Author, Investor, Speaker, Mentor
When you’re a writer, one of the effects on your life is that you’re always processing the events around you on two levels: Your gut reactions, and your writer’s eye for the bigger story. For some writers, this metacognition brings misery. Think of all the tortured artists throughout history, whose sensitivity made the experience of … Continue reading Always Be Crafting
When I work from home, I sit on the corner of the kitchen table, which means that I’m right in the thick of the action. The living room is about 10 feet to my left, including the main television that the kids use for watching television and playing Wii. They also tend to keep the … Continue reading How To Work From Home With Kids
Inexperienced entrepreneurs seem to believe that they need their team to agree. “Get everyone on the same page,” is a common mantra I hear from teams I work with. The problem is, anyone who develops the expectations that all the members of a group (even a group of two) will completely agree about anything is … Continue reading People Never Completely Agree
I’ve already written today about the dangers of certainty in the retail trade: http://bit.ly/1cS1cdm Yet the problematic nature of certainty extends far beyond checkout follies. Especially in today’s polarized, 140 character world, people default to an aggressive certainty. Boldness elicits reactions and draws pageviews. But like the hapless Toys R Us clerk who gave me … Continue reading Why So Certain?
Headlines have become more and more important because of social media. Once upon a time, headlines were critical because they helped persuade news stand passers-by to buy newspapers. Now of course, most people are likely to ask, “What’s a news stand? What’s a newspaper?” Nonetheless, the importance of headlines remains. The headline is what convinces … Continue reading Have We Reached Peak Headline?
I’ve seen a lot written lately about the mental impact of poverty. The trigger was probably this article, which originally began as a long comment on Gawker: http://bit.ly/Ixkjkg The author shares her experiences living in poverty, and the psychological struggles she faces. The key passage is probably this one: “It does not matter what will … Continue reading Hope Enables The Better Angels Of Our Nature
I despise Black Friday. Not only does it involve spending money (never a favorite activity of mine), it also means dealing with the chaos of overcrowded retail stores. Last night, before sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner, I was dispatched to Toys R Us to pick up some of the Christmas shopping. (Thanks American retailers, for … Continue reading If someone asks you, “Are you sure?”, you’d better be
Life is too damn short, and there is always too much to do. None of us has time to waste (especially entrepreneurs), though we always have to decide how to spend it. The ideal, at which I often fail, is to act decisively and intentionally. Or to put it another way, do or do not. … Continue reading Do Or Do Not
When people talk about power, they invariable are referring to hard power. Hard power is the power of authority and might. Hard power is swift and decisive. Hard power is the ability of the President of the United States to order assassinations, and have them carried out half a world away by drone strike. In … Continue reading Hard Power and Soft Power
When entrepreneurs ask me where to find good ideas, I advise them to read promiscuously and make connections. (No, this isn’t some kind of advertisement for Tinder or Grindr.) To read promiscuously means to be voracious and unselective. I was at the library on Sunday, looking for audiobooks, and as usual, I picked up a … Continue reading Read promiscuously and make connections