My grandmother actually served as my father figure. Born November 15, 1913, she would be 110 years old today. I shudder to think of what kind of insufferable, officious, know-it-all I would be today, were it not for her intervention and influence. After her divorce from my father, my mother, brothers and I moved in with my grandmother when I was three years old and lived with her until her death from Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS—also known as Lou Gehrig’s…..
[ALT TEXT: Did you know: The first poor grade I ever received was from Mrs. Ring in the fourth grade. It was for my penmanship, which she deemed, “borderline illegible.” I vowed to improve my technique. A lesson I took away from that experience is that even the best message is useless unless it can be effectively communicated]. I lived in Iowa when Barack Obama was running for president (both terms). As someone with over three decades of media experience,…..
For most of us, we’ve experienced over two years of some version of lockdown. It has been a period of trauma and uncertainty. Even with the vaccine rollouts, there will be months, if not years of recalibration ahead of us. Early on during Quarantine Life, I sent out a message in response to a “hustle porn” tweet that essentially said if you don’t emerge from lockdown without having mastered a second language, launching your next company etc., you were a…..
One of the founders stories I share within my book, Circuit Train Your Brain, is how I faced eviction not once, but twice within the first five years of my moving to Chicago in pursuit of scaling the nonprofit I had established. Part of my next book is unpacking how those experiences happened. Under-earning was one reason; my lack of focus was another. There are many other reasons, and I’m still sifting them out. During a particularly perilous time in…..
If you’re an entrepreneur, or have an entrepreneurial spirit, you are probably driven by your vision. Even if it’s not fully formed, this vision is your focus, inspiration and fuel. But how do you transition from the imagination to the real? “First you jump off the cliff and you build wings on the way down.” —Ray Bradbury This sounds crazy, right? Conventional wisdom says that you should look before you leap, but if you have an iota of entrepreneurial essence…..
I have news for you perfectionists out there: You’re going to fail. You’re going to disappoint someone. You’re going to get something all wrong. …And you’re going to learn and move on. At these “failure junctions” in your life, you will lose friends. Your network will change. It is supposed to. Through the learning of your lesson, your polarity will change, and you will fall out of alignment with some of your friends (maybe even family). This changing polarity will…..
Take a look at the people you’ve chosen to surround yourself with—are there people from your childhood who no longer align with your goals or beliefs? Do you spend time with work colleagues who stifle your spirit? Is your circle of friends supportive and encouraging? There’s an extremely effective sorting statement you can apply to your relationships that will begin to shift the energy of the individuals in your orbit: “If someone is not nourishing you, they are draining you.”…..
Pillow talk: this throw pillow cost $38. I know what you’re thinking: big whoop-dee-doo. You may have dropped thirty-eight bucks on a good port at dinner today. But when I was eking by on absolutely nothing as a nonprofit founder, my scarcity mindset thought that spending $38 for a silly pillow was a stupid and a frivolous expense. So I returned to Crate and Barrel multiple times, checking to see if it was still available, thinking to myself, “If it’s…..
A common mistake that creators make is to set their asking price for their services or skill at what they think the market will bear (usually asking too little). The paradox is that when you set your value, the market meets you. As a writer and artist, I’ve been conditioned to donate my gifts or discount my rates for as long as I can remember. • Part of it is because I can tap into the well of creativity and…..
One day, I was taking a pizza out of the oven and caught my forearm on the inside of the door. I flinched and drew my arm away from the hot metal, but the damage was already done: within minutes, an angry weal had formed where my arm had touched the oven. I immediately took steps to clean and treat the wound and went on with my day. A few days later while I was brushing my teeth, I noticed…..