Reader Cruising garage sales one weekend, researchers Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn spent the morning collecting dozens of random items including a common office stapler, a box of birthday candles, a pair of shark and seal-shaped pens, and a plastic banana. Paying no more than a buck or two per item, their total investment was $124.78. Their goal was to test the power of stories and to see if they could “transform insignificant objects into significant ones.” Their plan was to enlist the help...
about 2 years ago • 3 min read
Reader “Never mistake a quantity of calls for a quality of salesmanship." - David Ogilvy The speaker before me is brilliant. They are an encyclopedia of knowledge, spilling out facts, statistics, and convincing arguments. Slide after slide delivered brilliant graphs and bullet lists that would make a university professor proud. I’m in the audience, waiting for my slot in the agenda, furiously taking notes. And I’m thinking this is great stuff! At some point, I notice a person next to me pick...
about 2 years ago • 4 min read
Reader “What is a normal goal for a young person becomes a neurotic hindrance in old age.” Carl Jung It was July, we were hiking up to the third floor of my favorite bookstore, Powell’s City of Books in the old Pearl district of Portland. Picture a labyrinth of wall-to-wall books the size of three grocery stores. People are selling books, buying books, and getting lost searching for just the right book. If you love books, you come to Powell’s to get lost. My partner was brisking skipping up...
about 2 years ago • 4 min read
Reader Over the past month, I’ve been frustrated - more than usual. During dinner with a close friend, I patiently listened as he complained about his partner. We’d had this conversation before and it always ended the same way. Lots of talk - not much action. Over beers, another friend shared how he loves his new job (by my count his third in as many years) but still can’t find enough time for himself. I have clients who’ve reached the financial security to allow them to retire. Instead, they...
about 2 years ago • 3 min read
Reader I woke up this morning from a dream. Poured a coffee and sat down at the keyboard. An hour later I had this. Enjoy. The sun was dropping low, boots kicked up dust and sage bush rolled slowly down the street. There were three of us, hats pulled low, hands at the ready. It was a gunfight. It was going to be ugly. I looked to my left at the familiar shape - it was my past - the one I call Amigo-past. To my right Amigo-future. Both were fighting for my attention. “Hey, loser!” Amigo-past...
about 2 years ago • 3 min read
Reader I am getting forgetful. I’ll be on a run listening to a tune I’ve heard dozens of times but can’t come up with the artist’s name (it was Joe Walsh). Or I’ll greet a friend I haven’t seen for a while with the wrong name (very embarrassing.) Maybe the most entertaining is knowing I need to do something in another room only to arrive completely clueless as to why I was there. Until recently, I worried about my synapses. Those millions (billions?) of connections I used to rely on to come...
about 2 years ago • 3 min read
Reader This summer I built a bookshelf for my office. It was too small. So after filling the bookshelf I stored more books in a cupboard. Now, it’s too small. I love books. They have taught me about life, leadership, love, and - more recently - living healthy longer. I used to read books for education - searching for insights I could repackage and sell in a course to my clients. Some I read for fun and some dog-eared companions were read by headlamp after being hauled out of a backpack at the...
about 2 years ago • 3 min read
Reader “Don’t seek for everything to happen as you wish it would, but rather wish that everything happens as it actually will—then your life will flow well.”— Epictetus How weird is this… Stores full of shoppers without masks, teams meeting in person (like it’s a new thing) - we even shake hands and hug. It’s like we are back to pre-pandemic times—as if the last two years didn’t happen. Hold on one virus-infected minute. Let’s take a step back. Why are we always so quick to move on? After...
over 2 years ago • 3 min read
Reader If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way. --Napoleon Hill “Our meetings are out of control!” a manager complained to me at a workshop I was leading. “I have so many in a day,” she added, “sometimes I don’t even have time to go to the bathroom!” Dive into the inner working of most organizations and you’ll enter an ocean of dysfunction. Ineffective meetings, overuse of email, domineering bosses, and ineffective systems cripple performance and create unnecessary...
over 2 years ago • 4 min read
