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My hardest class college was business law.  The subject simply didn’t jive with my brain.  And I really worked at it, too.  Did the weekly readings. Came to class every day. Paid attention. Took copious notes. Studied hard for the exams. Even stopped by office hours to get help from my professor.  But nothing. Failed every single test. Every goddamn one of them. I just didn’t get it. Despite my…

The hardest thing to believe is that the world does not revolve around us.  Because we’re all the stars of our own little movies. As it says on the subway poster by my apartment, we’re one city of eight million centers of the universe.  But if we never take a breather from our own concerns and move beyond the bounds of our oppressive egos, we lose. We make our…

In this episode of Steal Scott’s Ideas, Scott shares his favorite moments from season one. Miss any of the episodes?  No problem. Here’s a list of the innovations we discussed, in software, consumer goods, industrial goods and service businesses. Enjoy@ SOFTWARE Shit happens, but you want my coworkers to know that you’re late for good reason and actually believe your story. Introducing Be Right There… An image based messaging app for…

You complain how it’s so hard to meet someone special.  That the dating scene in this city is unforgiving and exhausting. And that there are no good prospects out there.  Fair enough. All of those things are probably true.  But they’re also external, out of your control and therefore, very easy to blame for your current situation. The only question that matters is: How are you keeping the fire of…

We romanticize the young, idealistic artist or entrepreneur who has their creative moment of conception at the tender age of nineteen and earnestly announces to themselves: I shall now proceed to never do anything else ever again.  Because so many of our heroes tell this very type of origin story. How they had a dollar and a dream and no backup plan in place, and through dedication and hard…

It’s deeply healing and liberating to stop hiding from ourselves.  That’s where real freedom comes from. The courage to be fully seen. In all our imperfect glory.  But the tricky part is, hiding takes many forms.  Shady disguises. Convenient excuses. Tidy narratives.  That’s why we are often the last ones to realize that we’re hiding. Our vision is obscured.  Yossarian comes to mind, the protagonist in one of the…

Comparison with others are a futile game with no winners.  But then again, we’re no picnic either.  Being better than our former self sounds like a noble personal development crusade, but all that judgment gets out of control when we start evaluating ourselves according to who we used to be.  It’s like the famous commercial with the football player watching his video game avatar getting tackled from behind on…

Hyde’s seminal book on the magic of the gift economy showed that most of the people who were asked to donate kidneys to loved ones rarely took time to deliberate their decision.  They just said yes. There was no decision to make. There were no sides to weigh.  The author explained that instantaneous decision is a clear mark of an emotional and moral life.  Unlike that friend of yours who has…

Armed with the desire to be helpful, we immediately try to provide a solution.  But the reality is, if we really want to be providers for the people in our lives, leaping in to solve or save or treat or fix the problem isn’t an effective as just becoming the solution ourselves.  After all, most people most of the time want affirmation, not information.  I once heard a marriage…

Just because we’re not visibly harsh to each other, doesn’t mean we’re not hurting each other.  The cut of subtle unkindness is insidious, and if we’re not careful, each of those tiny little nicks can add up and translate into serious relationship problems.  Every time I walk past a couple hashing it out in public, I always walk away confused. Not about the fact that people have conflict, but…