No #191 | October 19, 2025

by Matthew Boyd

Good morning, welcome to the weekly Lead It Cool newsletter.

Weather is really cooling down in the pacific northwest. This can mean only one thing😂:

In this week's Lead It Cool newsletter:

• ⚾Bandwagon Baseball
• 💫Lord of the Rings
• 🤔Whiteboards
• 🤣Cage
• 😎Cool Links

⚾Bandwagon Baseball

Nobody does bandwagon baseball quite like I do.

The hundred or so regular-season games? Meh. But the playoffs? LET’S FREAKING GO.

This year is extra special because two teams near and dear to my heart are in the mix: the Canadian Toronto Blue Jays and the Pacific Northwest’s own Seattle Mariners.

One of my favorite parts of baseball (especially playoff baseball) is how teams celebrate home runs. It’s the perfect mix of joy, swagger, and team chemistry. The Mariners give their home run hero a full-sized gold trident, as if Poseidon himself just blessed the at-bat. I always wonder how they manage to travel with that thing😅.

The Blue Jays, meanwhile, go full fashion show. Their home run hitter dons a custom-tailored suit jacket, decked out with team references, logos, and a whole lot of swagger. It’s part victory lap, part style statement, and fully awesome.

I’m a sucker for this kind of symbolism and camaraderie. These rituals remind me why sports are so magnetic, not just for the competition, but for the culture, the moments, and the shared joy.

So while I might not be the guy tracking WAR stats or ERA through the dog days of summer, come October, I’m all in. Bring on the bat flips, the tridents, the jackets, and the chaos. Bandwagon baseball is back!

💫Lord of the Rings

I’m reading J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy right now, and it’s been such an enjoyable experience, although I have to admit, the whole Tom Bombadil section left me scratching my head 🤣.

There are some epic quotes in the first book, and here are few that made me mark the page:

“Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.” - Gimli

“Not all those who wander are lost.” - Bilbo

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide.”

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” -Gandalf

🤔Whiteboards

I agree!

🤣Cage!

How are you feeling today? 😂

😎Cool Links

🤖5 Critical Skills Leaders Need in the Age of AI. The failure to capture value from new technologies is rarely about the technology. Instead, it’s typically about failing to align your technology to your value proposition, and missing the opportunity to leverage technology to change the organization. Underneath it all lies a challenge for leadership and organizational capacity. Efforts fail because organizations don’t adapt their processes, and because teams don’t change how they work.

🏀The WNBA's Future Is on the Clock. Super interesting article for anyone who is interested in sports and strategic planning.

🗣️Talker's block. No one ever gets talker’s block. No one wakes up in the morning, discovers he has nothing to say and sits quietly, for days or weeks, until the muse hits, until the moment is right, until all the craziness in his life has died down. Why then, is writer’s block endemic?

🌍Random Street View generator. It's oddly calming.

🤯People can do amazing things.

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Let’s connect! 💬 You can find me on LinkedIn and Twitter