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There’s nothing more liberating than the thought that we can engage with something without having to subscribe to its content. It all depends on the mindset with which we approach it.  Holy scriptures are the perfect example. There are thousands of volumes from hundreds of religions from all over the world. And they’re all interesting and insightful and inspiring.  But only if they’re read literately. Not literally, but literately.  Meaning,…

The need to constantly evaluate return on investment for every endeavor isn’t the pillar of a shrewd strategy, it’s a symptom of a scarcity mentality.  Nothing against the accounting department, but there’s a fine line between crunching numbers and robbing ourselves of joy.  If we are to cultivate true abundance, we can’t spend all of our time trying to financially justify everything move we make. Sometimes we have to, as my…

It’s easy to become obnoxious about newfound enlightenment. Especially when you’re still riding the high of your own epiphany. The natural tendency is to project it onto others. To try and convert everyone you encounter. To take up the mantle of evangelism and declare the glory among all nations and preach the gospel to every living creature and fight those who do not believe until they all surrender.  Well,…

Kristofferson famously sang that freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.  But everyone defines freedom in their own way. As they should. That’s the whole point of being free in the first place.  And so, here’s my definition.  Freedom is the ability to breathe. It’s that blissful state of psychological sovereignty in which the acute pressures and suffocating burdens and ambient anxieties and piercing distractions and…

Rogers famously wrote that the most fundamental condition of creativity is that the locus of evaluative judgment is internal. He believed that the value of the product is, for the creative person, established not by the praise or criticism of others, but by himself.  The artist asks, have I created something satisfying to me? Does it express a part of my own feeling, thought, pain or ecstasy? To psychologically…

For years I struggled with anxiety, stress and other manifestations of the threat of imminent nonbeing, aka, meaninglessness.  But I never had any names for those feelings. I didn’t have labels that permitted me to communicate with myself and others about my emotions. I didn’t possess a robust vocabulary to help me make sense of the otherwise ambiguous world of inner turmoil.  And so, the inner turmoil continued to…

My grandfather once said that meanest feeling of which any human being is capable is feeling bad at another’s success.  It’s true. Bitter jealousy gets us nowhere. It’s like taking the poison and waiting for somebody else to die.  What’s interesting is, there’s also a converse to that equation. Because the only thing more toxic than allowing the success of others to spark our resentment is allowing the failure of others…

Gandhi famously said we need to become the change we want to see in the world.  It’s an inspiring and eloquent theory for enabling progress. Unfortunately, most people tremble at the prospect of personal transformation. They only change when the pain of staying the same is greater than the cost to change.  And so, perhaps it’s easier and more efficient to change our surroundings, not ourselves. To work from…

Momentum is hard to build and easy to lose.  Especially when you’re the sole employee. You’re an ocean under a fickle moon. Even the slightest whiff of meaninglessness can derail your progress and deflate your enthusiasm. And since there are no bosses and coworkers around to hold your feet to the fire, getting that train back on track can feel overwhelming.  My first concert documentary took about two years to make….

It’s no surprise that people are terrified of commitment.  Taking the plunge implies vulnerability, loss of control, risk of failure and the death of other choices. What not to dislike?  But the one thing nobody tells us is, commitment is the most underrated success strategy on the planet. And the other thing nobody tells us is, any form of total commitment, no matter how big or small, raises the…