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Most people will do everything in our power to stay away from the agony of endless robotic customer service experiences.  We have simply spent too much time sitting on hold, sitting in line, hearing words that sounded as if they had been arranged to convey the minimum of meaning.  Why engage in another emotionless transaction? Better to just eat the money and move on with our lives.  Marchex conducted…

Have you ever been rejected for a job application because you were overqualified?  Initially, it feels like a compliment. But it’s actually code for something else.  As someone who has been rejected thousands of times for this very reason, allow me to translate this justification for you.  Overqualified is code for, we are not confident in our ability to retain you as an employee because you will jump ship…

When we get discouraged, the easiest thing to do is stay discouraged.  To descend down the spiral of doubt and fear, throwing a pity party for one, amplifying and exacerbating our already negative appraisal of ourselves.  It’s not helpful and it’s not healthy. But then again, it’s really hard to resist the pull of negative momentum. Especially when we routinely don’t get the praise we feel deserve.  And so,…

Carrey famously wrote himself a check for ten million dollars and kept it in his pocket for seven years until he landed a role paying him that very amount.  Hollywood cites this as one of the great modern success stories.  But what’s even more compelling is, twenty years later, he made the following statement.  Everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of, so they…

What makes a brand stick?  That idea fires me up.  For the past twenty years, it’s the question I didn’t realize I was asking, and the question I didn’t realize I was answering.  This new book is everything I have learned about creating a sticky brand. Here’s the synopsis from the publisher: “Presenting a year’s worth of daily meditations, this book teaches you how to create a business that…

Carlin famously theorized that drugs were illegal because they gave people a new slant on the game that was being played on them.  George wasn’t paranoid, he was simply experienced.  And the good news is, we don’t need to use drugs to get hip to the nuances of the human tragedy. Each of one us can become less naïve by paying more attention to when people are speaking in…

Marathoners know they can’t develop stamina by taking walks in the park.  It may be good for their health, and it may be an enjoyable way to spend the afternoon, but it’s not a sufficiently rigorous enough activity to move their story forward.  The only real way to build the strength of their physical constitution is by ratcheting up the intensity. By extending their practice level on an incremental…

Henri taught his painting students that the artist’s life was one long investigation of things and their reactions to them.  This is an exquisite description of the creative process. But it’s also an interesting filter for witnessing our growth in general.  Because our reactions are the barometers of our evolution. They are what define us, for better or for worse. In some moments, we sabotage ourselves by reacting in ways that…

There’s a saying in the recovery movement that addicts are like pickles, they can never become cucumbers again.  It’s a humble reminder that any of us, addicts or not, can easily relapse into a former unhealthy definition of ourselves that no longer holds true.  No matter how far we have come in our growth, there are certain mindsets we can never fully remove or heal or fix or cure….

Few things are more important than owning our choices and defining happiness for ourselves.  And yet, we live in a world where people go to great lengths to fulfill urges and desires they don’t even question. Where obligations are needlessly accepted out of vanity. And where people get dragged along in dangerous currents, swept inexorably towards decisions that could potentially destroy them.  To me, this means our ability to…