Hipsters catch a lot of flak for being pretentious and seemingly silly social fashion fringe-dwellers.* People don’t like people who stick up their noses, or those who like to flaunt edginess or early adopter status. Still, I don’t think we […]
People love the idea of alternate universes. As big as the universe is, it seems we aren’t satisfied with things being just the way we are. We often want to know how things could have been different for us if […]
Some nights you plan. Other nights you just say yes to what comes. I’ve written before about how you can follow a rule of improv to create a great night. Tonight I got to give that theory another test of sorts. Here […]
Last night I watched a fun + inspiring (if unextraordinary) film called Being Awesome, about two high school students who reconnect after their high school reunion and form a mutual pledge to overcome their decade (or decade plus) of failure. […]
Acting in the world requires a tolerance for failure, which requires a tolerance for what for some people is the most difficult form of failure: disappointing or pissing other people off. You are going to burn social capital with other […]
If you’re starting out with social media (as a personal brand or company), it can be a long climb to build up a base of people who will engage with you, your questions, and your content. Too often on social […]
I’ve been to a decent number of conferences and professional events now for someone my age, but it’s been a while. This last weekend’s experience at FEECon shook me up, gave me pages of notes and a crowded page of items, and […]
I wrote a blog post about laundromats last night. If I hadn’t written lots of posts about apparently random things, I might be more concerned. This blog has never been a single-topic affair. But it has ranged far afield into […]
My dryer broke at an inconvenient time this week – in the middle of a conference and on the eve of out-of-state travel. To top it all off, I was stuck with a pile of washed but definitely-not-dry laundry to address. I’ve always […]
How can a speaker captivate the attention of an audience? Psychologist Jordan Peterson might suggest that this is the wrong question. He writes in 12 Rules for Life (a recent read of mine) that: “There is also no ‘audience.’ There are individuals, who […]
I’m terribly proud of my friends at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE). With FEECon, they’ve put on an event which has brought together young people from all over the United States (and several other countries) to celebrate freedom and […]
(This is not a serious post. A colleague of mine in sales complained about the difficulty of opening our office door today, so I informed him my new workout routine for salespeople would become the subject of today’s blog. He’s […]
I’ve been thinking a lot today about the young people of the Allied liberation of France, which started 74 years ago today with the invasion of Normandy. Many of them were several years younger than I am now, but they […]
Meetings are a necessary evil, and they are worth doing as quickly and efficiently as possible. So there are some serious benefits to batching meetings. We do this at my current company, and while meeting day can be hell, it saves […]
I grew up hunting and shooting guns often with my family, but (besides a spring skeet shoot) it’s been a while since I’ve done a lot of training with firearms. The weekend before last I visited a shooting range with […]
If you’ve been out for a run recently, you know it’s hard not to feel alive when you’re going full out down a road on foot. But life without a soundtrack is only half as good as a life set […]
If you’re reconnecting with old friends (or connecting with new ones), it’s common to suggest that you go out to coffee or go out to dinner. Is it just me, or is this a lack of imagination? Don’t get me wrong […]
It’s a fun thought experiment to break down your personality and likes/dislikes into “ages”. I often find myself acting with the priorities and characteristics I might normally associate to a young boy, or to a grandfather. Humans are complicated. But why not enjoy the […]
We’re now well into Q2 of 2018, and I’ve gotten a surprising amount of reading done by way of audiobooks from Scribd and Audible. I’m still dipping into the paperbacks and hardbacks, too, but the listening format is letting me keep […]
Dear parents and older relatives, Please don’t ask us to help you with your phones/computers/tablets anymore. For years we’ve gotten a sense of ego gratification from being the tech experts at our family reunions, on our trips home to visit you, […]
Not even the world’s most radical health nut can say many bad things about chocolate. Humans have been eating it for hundreds of years. It has antioxidants. Its caffeine content can boost mood and alertness. And it’s just fun to […]
The other day I hiked around Tennessee’s Lake Radnor, and I started jogging when I hit the broader part of the trail. Despite not having run for several days, I found myself taking a run in stride across sometimes-tricky terrain (uneven […]
Traveling should be a great experience. But “needing a vacation” after finishing a vacation happens too much. I think this is because people don’t practice good personal care while out of town. Most people burn the candle at both ends, neglecting that […]
We’ve all been there. We’re at an awesome music venue. The blues, the country, the jazz, or the rock and roll are going. We want to move our bodies to it. Sadly, in the 21st century, most of us have never learned […]
There are few greater pleasures in life than rolling down your windows, picking up speed, turning on good music, and driving down a road with a beautiful view. Here are some of my current favorite drives, from small backroads to interstate […]
Tim Ferriss said it was one of his favorite audiobooks. Neil Gaiman writes great, original-yet-grounded fantasy stories. That was enough for me. I recently finished an audiobook version of The Graveyard Book, read by the author in all kinds of wonderful […]
You can see where things are going. Software is making things easier, faster, and more comfortable. That’s no original insight. You might think 20 years from now the skills that make “faster + easier + more comfortable” possible (e.g. software engineering) […]
A good day has a good balance of the activities that make up being and becoming. My best and most balanced days have most if not all of these seven elements: Work – you’ve got to get out there and create value […]
Being questioned is hard. When other departments or employees in a company start to question our marketing teams, a natural response is to curl up into defensiveness mode. We assume that other teams just don’t understand us or our brilliant plans, […]
It’s natural for young professionals to fear being fired. When we first start out, it seems like the end of the world – a black mark that will follow us forever. That’s probably an overblown fear. Plenty of people get fired and […]