The Unfortunate Middle

When it comes to the way we earn a living, whether entrepreneurs or employees, we tend to get stuck in the unfortunate middle... We are taught, from a young age, to exist in the middle. Everything in moderation. Don't be a tall poppy, nor a shrinking violet. Good enough is good enough. The middle way,...
Read More

The 5 Saboteurs of an Entrepreneur

Entrepreneurship, starting anything from nothing, is brutally hard. “Conscious” entrepreneurship--building a business that doesn’t just serve a consumer need and generate profit, but also makes a bigger difference--is even harder. Because it’s not just about money, it’s about unleashing expression, connection and potential, and making meaning. Helping others rise. I’ve worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs...
Read More

Happiness. It’s Complicated.

What if the quest to be perpetually happy was actually making us miserable? Summer 2012. Two thousands miles west of New York City, nearly 9,000 feet above sea-level. Deep into the Colorado Rockies, I’m sitting in the wood-clad home of soon-to-be friend, venture-capitalist, entrepreneur and deeply-wise and truthful explorer of life, Brad Feld. We're taping...
Read More

The Haze and the Blaze

A few summers back, we flew out to San Diego and spent a month driving slowly up the coast to Marin County. Just me, the wife and the kid. I hadn't spent a lot of time in southern California, especially along the coast. So I'd never heard of or experienced the phenomenon known as the...
Read More

Finding God In The Grain

Sometimes, I wonder if the closest I get to the experience of God is when I'm making stuff...   I was an artist and a maker as a kid. I'd paint all the time, draw, doodle, make Frankenbikes out of spare parts from the junk yard and built pretty much anything I could imagine. That...
Read More

Naked and Silent

What if the only thing standing between you and what you want is you, but you have no idea it's true?   Sampson: I've built something incredible, we're working with world-class people and world-class clients. We're the best at what we do, nobody can touch us. I've gotten us here and I'm steering this ship....
Read More

Entrepreneurship As A Practice

Most people look at entrepreneurship as a project. You start with an idea, then turn it into something real, build a business around it. And all is well with the world. But that's the wrong approach. Because entrepreneurship, in the wild, doesn't work that way. What really happens is you get an idea, it may...
Read More

Helping Others Rise

Step into life. Engage on a level that strips illusion. See so clearly the possibility beyond the haze. Breath it in. Live it out. Long enough for its essence to bind your DNA. It becomes you. A vein opens. Then you transmit. Pure. Unadulterated. Jazz. You cannot create change in others. Until you embody the...
Read More

Embrace The Space

My usual writing spot is a 10-minute drive. But on Sunday, I walked. An hour each way. No cell-phone. Nothing. Just me, my backpack and a path that wound across a bridge from Da Bronx to Manhattan, through the woods, along a river and through a park. Walking instead of driving, I lost nearly two...
Read More

Embrace the Thrash

So, here's the interesting thing about the early days of any visionary journey, there's a whole lot of thrashing that goes on. It needs to go on. But most visionaries don't talk about that "dark" time. Because it's not sexy. It doesn't feel good or look good to others. Nor do the great creators tend...
Read More

Make More Bad Stuff

I spent 90-minutes yesterday interviewing Bob Taylor, the legendary founder of Taylor Guitars, at his San Diego compound. What an amazing person, company and and experience. But that's for a future post. This is about something Bob shared with me after I stopped recording and asked a personal question. Since selling my last business and...
Read More

Creative Kryptonite and the Death of Productivity

Great work, brilliant ideas, extraordinary art requires space. Time away. Room to process, synthesize, allow connections between seemingly disparate parts to effervesce out of the ether of the mind. Genius is the offspring of the in-between. But, increasingly, technology is removing the in-between. We don't just walk in contemplation, we walk, talk and type. We don't just...
Read More