Month: August 2015

  Some things are bought–like bottled water, airplane tickets and chewing gum. The vendor sets up shop and then waits, patiently, for someone to come along and decide to buy. Other things are sold–like cars, placement of advertising in magazines and life insurance. If no salesperson is present, if no pitch is made, nothing happens. […]

  The pain of a lousy boss, of careless mistakes, of insufficient credit. The pain of instability, of bullying, of inadequate tools. The pain of poor cash flow, corrosive feedback and work that isn’t worthy of you. Pain is part of work. And it leads to two mistakes. The notion that you can trade your […]

    It’s extremely difficult to read a speech and sound as if you mean it. For most of us, when reading, posture changes, the throat tightens and people can tell. Reading is different from speaking, and a different sort of attention is paid. Before you give a speech, then, you must do one of […]

It’s painful, expensive, time-consuming, stressful and ultimately pointless to work overtime to preserve your dying business model. All the lobbying, the lawsuits, the ad campaigns and most of all, the hand-wringing, aren’t going to change anything at all. In fact, instead of postponing the outcome you fear, they probably accelerate it. The history of media […]

Of course, self-belief is more than just common advice. It’s at the heart of selling, of creating, of shipping, of leadership… Telling someone, “believe in yourself,” is often worthless, though, because it’s easier said than done. Perhaps the alternative is: “Do work you can believe in.” Not trust, verification. Not believing that one day you’ll […]

When considering a new project, it might help to make three lists: A list of everything that has to be true for this to be a good project (things you can look up, research or otherwise prove). A list of all the skills you dont have that would be important for this project to work […]

Without a doubt, there’s someone taller than you, faster than you, cuter than you. We don’t have to look very far to find someone who is better paid, more respected and getting more than his fair share of credit. And social media: Of course there are people with more followers, more likes and more of […]

  In search of your calling I don’t think we have a calling. I do think it’s possible to have a caring. A calling implies that there’s just one thing for you, just one thing you’re supposed to do. What we most need in our lives, though, is something worth doing, worth it because we […]