A Note to Young Dreamers Who Don’t Feel Supported by Family & Friends
“If you want to truly honor your loved ones, go out in the world and live your absolute best and brightest, make the most of that gift your parents gave you. And you have to be okay with the fact that they may always resent you for doing so, and you have to forgive them […]
How to Master Chaos
A day will come when your work will be truly overwhelming. You will eventually say “yes” to too many things, encounter roadblocks of time or resources, or face challenges that are greater than your own current abilities. Here’s how to start swimming when the dam breaks: 1) Simplify and systematize. There far more power in reduction […]
Be Better Than the Good Opinion of Others
One of the most common causes of mediocrity is the sense of comfort and contentment we feel when others express satisfaction with our work. While elements such as a happy client, a pleased customer, a proud parent, an impressed mentor, or a thrilled audience may be useful for gauging progress in certain contexts, it doesn’t […]
Your Silence Will Not Protect You
The day I ended my silence Three years ago, I decided to embark on an experiment in personal development by making a one year commitment to writing and publishing a new blog post every day. I wanted to see what would become of me if I forced myself to share my thoughts with the world irrespective […]
Are You Ready to Die?
“When you die, die like I am planning to die. Empty. It’s finished,” -Dr. Myles Munroe This past week, my brother Gerald informed me of a news report that broke my heart: one of my greatest heroes and biggest personal influences, Dr. Myles Munroe, is dead. According to this ABC News report, Dr. Munroe, his […]
Incidental, or Instrumental?
I was listening to NPR’s TED Radio Hour while flying last week, and I came across a really interesting interview with filmmaker James Cameron. Cameron got involved with deep see exploration after filming the opening scenes for his blockbuster Titanic. I always assumed his involvement with submarine exploration was incidental – he made Titanic, and […]
Against the “Work/Life Balance”
The idea of a work/life balance is an attractive one. It helps give us reprieve and meaning when we have jobs we don’t enjoy, allows us to pursue multiple competing ends at once, and permits people to be more than simply their jobs. If one only identifies by the job they have, then failure at […]
How to Talk to Your Family About a Gap Year
Taking a gap year can be one of the best decisions a young person can make when considering the path of their higher education. The benefits are plenty. Gap years provide time to figure out what you want to get out of your education before devoting several years and tens of thousands of dollars to […]
You Can’t “Break the Mold” Until You Question the Mold
Studying philosophy upset my fruit basket. By the third week of study, I admitted to my group (in much less ladylike terms) that this module annoyed and even infuriated me “so many times”. It began to agitate me not because it was boring or impractical, but because I realized I was a lazy thinker. And […]
Becoming Marketable Despite College
This is a guest post by entrepreneur Jeff Till. Jeff is the founder and owner of SAM-Lab, Inc. You can contact him here. After taking five years to finish my Bachelor of Science degree in Art from Western Michigan University, it dawned on me that I would need a grown-up job. I decided that I would […]
Don’t Major in Entrepreneurship
Lots of business schools offer concentrations and majors in “entrepreneurship.” It is the expected response to more and more entrepreneurial young people either foregoing college altogether or majoring in something like computer science rather than going to business school. If you want to be an entrepreneur, it may seem like majoring in entrepreneurship at a […]
10 Excuses of Unproductive People
The world is full of people of varying productivity. Some people are highly productive — others are highly unproductive. Most people float somewhere in between, with productive days and unproductive days sprinkled in between. The trick to becoming an effective worker, employee, and boss is to have more productive days than unproductive days. Some people, […]
Don’t Accept the Premise
It’s easy to feel the need to take sides. So many problems, questions, and issues in the world seem to have two opposing answers, and we’re constantly asked to choose which we accept. But the real, radical change comes not from those who pick a side and advocate their solution better than everyone else, but […]
How to Survive Working With a Remote Boss
This is a guest post by Cynthia Bell. The workplace today is quite different from the workplace of 30, 20, and even 10 years ago. Open office designs, in-house baristas, and, for many organizations, bosses managing from across the country are now the norm. Between video conferencing, email, and instant messaging, physical proximity to the […]
The Value of Playfulness
Reading a very interesting book recently, I came across this passage: In this task (the candle problem), research participants are given a small candle, a book of matches, and a box of tacks and are asked to attach the candle to a bulletin board in a way that the candle can be lit and will burn […]