Lewis Pugh beginning a swim across the North Pole (CC BY-SA 3.0) Which is exactly why we need to do it Think about the most notable creative works that you’ve encountered. How many of them don’t in some way work against the received “wisdom” about what was possible, or what was commonplace at the time? How many… Read More »Creative Work is Impossible
Stumbling, Bumbling, but Mostly Coherent I can’t remember the first time I heard the word “cool”, but I feel like I instantly knew what it meant. I think there’s something in the sound of the word itself — the way the sound waves bounce off the tongue on that last “l” sound. The way your lips have to… Read More »A Meditation on Cool
credit: Pixabay.com On Failure Porn, Business, and Its Real Purpose My day job is at a company that was started by two brothers when they were in their twenties and thirties, respectively. Back in the early 90s, no one was really calling anything a startup — let alone a business in the manufacturing industry. But for all intents… Read More »Dear Entrepreneurs: Your Startup is About the People — Or at Least, It Should Be
The Chicago Cubs and What This Year Means for All of Us We all inherit certain shared histories — ones that we know and feel intimately, but that others know little about. We try to relay them as best we can to others, but the longer the history, the deeper the emotion, the harder it is to make… Read More »Red Blood, Blue Tears
“Painting of Russian writer Evgeny Chirikov” by Ivan Kulikov Passion, Payment, and Perseverance All throughout my childhood, my father worked 14-hour days at a job he hated. He would come home to cold dinners, after I was asleep. On weekends, he did whatever side-jobs he could to make money so we could move out to the… Read More »On the Concept of a “Side Hustle”
credit: Anton Fromkin Yet Another Way that Writing Will Save Us All Silence is an important part of the effective person’s repertoire. That may sound counterintuitive, but hear me out. Effective people are intelligent — not in that they know all sorts of facts and pieces of data — but in that they understand what is going on in their immediate… Read More »Write, To Remain Silent
Hey everyone, I have two quick notes, and won’t take up much of your time. I am closing up Your Fool Laureate. I encourage you to follow a publication that my good friend, Stephen M. Tomic and I have founded: The Junction. It will be everything you’ve come to expect from me and then some.… Read More »Two Quick Notes
Willem Drost: “The Student” I Search. And it Works. Of the many bones of contention that my wife has with me, one of them is that I don’t read. We joke about the biggest con of my life being how I was able to get a Master’s Degree, and be accepted into 3 PhD programs without reading… Read More »I Don’t Read
credit: Colin Houston It seems that nearly everyone and their sister can start a company these days. They can hire people, get some seed money, and get off to the races. But what happens when that company grows? What happens when all of the sudden there are 30 people working for it? 50? 100? How does… Read More »The Best Leaders Follow
Of course I used this image! (credit) A List of My Favorite Worst Practices for Article Headlines The phrase “Insanely Successful”: What does this even mean? I imagine a wild-eyed madman or madwoman roaming around the neighborhood in really expensive but wrinkled pajamas, yelling loudly at unsuspecting people about their 10 minute morning routine and their… Read More »Self-Help Titles and The Sincerity Gap
