a simple ritual to close the day: look back, let it go, look forward.

Dan Waldschmidt

Story

Aug 13, 2026

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16 min read

I Spent 1,000 Hours Researching The Morning Routines of History's Most Successful People. Here Are The Only 3 Things That Matter.

The most successful people in history didn't rise to the occasion on their biggest mornings. They ran the same plain routine as every other day — get quiet, move your body, do the one thing that counts — and that unglamorous consistency is what quietly built them.

Dan Waldschmidt

Dan Waldschmidt

You Don't Have to Be Fixed First.

The Man Who Invented the Shopping Cart and Watched Nobody Use It.

The Truth Is That The Fear Never Really Goes Away.

While They Called Him Stupid, He Was Counting Names.

Everything That's Happened To You Has One Thing in Common: You.

Your Motivation Is Fine. Your Fuel Is Not.

The Dirty Secret of Leadership

The Dysfunction Is the Work: The 50-Year Struggle Behind Frederic Tudor’s $200 Million Ice Empire

Why 99% of Resilience Has Nothing To Do With Your Mindset.

The Stone in the Rubble. The Untold Resurrection Story.

You Control Almost Nothing. Become Dangerous Anyway.

The Boy Who Ran Out of the Fire And Into the Olympics. Fastest Miler In History.

The Quote Everyone Misunderstands. Maya Angelou Didn’t Mean That.

How to Live When It’s Dead Easy to Die

What Do You Do When The Results Have Not Shown Up?

What One of the Greatest Basketball Player of All Time Can Teach You About Sleep and Closing Out the Day.

I Spent 1,000 Hours Researching The Morning Routines of History's Most Successful People. Here Are The Only 3 Things That Matter.

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