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When you’re the kind of person who thinks differently and carves their own path and opts out of the mainstream culture and makes personal choices that fly in the face of conventional wisdom, it’s important to create spaces to remind yourself that you’re not insane.  To surround yourself with other likeminded and like hearted weirdos who don’t make you feel like an outcast for being who you are.  Home,…

The word project comes from the word proiectum.  It means, something thrown forth. This is the core of what it means to be prolific. Throwing things forth. Melting the glaciers within you. Finding a productive obsession that galvanizes you and serves your meaning making efforts. Brainstorming and creating and organizing and executing ideas and enlisting smart people to help you fulfill your vision.  Not to mention, discovering the ecstasy within the process…

I believe in a few things.  One, that our greatest currency in this world is our originality.  Two, that it is morally incumbent upon us to live up to our uniqueness.  Because frankly, I’m trying to get someplace rarified, not just execute mediocrity. That’s how I’m wired. I’m the kind of person whose individuality defines him.  I have an innate need to stand in opposition to the world and…

I have a tendency to intellectualize and overthink things.  To use my rational mind to regulate emotions and solve problems.  Which is a useful approach for strategizing and launching projects and getting things done. But when it comes to more interpersonal and relational matters, taking the elevator to the top floor and getting stuck inside my head isn’t particularly helpful.  And so, I’ve had to teach myself to go…

Frankl’s groundbreaking research on the human will to create meaning makes a fascinating point about the therapeutic process: Therapy shares the fate of any foundation, in that it will become invisible to the extent to which the proper buildings are erected on it.  Creativity works the same way. The job of the artist isn’t to confine themselves to the ground floor of the edifice, rather, to stack so much love and heart…

Every beautiful thing that has ever been created in this world was made by somebody who didn’t have time.  Tolstoy had thirteen children and he still managed to author one of the longest, most celebrated and bestselling novels in the history of literature.  What’s your excuse?  Of course, that was a century and a half ago. Things are different now. The world wants to distract you.  In the economy…

Lately I’ve been learning new ways to treat myself with compassion and patience. How to meet more and more of my life experiences with kindness and understanding.  It’s been an enlightening and rewarding journey.  One practice I find to be particularly helpful is abandoning expectations about how I’m supposed to feel.  Especially when it comes to my goals and dreams. Because when I first write them down, I tend to…

Ideas are free, execution is priceless. That’s been my mantra since day one of starting my business. It’s also the title of a book I wrote a few years back. You can download it for free here. But here’s the problem. I’m an idea junkie. Everything I look at in the world breaks down into a collection of ideas. I have about fifty new ones every day, and sadly, I…

When things aren’t going as successfully as we’d like, the most important thing to remember is that we’re not alone.  That our difficulties are a natural part of life and everyone goes through them. And whatever bad feelings are coursing through our veins at the moment, they’re likely to be shared by thousands of other people too.  It’s part and parcel of the warp and weft of human life….

Portland is a weird city.  t’s a place that promotes individuality, expressionism, eccentricity, local art, as well as atypical lifestyle choices and leisure activities.  Think of this way. In the middle of the country, the guy who wore a nametag everyday was weird. But on the coast, I was just another one of the freaks.  That’s why I relocated there right after college. I didn’t have a job, I…