I learned how to play Gin this weekend with my in-laws. I’m still in that beginner’s learning phase, where I have to think about every move. It takes me three times as long to lay down a card then the rest of the family. But they’re patient and understand that it’s going to take time [...]
For my single, unilateral-decision making friends, this post is not for you. You’re absolved from committing to another word.
Still unsure if you should read on? Take this simple quiz.
Can you:
a) go to Vegas with your buddies without some amount of quid pro quo?
b) drop a grand on a new Tag Heuer watch without consulting someone first?
c) [...]
When we were kids we said, “When I grow up, I want to BE a _____.”
Now that we’re adults, we ask, “What do you DO for work?”
What happened between the ages of 8 and 30 that we stopped wanting to “be” something and started “doing” work?
Be implies self. Be is who we are. Do is [...]
I want to do something meaningful like Clark Moss, who got axed from his job as an executive creative director and started his own social-responsibility business.
I want to be at peace like Jonathan Fields, who left his big time Wall St. lawyer gig, became a yogi, then became a small business consultant.
I want to create doodads [...]
There’s a fantastic community of people out there who get off on helping others overcome their bullshit excuses for complacency. One of the best is Hugh MacLeod, the always genius and often surly cartoonist, author, and blogger behind GapingVoid.
Like me, Hugh once worked in advertising. Unlike me, he’s figured out how to fully commit to [...]
It was a tough decision to write this post.
I’m someone who believes that when you think and act positively and with hope, those things come back to you. Likewise, the converse is true. We all know people with a cloud of doom over their heads. They expect their lives to suck so their lives suck so [...]
I’ve spent a lot of time lately stump-talking about the necessity for careers to be defined inward out instead of outward in. You aren’t a copywriter or lawyer or bookkeeper. You are Lisa and Stuart and Jonathan, with ambitions, ideas, and talents that make you uniquely Lisa and Stuart and Jonathan.
Sure, it’s easier at cocktail [...]
Since leaving my employer last June, I have often wondered if it was time for the traditional full-time job to end.
For large corporations, the 40-hour week makes sense. The employer gets a monopoly on your time and skills, and you become dependant on the paycheck. Because your entire income derives from one source, the company [...]
“Would you do it again?”
Yesterday, I asked this question to my beloved wife, who endured months of uncertainty and inflating credit card balances for the sake of “Lemonade.”
Yet there I was, asking her again to look down the barrel of a loaded mortgage. To fall on the grenades of our finances. Wondering if she could [...]
In the late 1800s, many poor, resourceful women would repurpose cotton flour sacks and turn them into quilts and clothing. By the mid 1920s, the practice became so popular that flour manufacturers started making their sacks with attractive colors and patterns, essentially creating a new market for their commodity.
This brings up an interesting way to [...]
