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Every commercial airplane has a black box. A flight data recorder, which has the ability to dissect what went wrong in the aftermath of a crash.  And what makes it so indestructible is the alloy typically found in furnaces, gas turbine blades, car exhaust systems and other extreme heat environments. Flight parameters are engraved onto the alloy throughout the trip, ensuring survival no matter what.  The running joke, of…

The best way to find escape from the burdens of the world is with a manageable, self contained activity.  Something that imposes order on our mind from the outside. Something purposeful that requires skills. Something that prevents disorder from taking hold of our mind and forcing it into frenetic state. Something that focuses our whole being in a harmonious rush of energy.  Whether it’s physical exercise, manual labor, fixing…

Every brand longs to lock into pole position. To create a new category where they define the rules and they set the standards and they become the default against which everybody else in the industry measures themselves.  But the danger is when brands become a victim of their own originality. Terminally unique. So weird that nobody knows what to do with them. So impossible to classify that customers drop…

Maisel wrote a brilliant book about how to quiet an overactive, hypercreative mind. He suggested that we create and use thought substitutes, which are pieces of language that help prevent our brain from conjuring up its usual distortions and distractions.  It’s a practice of thinking thoughts that serve us, rather than pushing on the pedal that’s driving our racing brain.  Personally, I find questions to be helpful. Especially when my hero complex strikes,…

Whyte famously said that our greatest vulnerability is the very door through which we must pass in order to open the next horizon of our lives. It’s the rite of passage. The proving ground. The refining fire. And unless we open ourselves to that unknown invisible force, we’ll fail to move the story forward.  On our six month anniversary, my wife ask me to move across the country with…

One of the great underrated superpowers is the ability to learn a lot from a little. To turn every moment into a part of your education. To metabolize even the smallest events or situations into breakthroughs in thinking and action.  That’s how you maximize growth. Like the company that seeks a return on investment, the individual seeks to maximize return on experience.  But in order to make your education greater than…

Churchill was out of his mind.  He’s well known for saying, never, never, never give up.  But that’s a deeply dangerous thought. Because in many cases, quitting can be a viable, intelligent and profitable option. In fact, the real question isn’t whether to quit, but what to quit.  And so, for the people who long to chase their dream, the people who have this thing inside of them that screams now,…

I’m infuriated by the demand for mediocrity.  People around the world are achieving massive success creating products that are cheap to produce, easy to manage, safe to launch, quick to sell, simple to monetize, likely to scale and effortless to imitate.  Which sounds like a brilliant business model. And admittedly, there’s part of me that admires that level of shrewdness.  But the only caveat is, this approach means you…

All creativity begins with the moment of conception. That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here. Based on my books in The Prolific Series, I’m going…

Gutsche’s book on innovation makes a powerful point about the evolutionary roots of our species and how that affects our ability to adapt to change.  He writes that although humans have evolved into excellent farmers, the problem is, once we find a field to farm, we’re neurologically wired to repeat the chain of decisions that lead to the last harvest. We’re grasping at what worked in the past. It’s our last…