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Because you are a person, some things are very difficult not to take personally. Events feel like unique misfortunes picked out especially for us.  How could that company have fired me? Why did my favorite client leave? Where does that horse get off walking away from me like that?  But despite the cinematic sense of karmic justice that we were taught to believe in when we were young, one…

My doctor friend once gave me a warning that sent a corkscrew of chill through the hollows of my spine: The worst opiate out there is the one you like.  Meaning, whatever substance allows us to escape from our anxieties, whatever chemical creates a barrier that shields us from the sharp edges of reality, legal or illegal, can be a very dangerous thing. At the very least, it can…

Ruth was legendary for not fearing a swing and a miss.  That’s why he broke the record for home runs and strikeouts in the same season. Babe made baseball history by succeeding and failing simultaneously.  Interestingly enough, this trend continues a century later. Statistics show that today’s batters who fail the most spectacularly also tend to be among the greatest successes.  It makes sense. They view their strikeouts as…

In this time of social distancing, people are staying six feet apart from each other.  They’re wearing masks, goggles, hats, hoodies, gloves and other protective outerwear. Doing whatever they can to keep ourselves and each other safe from exposure to the virus.  But one of the interpersonal challenges of our culture’s new social contract is, it has become harder and harder to recognize each other in passing.  Now more…

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…