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In the thirteenth century, the word bad was first coined to describe something that was inferior in quality, wicked, evil or vicious.  Seven hundred years later, a certain moonwalker’s bestselling album reversed the meaning of the word.  Jackson turned bad into good. He made bad the special sauce of hip hop sexiness and outsider cool. Not to mention, skin tight pants, buckle jackets, studded gold belts and leather straps. That’s bad.  What’s fascinating,…

I recently met a woman at a party who sees ghosts.  Not paranormally, of course. Human ghosts. Men who appear to be interested in dating her, but all of the sudden, stop replying to text messages and never call back and leave her hanging like a tire on a bike rack.  Meanwhile, she’s waiting around without clarity or closure or certainty, wondering if this clown has disappeared off the…

It’s important to have a system for focusing our minds when reflection is needed.  But art we can’t just sit in a corner and perfect ourselves. Not if we want a chance at creating real meaning in the world.  The reality is, we are a social species with an innate desire to communicate with each other. And we need to leverage that comes from working with other people.  What…

When people we love are experiencing pain, the temptation is to charge into their suffering with certainty and answers.  But that approach only services to distance people from us, leaving them even more isolated. What’s worse, when advice is imposed instead of sought, we deprive people of a chance to feel fully human.  More often than not, just being there is best we can do.  Not as a cure,…

The way a radar detector works is fairly simple.  It’s a reverse transmitter. The little box on the dashboard picks up electromagnetic waves through the antenna and converts them into an electrical current.  And that allows motorists to detect if their speed is being monitored law enforcement using a radar gun, and, therefore, reduce their speed before being ticketed.  That’s the way a radar detector work.  Of course, the why is a different…

All decisions carry with them the element of danger and loneliness.  That’s the price of committing. Our choices always leave people behind. We can’t take everyone with us, no mater how hard we try.  And so, we don’t delay decisions until we know enough or feel ready. Because for anything that matters, timing is never quite right.  Instead, we make up our minds and march forward. We make peace…

Ever since I was a child, I always felt it was better to ask the first question than have the last word.  Even if there was no real or immediate answer. That wasn’t the point.  Not every problem needs a solution. There are questions whose job it is just to be a question, not to have an answer. Their purpose in the world is to be continually held in…

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve tried, very hard, to talk myself into wanting something that I knew, deep down, wasn’t for me.  From technology to relationships to creative projects to joining organizations, there’s this mechanism in my ego that always tricks me into believing that social conventions are eternal conditions.  But they’re not. There’s always a choice to be made. We can always choose personal…

I was in college, I worked for three years a disc jockey at the campus radio station.  My show aired on weekend mornings, when the majority of students were either passed out, hung over or still drunk from the night before.  Naturally, few people ever listened. In fact, I was usually the only person in the building other than the janitors.  But the lack of audience never bothered me….

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…