Blog
The first step in building your meaning making machinery
If you don’t make a name for yourself, someone will make one for you. This has been a mantra of mine ever since my first book went viral, which led to my appearance on a nationally syndicated news program. Millions of viewers saw my debut interview, which had the following job title underneath my head. Nametag wearer. How proud my parents must have been. Four years of college and…
Words don’t mean anything until we give them the power to say everything
There is no success or failure, there is only what happens. Consequences of our actions. Right or wrong, good or bad, win or lose, positive or negative, these are just words. Mental constructs. Socially inherited labels that we attach to our experiences. They have no moral and objective meaning. There is no tribunal that decide which result is the best. Sadly, human beings love to compartmentalize. It’s embedded in…
The kind of relationship we have with milestones
Thor, the god of thunder, was given a memorable piece of advice from his mother: Everyone fails at who they’re supposed to be. But the measure of a person, a hero, is how they succeed at being who they are. Her words suggest a question that most of us have probably never asked. What kind of relationship do we have with milestones? That’s a big word in our culture….
Changing just one core rule in the universe
Science fiction and fantasy writers typically start their novels with the answer to the following question. What happens if you change just one core rule in the universe? Authors do this because they’re creating limits for their fictional world, and they have to make sure the story stays accessible and believable to their audience. Because once you change one rule, it effects everything going forward. You can almost hear…
With every ping pong ball that splashes into a red plastic cup
Traditional male bonding never really appealed to me. Playing sports, social drinking, video games, fishing, hunting, camping, gambling, smoking cigars, insulting each other, working with tools, and of course, sexual conquesting, these activities do almost nothing for me. I love my male friends, enjoy spending time with them, and value guy time as an important part of my growth. But spending eleven hours sitting around a lake, drinking beer…
Watching yourself become the villain of your own story
My least favorite superhero movie trope is the supportive but mortal spouse who continues to implore her workaholic, messianic husband to just stop all the madness. Stop your blind drive to invent, create, build, kill all the bad guys, save the world, leave a legacy for the next generation, and for once in your goddamn life, just rest. Rest, you idiot. Respect your limitations. Surrender this childish god complex….
Answering client emails from your couch at midnight
It’s easy to set boundaries when you’re only accountable to yourself. But when you have a manager, direct reports, coworkers, clients, company founders, and so on, it gets a bit more complicated. Here are several scenarios, some of which are in the person’s control, some of which are not. See if you can spot the difference. You would love nothing more than to make the resolution to not accept…
There’s no wrong way to grow
Support groups have been transformative for my adult life, both personally and professionally. Monthly masterminds, weekly men’s groups, spiritual communities, quarterly networking clubs, these social networks have helped me grow and connect in powerful ways. What’s more, they’ve helped me contribute to the growth of others. As the saying goes, sometimes you need the group, sometimes the group needs you. But something I’ve noticed along the way is, not…
If this takes more than fifteen minutes, you’re doing it wrong
During a leadership meeting years ago, our employee survey reported that our startup had two primary complaints. The first was that our company had a work life balance problem. And the second was that our company had a productivity problem. My immediate reaction was confusion. How is that even possible? Because the first problem would suggest that people are working too much, in which case, they would probably be…
Until it is too late to avoid the jaws of disaster
Some people can’t make decisions without other people. They’re overly dependent on others to give them reassurance, even for the most mundane things. One of the designers from an old job used to be like this. She would second guess, edit, censor and doubt herself into a frenzy on an hourly basis. Even mundane things, like where to go for lunch. By the time she was finished ruminating, researching…
