Potluck dinners are one of the great inventions of humankind. So why not bring the potluck concept to more (or all) parts of life? People want to connect with each other, and they do it best when they’re helping each other. We […]
Discovering amazing new places can be frustrating sometimes. Maybe you stumble on a great biking trail while out for a run. You walk past the Old Fourth Ward skate park and want to try out some boarding. Maybe you’re driving near […]
The moving market is terribly underserved. There are plenty businesses serving the actual packing and carrying of household goods. There are plenty of services that help people find apartments. But the real pain of moving comes from all of the account […]
We tend to make interviewing too one-sided, whether we’re looking for a job or looking for someone to fill a job. Too often we’re so busy learning about the other person that we fail to learn about ourselves. “Where do […]
Conference marketing has become a bit uninspired over the years. Companies tabling at events will collect business cards for generic giveaways, ask people to sign up for generic email lists, and give away branded promotional items. It’s boring, and it’s […]
“Reading can take you places!” You’ve seen this cheesy-but-true marketing slogan splashed on the walls of many a library. But while I love books, I’d argue that music can also be pretty damn effective at carrying you across time and space as […]
“Speed checked by detection devices” If you’ve driven through Georgia, you’ve probably seen these signs. Fortunately, it turns out that they *don’t* actually mean that the roads have embedded smart detection devices monitoring drivers’ speed, or all of us Atlanta drivers would be in […]
We may not be in school anymore, but like our younger selves, I think a lot of us still see summer as the time for adventure. Sadly, there are now only about 33 days left in the summer of 2018, but luckily […]
Baz Luhrman’s 1992 film Strictly Ballroom delivers everything you should expect from a good performing arts movie, but it’s far from the niche, overly serious stories made just for dancers. It’s hilarious and odd and heartwarming and still manages to be […]
Remember when you were 13? Remember being shy and awkward about everything (shawkward, if you will)? Remember parties with the cool kids where you felt totally out of place? Bo Burnham does. And he brings all those memories flooding back […]
Water navigation. Entertaining tourists. Playing DJ. Pulling people around on inflatable tubes. Captaining a tour boat on the lake seems like the best job. Or at least, so I thought as I watched a young Lake Lanier dock hand at work today. […]
Who doesn’t love theme parks? Disney’s Magic Kingdom gives us the lands of “yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy.” EPCOT takes us around the world. Universal Studios takes us into the movies, from Harry Potter to The Mummy. We’re even more fascinated by fictional theme parks like […]
If you live in a major city in the US, you’ve probably already borne witness to the scooter revolution. For short distance trips down city sidewalks, the motorized, smartphone-unlockable scooters provided by companies like Bird and Lime are kicking butt […]
Have you ever been doing your best to do door to door selling in a small, strange Florida beach town when your smartphone dies on you? I have.* There are few things more stressful – and I really needed to […]
We’ve all heard that “the medium is the message.” But when I look back through the collected artifacts of my grandfather’s life, I can see that medium has a lot to do with memories also. The stories of many of our […]
The Internet can be a place of many strange delights and many time-wasting distractions. But it’s hard to deny is that it has given people access to invaluable education. There’s plenty of written history to be had, but the web (particularly Youtube) has made […]
Time travel is really quite easy. All it takes is noticing. We’re each surrounded by portals connecting and blending our past and our present. On the streets of Charleston I walked tonight, gas street lamps and cobblestone streets live alongside Uber ridesharing. Of […]
“Radical” is a scary word, but radicals are (fundamentally) just very consistent people. If they believe in a principle, they believe that it applies to the very root (“radix” – a Latin term) of things. If they believe in non-aggression as a […]
“No one is coming to save you.” In Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, Nathaniel Branden penned this line to remind his readers of their self-responsibility. While many of us imagine that we’ll be swept away from our miseries and weaknesses by some […]
Most people don’t fall in love with certain kinds of music because of time signatures, good rhythm, or even particularly good melodies. There’s little element of music theory appreciation in most people’s love of music. People love music because it takes memories, associations, feelings […]
“And when I run, I feel His pleasure.” I know it’s not reverent, but I still chuckle when I hear this quote. These words are from Eric Liddell, the Scottish runner and Christian missionary celebrated in the movie Chariots of Fire. I’m […]
Lyft and Uber have inspired a new renaissance of ways of getting around – but much of it is happening off the road. This afternoon as I ran through Atlanta’s Piedmont Park and on the Atlanta Beltline, I could see […]
In Mastery, Robert Greene paints a thorough picture of apprenticeship and the power it has had to shape great creative careers throughout history. In one form or another, apprenticeship has been part of the path for masters from Leonardo da Vinci to Benjamin Franklin. Apprenticeship […]
There are plenty of good reasons to stay late at the office, even if you’re not a workaholic. For me as a young employee, making the time to commit some later nights has given me access to large slots of […]
I started occasionally attending jiu jitsu classes several months ago. In all my time so far, no one ever sat me down and told me the rules of jiu jitsu. There has been no theory, little top-down explanation of terminology, and in […]
I recently attended one of the best birthday parties I can recall. What’s odd is how this party stood out to me at all. It had no bumping music, no fancy lights. No one was drunk or high or gorging on fine […]
What would life be like if you were aware of being in a story? For some time now I’ve been fascinated by the idea of the monomyth popularized by thinkers like Joseph Campbell, C.S. Lewis, and (more recently) Jordan Peterson. […]
Salesforce. Marketing automation. Certified public accountancy. Javascript. There are lots of skills these days that can look great on a job application. But there’s one skill that (while it won’t look good on a resume) will help you breeze through […]
With apologies to Rodgers and Hammerstein , you can now imagine Julie Andrews* singing about everyone’s favorite part of Atlanta, in all of its silliness and excess and beauty. Yuppies on scooters And gentrification King of Pops snacking and revitalization Dog […]
One of the great temptations of growing older is the temptation to throw your own past onto the “mgarbage bin of history” The past carries so much baggage – from your mistakes to your missed opportunities to your past blindness […]