Blog
See the frightened animal that just doesn’t know any better
What if everyone we met was just as human as we were? What if we were all just wounded animals trying to heal ourselves as we sit alone in dark corners? What if people deserved to be treated with dignity, regardless of their current circumstances? What if every individual you engaged with was just a brokenhearted warrior striving to be a little bit better each day? There’s no way…
Bloodying my knuckles knocking on a door that was never going to open
In client services, marketing often becomes the abandoned stepchild. It’s the nature of working at an agency. Non billable hours tend to be shoved aside in favor of real project time. They simply aren’t treated with the urgency and importance of client work. That’s the account manager mindset. If it’s not revenue generating, then it won’t make it to the top of their list of things to do. And…
How the hell does a window lie to you?
You know that moment when your brain starts pumping a cocktail of stress hormones into your bloodstream, and you begin to doubt your own thoughts, feelings, choices and desires? It’s such a shitty place to be. Losing trust in your own judgment is one of those cruel tricks the mind plays on us. Feels like a betrayal. Like you’ve been mentally hijacked. My friend of has obsessive compulsive disorder,…
Ever think about making a living as a hood ornament?
Macgyver’s most memorable episode was when he was hanging out of car going eighty miles an hour, by his foot, while the communists chased him to the border with guns and army trucks. His task, of course, was to transfer the power steering fluid into the brake cylinder before the car crashed into the fence and killed everybody. Pretty standard day at work for that guy. But even though…
The acid reflux of disgust at yourself
Sometimes something alien arrives and throws your whole paradigm out of whack. Could be a piece of art, an email from a customer, or a simple conversation with a friend or family member. But whatever that alien thing is, it swoops in and totally shifts the lens through which you view everything familiar. You see yourself through a new set of eyes, possibly not even yours. And the scary…
Decide that your own best is enough for you.
Optimism doesn’t increase our success, but it does increase our field of vision, which is what allows us to better notice and build upon the opportunities that lead to success. Cynicism, on the other hand, narrows our vision. The reason it doesn’t seem to make anything better because we’re not in the mindset of looking for ways to make them better. It builds negative momentum, which only makes us…
Lay dispute at the foot of these spurious claims.
Mayo published a study about the comparative relevance of physical fitness on life expectancy. Nearly half a million people were surveyed, and they found that fast walking participants lived longer than those who walked at a slower pace. Turns out, if you want be around longer, try speeding it up while you’re on a stroll. Who knew that walking a little faster might add years to your life? Personally, I’d like…
Loose threads, false steps and slips of the tongue.
Sometimes it’s difficult to tell if your experience is a dream, a memory or a lie. Like when you wake up from a nightmare feeling convinced that the event really happened to you. Or when you’ve fantasized about a person so many times, you actually have to stop and ask yourself, wait, did we really meet up in that hotel room, or was it just my imagination? What about…
Watching yourself do everything you ever disapproved of
Being colorblind doesn’t have a huge impact on my daily life. My reds and greens may be a bit off kilter, but other than the occasional fashion faux pas, and one or two traffic light homicides, it’s not something worth obsessing over. In fact, my inability to discern certain colors has led me to ask an important question. What if everything in my life didn’t have to match perfectly?…
The longer it takes to complete, the better quality it must be
There’s a popular study that polled two thousand workers about their daily schedules. One question was, if you had to state a figure, how long do you think you spend productively working during work hours on a daily basis? The results of revealed the average answer to be just under three hours. In a typical workday, that nets out to less than forty percent. Are you surprised by this…