Lead a Life That Confuses the Archaeologists
If you want to lead a good life, a good rule of thumb is to live a life that is not merely the product of your age. Your life shouldn’t be reducible to the dominant forces and trends of your […]
The Value of Knowing Awful People
“Surround yourself with people you want to be like.” “You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.” This is all fine advice. I’ve found it to be true in my own experience. But like […]
Don’t Underestimate the Resilience and Resourcefulness of the Homeless
You can say (people do say) many things about homeless people. But a fact that is under-appreciated is just how resilient and resourceful they often are. There’s a woman who lives on an overpass near Atlantic Station. For some time, […]
The Problem with “Here I Stand, I Can Do No Other”
“Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God. Amen.” According to some tellings, this is how Protestant Christian reformer Martin Luther responded to demands that he recant positions which the established Church of his time considered […]
How Do We Make Truth Faster Than Falsehood?
“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.” A lot of people complain about fake news, but I’ve spent enough time in my career trying to debunk it that this is […]
The Difference Between Poor, Mediocre, Good, and Great Song Lyrics
The worst song lyrics are heavily literal and dependent on adjectives, e.g. (using the example of a love long) “She’s hot. . .” Mediocre song lyrics use similes (“X is like Y”), e.g. “She’s hot like the Texas sun. . […]
Find Your Play In Your Purpose
Is life about just devoting yourself to some higher cause? Some people say yes. What’s the point of just consuming, reproducing, and dying? This is the purpose camp. Others argue that life is just about having a good time. What’s […]
Being in Two Zones at Once
Somehow near mile 2 of a trail run today, political philosophy entered the picture, and I spent the rest of my run (including the most difficult uphill portion) exchanging ideas on the state, liberty, and culture with my trail-running partner. […]
Three Generations of Manhood in Homer’s “The Odyssey”
Today I finished reading The Odyssey, that complex, brilliant, violent, old, relevant epic poem about the journey home of Greek hero Odysseus. I have many thoughts about this book (“why is the ending so abrupt?” “Wow, Odysseus is wily and […]
Why I Like Working Next to a Construction Site
Have you ever had to go to work next to a construction site? If you’re like most people, you’re happy when it’s over. The end of a construction project means the end of congested roads, loud equipment noises, and the […]
Tell a Company “Thank You”
If you’re a kind and grateful kind of person, you probably know how satisfying it feels to give someone a genuine and specific “thank you.” Most people don’t say it, so most people don’t hear it. So when most people […]
What Startup Marketers Can Learn from Peter Thiel’s Zero To One Principle
To create outsized value, you must choose to do the things that create the most marginal value: value created minus effort paid. I think one of the most promising mental models is Peter Thiel’s idea of zero to one innovation, […]
Impressions of Wyoming, from Prairie to Mountains
I trekked to the great lands of the American West as summer drew to a close. The basecamp: Laramie, WY. The guide: childhood friend Carson. The activities: epic. Highway 187 (Colorado + Wyoming) My adventure started on Highway 187 north from […]
Marketing and Business Resources for Startup Marketers (v1.0.0)
I’ve followed a far from conventional path to becoming (and staying) a marketer. So my curricula isn’t easy to track – it’s an assembly of experience (there’s a lot of that), teaching moments from coworkers and consultants, articles I’ve read, […]
Marketing Campaigns (Like Products) Should Launch Fast and Iterate
There are two poor ways to launch a marketing initiative – and I’ve been guilty of both: 1) Make a good launch plan (good) but fill weeks or months with expanding scope or overplanning instead of launching (bad). 2) Launch […]
A Lesson from My Grandmother’s Frugal (and Generous) Life
I’ve put together this tribute from the notes for and my best recollection of the the eulogy I spoke at my grandmother Ruth McMinn McIntyre Shull’s memorial service in July 2019. The eulogy given differed in a few small respects […]
Three Things To Know About Economics (Before Watching the News)
1. “The market” is just people. 2. “Prices” (including tuition rates, interest rates, etc) are just information about peoples’ preferences. 3. Anyone who wants to jack with markets or prices is someone who wants to jack with people and information.
Futility and Platelet Donations
You’ll never understand futility like trying to donate platelets and having your donation go to waste. The whole process of donating platelets is much more intensive than the blood donation process. It can take up to two hours, and it […]
Find a Job at the Party
I’m far more outgoing than I was when I was younger. But even I still get a bit of nerves going into a party . What’s more, I don’t often find plain conversation interesting enough. I want to be engaged, […]
Find Community, Give, Receive, Repeat
Last night at a beer garden here in Atlanta, I got to see what a healthy modern tribe could look like. I was meeting with dozens of new and old participants, alumni, and team members from Praxis, the startup apprenticeship […]
Want an Interesting Life? Practice Self-Reinvention Early
I would like to do many things in the short life ahead of me (and particularly in my 20s): work in nature, perhaps work on a ranch, start a business (or businesses), travel, etc. Some of my ambitions are closer […]
Why You Should Start a Book Club at Work
Wish your relationships with your coworkers didn’t stop at “what did you do this weekend?” There are few better ways to get to know people than to engage them in true intellectual conversation. And while that might be hard in […]
5 Principles for Action-Oriented Meetings
If you don’t have time to mess around, you certainly don’t have time to mess around in meetings. If you want your meetings to go somewhere (and not take forever to do it), there are some principles that have come […]
The Wheat and Tares Grow Up Together: Morality and Judging Historical Eras
Is the 21st century a time of great moral progress? Or is it a time of decadence? Ask different people and you’ll get different answers. In my view, the answer is “both.” On one hand, humans are progressing. The internet […]
Why Be a Peasant When You Can Be a Knight Errant?
What adventurous boy or girl didn’t grow up wanting to be a knight? All of our favorite stories, video games, and histories let us imagine ourselves spending our lives as a series of adventures. Yet somehow most of us have […]
A Glimpse of a Car-Less Urban Future: Atlanta Streets Alive
Atlanta is world-renowned for its awful traffic. Today we received a surprising receive: 9 miles of streets from Buckhead to Decatur roped off for use by pedestrians, skaters, bikers, and scooters (that’s what you call people on scooters, right?) Enter […]
Why Your Childhood Friends Matter
When I began an independent life at 18, I wanted to create myself anew. I lost or dropped touch with a lot of folks who knew me when I was younger. Life was starting over – why would I want […]
It Really Is Just About the Will To Work In the End
You know what the Internet needs? Another post about how hard work and execution is more important than ideas. But it’s true, and I feel a need to repeat this from my own experience. I work in a company that […]
You Will Always See More Problems with Your Product Than Your Critics
After a few years in a small company, I’ve been through my fair share of user complaints, issues, bugs, service failures. When I first found out about problems with our product (I was young and naive) I would be a […]
Game of Thrones Philosophy Breakdown Finale: A Look Back on the Song of Ice and Fire
*SPOILER ALERT FOR GAME OF THRONES, OBVIOUSLY. Don’t listen to this if you haven’t watched the show!* The Night King is dead. Cersei is defeated. The new tyrant Daenerys has been stopped. And our boy Jon and his boy Tormund […]