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Seeking help, in whatever necessary form, is the most important part of the entrepreneurial journey.  If we don’t connect our goals with people who can help make them happen, pushing that boulder up the hill is going to take a very, very long time.  But equally as dangerous as not asking for helping from the right people, is accepting help from the wrong ones. Here’s a summary of my experience making that very mistake. …

Negative inspiration is when we see something in the world that we don’t want to be a part of, and it sparks action.  It’s a beautiful moment in the creative process.  Because it enables our divine dissatisfaction with the way the world is. And that’s a very specific and valuable emotion that we can’t access when we’re happy.  The good news is, once we tap into that energy, we…

My personality type is a classic right brain rebel artist.  Here are the greatest hits of my flaws.  Not a planner, struggles with logical thinking, experiences physical anxiety when forced to follow basic instructions and has almost zero attention to detail.  Now that’s one hell of a resume headline.  However, instead of hiding these weakness, or worse yet, spending time and energy and money trying to correct them, I’m…

Over the past twenty years, thousands of people from around the world have reached out to tell me that my nametag experiment has been featured as a case study in their business book, college course, company newsletters, training seminar, student project, trivia archive, teaching resource or documentary film.  My personal favorite was when my seminude picture wound up on one of those media roundups of the worst tattoos of…

Moore once wrote that we can’t force love into existence, we can only create space for it to arrive.  This mantra comes from his book about the alchemy of working, although it’s also brilliant relationship advice.  Because although we can’t be expected to buy in, subscribe to or obsess over the exact same things as our partner, there’s still a standing obligation to believe in their yes. To demonstrate care and…

I started wearing a nametag everyday for one simple reason.   It makes people friendlier. Period.  Eighteen years and a hundred thousand interactions later, it still works. Every day. Complete strangers, new friends, business colleagues, casual acquaintances, customer support agents and homeless people alike, they all act friendlier toward me. Mission accomplished.  The irony, though, is that it’s been a struggle to extend that same sense of compassion and acceptance and…

Rogers famously wrote that human beings have potentially available a tremendous range of intuitive powers.  That we are indeed wiser than our intellects, but sadly, we have neglected the capacities of the non rational, creative and metaphoric parts of our brains. What he forgot to mention, though, is that intuition arrives as a physical whisper, not a cognitive shout. The thing we tune into is our body, not our brain.  There’s…

After years of making war against the way things are, I finally realized that life is a story that takes its sweet ass time unraveling itself.  All situations unfold regardless of how we feel about them, irrespective of our precious agendas, expectations and judgments.  Surrendering to this reality is actually quite liberating. Because it helps us believe that there is wisdom in the unfolding of events exactly as they…

I’ve always loved reading historical books about the bright ideas that changed the world and the inspirational people who brought them to life.  There’s something magical about studying the history of famous inventions, mistakes that turned into big businesses and everyday items had surprisingly haphazard beginnings.  But we can’t consume our way to innovation. The only way to ratchet up our species is to create.  That’s why I started keeping…

The worst part about chronic pain is, you start to live your life in ways to accommodate your problem, and as a result, your world becomes narrower and less flexible.  All of your resources are servicing the dysfunction, and so, there’s no time left to live the kind of life you want to live.  That’s the difference between pain and suffering. Pain is the physical sensation in your body,…