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The best part about watching competitive swimmers is, they never make any tense, contorted facial expressions.  No matter how exhausted and cramped and aggressive they are on the inside, their face just flaps in the water like dog jowls hanging out of a car window. Because when a person is under water, they have to relax everything they can relax. That way, all of the oxygen in their body can…

Adulting is hard. Even accepting the fact that adulting is an actual word, is hard. Thank you very much, Urban Dictionary. But in my short thirty-six years on this planet, I have learned tons of unexpected lessons about what it means to be a grown up. And not the ones they teach you in school. The lessons you learn by starting a business from scratch, failing a lot, getting back up,…

When you do anything risky, you can count on agonizing moments of uncertainty and frustration and irregularity.  That’s the price of gambling on yourself. There are no guarantees. Everything you do is a public bet with your imagination. Every project you launch is another frisbee out the window.  No wonder it’s so scary to hire yourself.  And yet, as stressful as those feelings can be, they’re also a powerful…

All transformation is linguistic.  If we have any desire to create a better future for ourselves, it can only happen through a shift in our language. By having a conversation that we’ve never had before.  Years ago, I sought out a more precise grasp of my own creative process. I became curious about the architecture around what the I do all day.  And so, as an experiment, I began…

If we’re too busy fetishizing the habits of others, we’ll never develop any of our own.  That’s the problem with the modern media landscape. The quality of our preoccupations has plummeted into idol worship and vicarious living.  We’re watching television shows and listening to podcasts and reading books and subscribing to blogs that profile other people’s habits, rituals, workspaces and daily routines.  Which is fascinating, no question.  But it’s…

When we first moved to our neighborhood, my wife and I enrolled in the volunteer work study program at our yoga studio.  Not only to earn discounted yoga and free towels and unlimited water refills, but also to belong on a deeper level. To increase the amount of relatedness that exists in our world. And to build a wider and deeper sense of emotional ownership in the yoga studio…

It’s tempting to use strategies to overpower our inertia by trying to inspire ourselves.  We set our alarm for five and leap out of bed and pump ourselves up in the mirror and go out for a run and then eat a hearty breakfast and write out our list of affirmations and start trying to accomplish seventeen things by lunch.  And with the noblest intentions, of course.  But often…

Seinfeld famously said when you reach dadness fully, nobody in your family can hurt your feelings anymore, because you don’t have feelings anymore. Feelings were too much of a problem to have, so you just get rid of them.  That’s why he drives expensive and flashy cars, he says. Because they’re machines that stir deep, human emotions, and he really needs that because he doesn’t have any.  What a…

I once posted a proposal for a research and data entry job. About a dozen freelancers responded to my project, but as expected, most candidates responded with the typical soulless, boilerplate sales pitch, vomiting a list of qualifications and accomplishments and experience and skills, along with their obligatory empty promises to exceed my expectations. Wow. Be still my wagging tail. However, one particular freelancer separated himself from the pack….

Our dreams are often packaged in more anxiety than we would bargain for.  With every passing moment, it can feel like the pressure is higher, the opportunities are fewer and the window is smaller.  But that’s actually good news. Because anything that makes us anxious is where the real work lies.  That’s the beauty of tension. It possesses its own generative drive, which gives rise to an impetus to…