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The less we operate at the extremes, the wiser we become. Once we humbly accept that life is a deeply complex and subtle experience; and once we stop chasing absolutes and start embracing reality on reality’s terms, we finally learn to sanely connect to self, other and the world. This is the essence of what it means to be a mature human being. It’s the stuff enlightenment is made…

I’ve launched dozens of projects in my career, and never once did I even consider the possibility of crowdfunding. Now, I personally think it’s wonderful that crowdfunding exists as a standard business practice. The fact that over a hundred billion dollars is raised each year through these platforms is extraordinary. In fact, I have contributed to a handful of campaigns for friends and strangers alike, and I enjoyed both…

I am just like anyone, in that I love the familiar smell of my own bullshit. That smell has adaptive value, insofar as it protects my esteem, prevents negative consequences of adverse events, and helps in deceiving others. Reminds me of my friend, who is a highly respected and successful physician. His favorite mantra to share with patients, specifically those who insist on doing their own research, so to…

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…