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Maturity is the growing awareness of our own limitations. We acknowledge that we may not have possessed the necessary knowledge, experience or perspective in the past. And we accept that we might have missed something that was there all along, but our perceptions weren’t sophisticated enough at the time. We simply didn’t have the eyes to see what was staring us right in the face. I frequently experience this…

When somebody acts in a critical, difficult, unreasonable, judgmental or angry way, our immediate reaction might be to step back and think, whoa, what’s their problem? But the more empathetic response would be to lean in and wonder, hmm, what’s their unmet need? See, for most humans, the order of operations works the same. Experience, observation, feeling and need. There’s some event that the person observes, which makes them…

When I first started my publishing business, a reader from a small island nation across the world bought one of my books. This was long before ebooks had gone mainstream, so my digital delivery options were limited at the time. When I arrived at the post office, they said it would cost forty dollars to ship. Forty dollars. For a fifteen dollar book. Insane. The worst part was, there…

On our honeymoon, my wife and I hired a local tour guide to show us around the city for a day. Prague was a new destination for us, so we relied on a native to help us make the most out of our trip. One memorable moment during the tour happened when the three of us stood at a busy intersection. I pressed the button on the pedestrian crosswalk,…

Do you want to get out of your own way? Here’s an emotional linguistic hack that will change your life. Learn to replace the phrase, fuck you, with the phrase, okay, sounds great. It’s just an easier existence. You save yourself and everyone else a heaping ton of stress, conflict and complication. Now, understandably, those two words are difficult to resist. Saying fuck you to someone is a classic…

I am a huge fan of logic. Despite being the classic right brained creative whose livelihood centers around his ability to throw off the shackles of logic and exploit the resources of imagination, I see the allure. Logic is just so clean, useful and beautiful. And as I collaborate with more engineers, developers, designers and technical people in my career, I have learned ways to improve my own logical…

I have been wearing my nametag all day, every day, for twenty five years. And along my journey, there have been many occasions where people accused me of hiding behind it. Which is a counterintuitive concept, because wearing a nametag is, in many ways, the polar opposite of hiding. It actually forces me to be seen, noticed and interacted with. The sticker makes me an order of magnitude more…

We can come boldly to the throne of grace and find mercy in our time of need. Preachers use this verse in sermons as an invitation to approach god with confidence, but we don’t necessarily have to involve the big man upstairs to gain value from scripture. I see this verse as a reminder of the importance of being accountable to our own needs. Rather than codependently hiding behind…

Let’s talk about the things we hide behind. There are so many ways to avoid being seen, noticed or interacted with in this world. And each tactic is more fascinating and seductive than the next. That’s human nature for you. We’re all expert at using things to protect ourselves from criticism, punishment and vulnerability. We have been conditioned to quell many of our top fears, like the fear of…

Consider the corporate executive early bird. Someone whose performance and alertness are in their best conditions before the sun comes up. When none of his employees or customers need his attention yet. At five in the morning, that guy should not be checking email, reading the news, or doom scrolling on social media. The executive should only focus on high concentration activities like crunching numbers, critical thinking, strategic planning,…