Ideas are free, execution is priceless.

People don’t need information, they need affirmation. Google can give them information to their heart’s content. But only a living, breathing human being can sit down, listen to that person’s story, look them in the eye, and say something like, oh wow, that really sucks. Hey, you’re doing great, so keep it up. That’s amazing, I knew you could do it, way to go. Affirmation really is a fundamental…

Have you ever felt hopeless, unmotivated, disgusted, apathetic, scared, invisible and exhausted, all at the same time? It’s a scary and complicated emotional cocktail. But it is possible to feel that many feelings at once. It’s disorienting a hell. The first time it started happening to me was around age thirty. Ambiguity about the future of my career and relationships weighed down on me like a lead blanket. The…

The brain does not reach full maturity until our middle twenties or thirties. Adolescence isn’t finished just because the word teen no longer appear in our age. It usually take two or three decades of life before we can genuinely build an adult understanding of the world. And so, if not a number, then what are the defining characteristics of adulthood? How do we know that we’re actually growing…

Determining the market value of your talents is difficult. Pinpointing the vehicle of your uniqueness requires the intersection of two types of understanding. Knowing thyself, and knowing thy customer. Here are a few questions that have been helpful in the appraisal of my own value, both as an entrepreneur and an employee. Let’s start with the first category. Knowing thyself. Answers to these questions will no doubt have patterns…

Here’s a testimonial that makes me proud as a businessperson. It comes from a client who rented my brain to help grow her nonprofit. ‘ Gilly commented that she had always been a supporter of the approach that mentoring should not be a paid activity, as this has the potential to change the dynamics of the relationship and create a power imbalance. But after my first email response following…