If there’s scarcity, we need to make choices. Who gets hired, what website shows up at the top of the search results, who gets a loan. And while we can make those choices on a case by case ba… | Continue reading
Lawyers are fond of this. And sometimes, parents are too. At least you won’t get blamed if something goes wrong. It turns out that we don’t need an abundance of caution. We need appropr… | Continue reading
Publishers take two risks to bring new ideas to the world. (And I’m talking about any middleperson–a gallerist, a TV network, a movie studio, a label–they’re all publishers)… | Continue reading
Is it the same as “doing well on some tests”? Because that’s what we report–that perhaps 240 times in a college career, you sat down for a test and did well on it. That̵… | Continue reading
(There are some fractions here, please persist. It’s worth it.) Imagine that you have a daily drive. Half of it by distance is on dirt roads where your car can drive 10 miles an hour. And hal… | Continue reading
March is the perfect time to go on a world tour from your living room. In the Northern Hemisphere, early March offers perfect weather for shipping, and a blissful shortage of Hallmark holidays and … | Continue reading
Some people get one. Most people don’t. But, if you’re reading this, it means that you’ve received more than one, perhaps a countless number of, little breaks. Access to tools, th… | Continue reading
Independent workers, founders, creators and organizers are often lumped together with a simple term, but that one-size-fits-all model fits no one. You might be an entrepreneur, building a significa… | Continue reading
Independent workers, founders, creators and organizers are often lumped together with a simple term, but that one-size-fits-all model fits no one. You might be an entrepreneur, building a significa… | Continue reading
Ski slopes are marked by difficulty. The green circle indicates the easiest slope, the one that will get you to the base of the hill the fastest, with the least amount of risk or drama. Why would a… | Continue reading
How to get better at graphic design… There are more amateur and semi-pro graphic designers working today than at any point in human history. Presentations, instagram posts, websites, the cove… | Continue reading
“What’s different?” Because we rarely notice what’s the same. It’s not easy to focus on the chronic. In fact, it’s really difficult. Too often we are in organiza… | Continue reading
The new ritual, even more than checking the windows and doors before bed, is to check the incoming. Doom scroll a bit, check Slack and email and make sure there are no loose ends. And then the ritu… | Continue reading
By every measure I can think of, ranked-choice voting is a superior way to hold a modern election. When a group of people want to decide something at the national or even the organizational level, … | Continue reading
Once we decide to make a difference, it’s easy for doubt to set in. Because making a difference causes change, and change is scary. One way through the fear is with community. Groups of peopl… | Continue reading
Is ‘nimble’ a good thing? Should we seek to be flexible, resilient and quick to be able to shift and adapt? Because often, it seems as though we work to create an environment where it&#… | Continue reading
In the early days of tech, the acronym of choice was, “Read the friggin manual.” If an engineer uttered RTFM in your direction, it meant that whatever happened was your fault. Tech is a… | Continue reading
But what if you weren’t? What if you replaced “doing” with “improving” or “reinventing” or “transforming”? When we do our job, what happens to … | Continue reading
The internet clearly has a trust problem. As with most things, it helps to start with the Grateful Dead. After their incarnation as the Warlocks, they became more than a band. It was a family on th… | Continue reading
“Yet”. You can append it after any sentence related to your journey of achievement and contribution. “I haven’t finished the project” “I haven’t learned ho… | Continue reading
People talk about ego like it’s a bad thing. But our desire to do a good job, our self-trust, our willingness to dance with fear–these are fuel if used properly. Egomania pushes us to i… | Continue reading
Quick! Get on Myspace, it’s where all the good stuff is. Wait! Better build your following on Facebook. It’s a land rush and once you amass enough followers… And Pinterest. Defini… | Continue reading
Most people build a Keynote or Powerpoint presentation in a very direct way: I have things I want to say, I will list them, slide by slide. Over time, you might get fancier or more skilled at the t… | Continue reading
Do you have to use all the time in the brainstorming session? Fill in the entire page of your creativity notebook? It turns out that many of the best ideas we have start out as filler. Stuff in the… | Continue reading
They’re different. Knowledge changes all the time. When we engage with the world, when we encounter data or new experiences, our knowledge changes. But belief is what we call the things that … | Continue reading
We have windowpanes because glass used to be really expensive. Panes allowed us to use smaller sheets, with the added bonus that if one broke, you could simply replace part of the window. Today, bi… | Continue reading
Fashion is everywhere. It’s not simply the clothes you chose to wear today (and the ones that haven’t seen the outside of your closet for years). It’s the music that you’re … | Continue reading
The first favor is when you ask a friend or colleague to do something for you. The second favor is when you ask them to do it precisely the way you would do it. They’re not related. And the s… | Continue reading
There’s a section in the greeting card store for “New Baby” cards. I’m not sure what other kinds of babies are available. But the ‘new’ reminds us of why we are … | Continue reading
Here’s a useful metaphor: Famous conductors are often judged for an hour or two on stage. They wear expensive clothes, make dramatic gestures and receive ovations. They also get paid a lot to… | Continue reading
A friend left her phone near me. Over the next half hour, it pinged and chirped. I felt myself getting anxious and a little antsy… These were not pings for me, not on my phone. They werenR… | Continue reading
It’s probably not completely original. It’s probably not breathtaking in scope. It’s probably not immediately popular. But… it’s definitely worth pursuing, consistentl… | Continue reading
We can choose to commit to a recursive and infinite path that elegantly creates more of the same. We can choose possibility. We can choose connection. We can choose optimism. We can choose justice.… | Continue reading
Everyone who wants to be busy is busy. But not everyone is productive. Busy is simply a series of choices about how to spend the next minute. Productive requires skill, persistence and good judgmen… | Continue reading
It means two things: In high-quality manufacturing, producing to tolerance means that all the parts are as identical as possible. Getting the tolerances precise permits cars to be made more reliabl… | Continue reading
The purpose of marketing is to cause change. If we’re trying to build a movement, raise money for a non-profit, sell a product, change lifestyles, build community–these are all marketin… | Continue reading
There is the kindness of ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ And the kindness of “I was wrong, I’m sorry.” The small kindnesses that smooth our interactions and help other people feel as th… | Continue reading
There are bosses, customers and partners who will never be happy. And sometimes, despite the futility, we work to please them anyway. Because that can be a compass. It can help us do the work that … | Continue reading
Some days, we wake up with optimism and possibility… we’re able to find more reserves, connect better and do more generous work. That might be because the outside world has handed us go… | Continue reading
Some days, we wake up with optimism and possibility… we’re able to find more reserves, connect better and do more generous work. That might be because the outside world has handed us go… | Continue reading
All forward motion disappoints someone. If you serve one audience, you’ve let another down. One focus means that something else got ignored. If you create something scarce, someone won’… | Continue reading
The first half of Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography makes some things abundantly clear: He had no natural ability to play the guitar. In fact, after his first lessons, he quit, unable to play… | Continue reading
Burned in is what we look for in an electronic device. It’s working perfectly, in the groove. Burned out is what happens if we abuse it. Burn-in comes from a practice, a generous, persistent … | Continue reading
Of course you can. If you care enough. It’s not easy, it might not work and it takes effort, but the opportunity is there. It helps to do it on purpose and it helps to do it in community. I&#… | Continue reading
We’ve been brainwashed into keeping up with the Jones’s. Paying attention to our peers and staying ahead, just a little bit. But if you’re in that trap, it’s probably worth … | Continue reading
Popular doesn’t mean better by any absolute scale. Popular simply means that more people like this thing than that thing. Popular isn’t an act of genius. Popular is either an intentiona… | Continue reading
It’s amazing how much we can get done simply by trying. Whether it’s writing or golf or sales, when we show up and do our best, we can make things happen. But then, our internal horsepo… | Continue reading
A friend was pointing out that he couldn’t play tennis on his driveway because it was made of gravel. While it’s true that it wouldn’t officially be tennis, that it wouldn’t… | Continue reading