Mike Mitkus

Marketer. Alumnus of @sjprep and @holy_cross. Go Birds! 🦅

[Hunter Biden @HunterBiden]

To everyone so eager to cancel someone for a tattoo they got at age 22, a drunk text, a selfie they took in the middle of a mental health crisis:

Show us your laptop.
Show us your iCloud.
Open your entire digital life to your worst enemy. No context. No filter. No explanation.

You won’t.

You won’t because you know what I know. Any one of us, frozen at our worst moment, photographed in our lowest hour, looks like a monster. Looks like a stranger. Looks like someone who deserves to be cast out.

That is not who we are.

My mom and baby sister were killed in a car accident when I was just a kid. Cancer took my brother Beau, my best friend and my rock. I battled alcoholism. I battled addiction. I chose the coward’s way out more times than I can count.

For years I believed the defining chapters of my life were written by tragedy, loss, and shame.

I no longer believe that.

Pain can shape us. Loss can humble us. Failures can leave scars that never fully fade. But none of them have the authority to define us.

And it sure as hell ain’t the critic that counts.

That authority belongs to us alone-the person in the arena.

Every setback presents a choice. Play the victim, or cut the bullshit and take ownership for who we become next.

Life does not determine our character. It reveals it.

Again and again we are asked the same question. When shit happens, what next?

We are not defined by what happened to us. We are not defined by the worst photo, the worst text, the worst tattoo, the worst night. We are defined by the person we choose to become. And by the courage to choose that person, every single day.

So before you reach for the gavel - show us your laptop.

You won’t.

The whole world saw mine. And I am still here. Still becoming. Still choosing. Still standing.

That is the only definition that matters.

[Bill @BillWiIdin]

The "return to office" push has absolutely nothing to do with Collaboration or Culture. It's entirely about commercial real estate leases and middle managers realizing their entire job consists of walking around looking at people's monitors.

[Adam Grant @AdamMGrant]

Even toddlers experience the joy of giving.

Evidence: When kids under 2 share a snack with a puppet, they exude enthusiasm. They actually smile bigger and laugh more after giving a treat than getting one for themselves.

Kindness is a fundamental source of happiness.

[Blake Burge @blakeaburge]

Underrated life advice: Become a purveyor of encouragement. Notice what's good in people. Tell them when they do something well. Celebrate their progress. Root for them to win. Be inspired by their success. The world already has enough critics. Be different.

[Nithya Shri @Nithya_Shrii]

A salary increase of 2-4% is NOT considered a raise.

[PGA Championship @PGAChampionship]

It wasn’t his day, but a birdie at the 18th capped off a brilliant T2 finish at the PGA Championship for Alex Smalley👏

#PGAChamp

[Sahil Bloom @SahilBloom]

Every single thing you want in life is on the other side of something that sucks. That suck might be 100 workouts, 100 bland meals, 100 hours of work, or 100 hard conversations. Embrace it as the cost of entry. The answers you seek are found in the actions you avoid.

[Ethan Mollick @emollick]

Two things:
1) Given that effective AI tools are very new, and we have little sense of how to organize work around them, it is hard to imagine a firm-wide sudden 50% efficiency gain
2) CEOs with vision who hired well should also use AI for expansion & augmentation, not decimation

[Netflix @netflix]

“I hope I've demonstrated that you can face anything, you can face the end of your days, you can face hell with dignity. Fight, girls, and hold your heads high. Billie and Georgia, you are my heart, you are my everything. Goodnight. I love you.

Eric Dane leaves his daughters — and the world — with one final message in Famous Last Words.

[STAT @statnews]

A blood test for detecting cancer early being developed by the diagnostics firm Grail failed to meet its main goal in a giant study being conducted with England’s National Health Service. https://t.co/sQZ0ZJFG4g

[Barack Obama @BarackObama]

The killing of Alex Pretti is a heartbreaking tragedy. It should also be a wake-up call to every American, regardless of party, that many of our core values as a nation are increasingly under assault.

[Gavin Newsom @GavinNewsom]

No new funding.

Kristi Noem must RESIGN.

Greg Bovino must be FIRED.

Suspend the LAWLESS mass deportation raids nationwide NOW — ICE is no longer just deporting dangerous criminals.

Send the border patrol back to the border.

End the militarization of ICE + the sick racial profiling.

End the perverse cash incentives that are bounties to perpetrate Trump’s cruel agenda.

Require thorough, real background checks for everyone, and 2+ years of training before even setting foot in the field.

INVESTIGATE and PROSECUTE every single federal agent who is breaking the law.

[Morgan J. Freeman @mjfree]

Trump is a radical domestic terrorist who must be stopped NOW!

[George Conway ⚖️🇺🇸 @gtconway3d]

Remove them. Defund them. Abolish them. Prosecute them.

[Keith Olbermann @KeithOlbermann]

Donald Trump is the most dangerous terrorist who has ever threatened this nation.

[Liam Nissan™ @theliamnissan]

Remember folks, ICE agents are the dumbest motherfuckers you went to high school with

[Tommy Vietor @TVietor08]

This video shows Alex Pretti trying protect a protestor who is being assaulted, then he gets viciously beaten by federal agents, then he's disarmed by a CBP goon and only after that is he summarily executed with 10 bullets. This is murder.

[Peter Baker @peterbakernyt]

Videos analyzed by @nytimes appear to contradict DHS accounts that the man approached agents with a handgun and the intent to “massacre” them. Footage shows the man holding a phone in his hand, not a gun, when agents take him to the ground. https://t.co/CYw8hBiySb

[Gavin Newsom @GavinNewsom]

KRISTI NOEM MUST RESIGN.

[George Conway ⚖️🇺🇸 @gtconway3d]

The deadly shooting in Minneapolis today was a straight-up execution of a protester by Trump's federal brownshirts.

The thugs wrestled him to the ground. They pistol-whipped him, then shot him multiple times. They murdered him.

The videos don't lie. A man is dead, killed in cold blood. There is no conceivable justification for this intentional homicide. And make no mistake, that intentional, unjustified homicide was committed on behalf of Donald J. Trump.

Trump's militarization of Minneapolis and other parts of our nation isn't about illegal immigration. It's not about enhancing public safety. It's about destroying any sense of that safety—to intimidate political opponents, and to punish dissent. It's about a corrupt, out-of-control regime's effort to provoke citizens in order to justify the violence it desires to commit against them so that it can expand and retain its power.

That is fascism. It is tyranny. It is governmental criminality.

And the ultimate legal check the Framers of our Constitution provided to stop this kind of tyranny and criminality in the executive branch is impeachment and removal of the executive.

Congress needs to do its job.

Now.

Before it's too late.