What is your attachment to fairness costing you?

The less we operate at the extremes, the wiser we become. Once we humbly accept that life is a deeply complex and subtle experience; and once we stop chasing absolutes and start embracing reality on reality’s terms, we finally learn to sanely connect to self, other and the world. This is the essence of what it means to be a mature human being. It’s the stuff enlightenment is made of. Eastern religions labeled it the middle path. Stoic philosophers referred...

I’ve launched dozens of projects in my career, and never once did I even consider the possibility of crowdfunding. Now, I personally think it’s wonderful that crowdfunding exists as a standard business practice. The fact that over a hundred billion dollars is raised each year through these platforms is extraordinary. In fact, I have contributed to a handful of campaigns for friends and strangers alike, and I enjoyed both the process and the rewards. Economically speaking, crowdfunding is quite literally...

I am just like anyone, in that I love the familiar smell of my own bullshit. That smell has adaptive value, insofar as it protects my esteem, prevents negative consequences of adverse events, and helps in deceiving others. Reminds me of my friend, who is a highly respected and successful physician. His favorite mantra to share with patients, specifically those who insist on doing their own research, so to say, look I’m the doctor here, so leave the googling to...

Maturity is the growing awareness of our own limitations. We acknowledge that we may not have possessed the necessary knowledge, experience or perspective in the past. And we accept that we might have missed something that was there all along, but our perceptions weren’t sophisticated enough at the time. We simply didn’t have the eyes to see what was staring us right in the face. I frequently experience this with authors whose books have had an enormous impact on my...

When somebody acts in a critical, difficult, unreasonable, judgmental or angry way, our immediate reaction might be to step back and think, whoa, what’s their problem? But the more empathetic response would be to lean in and wonder, hmm, what’s their unmet need? See, for most humans, the order of operations works the same. Experience, observation, feeling and need. There’s some event that the person observes, which makes them feel a certain way. Underneath that feeling is a thing that...