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Miller’s book on finding true intimacy reminds us that people clapping for us is a nice thing, but it’s better to have somebody who is more in love with us than impressed by us.  It’s a beautiful lesson for our most intimate relationships.  In fact, outside of the bedroom, it’s also applicable to the boardroom. Because the workplace is the other venue where we tend to behave in ways…

When I worked in the guest service department at a luxury hotel, we were trained to anticipate and fulfill people’s needs and wishes, both expressed and unexpressed.  That was the frontline brand. If you went out for a job in the middle of the summer, the doorman would be waiting on the front drive with an ice cold bottle of water and a towel.  Now that’s service.  Unfortunately the…

If companies want to create atmospheres where customers can feel like complete human beings, people need to be welcomed, not merely tolerated.  Because there’s nothing more demoralizing than being treated like an inconvenient interruption. As if the customer’s presence was interfering with the receptionist’s ability to do their job. And yet, it happens every day. Employees treat customers like objects. They get annoyed with our inability to telepathically mind read…

Raise them up There is a tomorrow that can turn it all around Active in the graveyard but idle in the gospel Burning up away now the spires under my soul Just in time Just in time Just in time The cover up’s worse than the crime Raise them  Bend down and kiss Your sleeping self awake Got a lot of stars but I’d like a supernova Cops clear…

I’ve applied for thousands of jobs in hundreds of different industries, and there isn’t a single organization that isn’t claiming to be looking for a: Risk taking, entrepreneurial minded, independent thinking, passionately curious, highly creative change agent to challenge the status quo and disrupt the industry forever.  Of course, the first moment an unconventional resume lands on the human resources desk, all of that posturing goes out the window. …

From an etymological position, the word neurosis derives from the words that mean abnormal condition of the neurons.  From a clinical standpoint, the word neurosis is defined as a relatively mild mental illness involving irrational stress, anxiety, obsessive behavior.  But it’s the existential point of view that resonates with me most, which suggests that neuroses are nothing more than our anxious attempts to prevent life from happening.  The blocking of the forward momentum…

Why do we spend our lives searching for things we don’t have?  Because we have this persistent belief that once we reach a certain destination, we will finally be happy.  And the danger is, with our eyes fixed on the beguiling mirage, we deny ourselves the joys of the immediacy of the unpostponed life. We outrun our own souls chasing after some imagined future, only to tumble farther down…

Our culture is preoccupied with the drama of succeeding and failing.  People are constantly setting up binary worlds that allow each other to think in purely win and lose terms. That’s why we’re told over and over that failure isn’t an option. That if we fail when nobody’s looking, it’s not really a failure. That if there isn’t an opportunity for failure, it’s not innovative. And that if we…

Nolan’s award winning film about subconscious espionage opens with the following line.  What is the most resilient parasite? Not a bacteria, virus or an intestinal worm. But an idea. Resilient and highly contagious. Because once an idea has taken hold in the brain, it’s almost impossible to eradicate. A person can cover it up and ignore it, but it stays there. Information may be forgotten, but an idea, fully formed and…

Adams once attributed his success as a world famous cartoonist to his volume of failures.  He said that the world is like a reverse casino. Because in a casino, if you gamble long enough, you’re certainly going to lose. But in the real world, where the only thing you’re gambling is your time and embarrassment, then the more stuff you do, the more you give success a chance to find you….