A gent called me a few months ago. He’d been selling online since the early eighties, one of the first people to do it, long before anyone called it internet selling. He’d since tried Amazon. Tried Facebook. Tried LinkedIn. Failed on all three. He wanted to know what he’d missed. It took me those same […]
On September 1, the bank called to tell us $2,500 had left our account. We got the money back. It took most of the month, and more than six weeks later, I’m still cleaning up. But what has stayed with me isn’t the money. It’s who carries the cost when technology fails. Right now, that’s […]
Ryan’s mom is a worrier.One day he asked her why she worried so much.“My mom was a worrier,” she said.And her mom?“Her too.”Now Ryan’s sister is a worrier. Think about that for a moment. His great-grandmother’s worry is living in his sister today. Nobody chose it. Nobody sat down and decided to pass it on. […]
I got myself (three pairs of) new glasses last month. Somewhere in the middle of the eye test and the final fitting pick-up, I realized something else had changed along with my eyesight. I’ve become almost impossibly picky about what I’ll actually read. A few years ago, my sister-in-law gave me a stack of romance […]
The one very specific feature I want to talk about today is the one that never leaves you alone. Look, I spent part of this summer with the Stoics. Marcus Aurelius mostly, some Seneca, and every version of the Odyssey plot that isn’t actually the Odyssey, because I cannot stand Ulysses, and I’m not going […]
Some of the most capable people I know are quietly running on information that never shows up in a business case. Not intuition in the vague, decorative sense. Something closer to data they can’t fully explain and have learned not to ignore. I think dismissing that, in ourselves or in the people we work with, […]
It’s the last weekend in August. Which means September begins shortly. And we all know what that brings. Our energy changes, our focus gets very clear, and with four months left in the year, some of us, after taking stock of our progress this year, declare our efforts as simply not enough. Yikes! Optimism does […]
A woman told me last week that her life’s work can’t be translated into business language. Twenty years of trying, she said, and the honest answer is it simply can’t be done. I spent more time obsessing about that response than I meant to. Here’s what I eventually decided. The only way she’s ever reached […]
Two weeks ago, my city flooded for the first time in almost a hundred years. Sixteen inches of rain fell in three days. A week later, every street told the same story: front lawns stacked with floorboards, carpet, mattresses, gym equipment, baby cribs. Everything that used to live in someone’s basement, sitting on the curb. […]
This is the final piece in the trilogy: Think Big, Choosing Vintage First, and Steward the Planet. And fair warning: this one is likely the most provocative. I need you to set aside your beliefs about organized religion and whatever else you’ve come to believe over your life, just for the next few minutes. You […]