I sit on the couch with my daughter, teaching her to crack peanuts with her fingernails
her hair still wet from the dip in the pool on this 95-degree Sunday.
Joe Castiglione calls balls and strikes on the radio.
1-0 for the good guys.
My son and wife are in the kitchen, cooking cupcakes from a recipe in the [...]
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 [...]
In his amazing book Squandering Aimlessly, David Brancaccio travels around the world to see what people do with their money when they have a surplus.
Now, on the surface, I wouldn’t be the best audience for this book. I’m so far on the opposite side of “surplus” that I have a surminus. But until someone writes a book [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Back in 1998, Sally Hogshead visited the Creative Circus to prepare a bunch of us advertising plebes for the harsh reality that awaited upon graduation. Part of her presentation was to go through the pages and pages and pages of headlines she wrote just to land on the precious few that would become her Pencil-winning [...]
My six year old has a real fear of failure. When Darth Vader takes away Anakin’s life force on his Leapster game, it’s as if Ben’s actual life force gets depleted with it. So rather than move on to intermediate or advanced levels, he just stopped trying.
To help him overcome this fear of failure, I told [...]
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
The best agency job I ever had was a place you’ve never heard of called the Donovan Group (Sorry Brokaw…you’re a close second).
The Donovan Group was a little shop in Northboro, MA. They hired Jay Nelson from Hill Holliday to up the creative ante. He brought in some young ad schoolers and a couple of [...]
