I just spent a week on an island in Belize, and actually allowed myself to spend it completely relaxing. And, I even read a book! I know — what a novel idea (pun intended) — but I rarely give myself the time to actually read a book vs. listen to an audio book. So what book did I choose to …
one question for decision making
A lot of people come to me for advice on making decisions, and I’m happy to share my perspective or give a hot take whenever I can be helpful. Lately, I’ve been using a new approach to making decisions myself, and sharing that with others too. It’s just one question: “What will you wish you would have done a year …
is the narrative serving you?
I was feeling a little aggressive. A couple months ago as I was looking forward to October, I decided that I wanted to take on writing two Linkedin Learning courses concurrently to close out the year. If I did that, it’s obviously twice as beneficial financially, and since I wouldn’t start a new cohort of the Unreal Collective Accelerator until January, …
going first
I’m really lucky to be in Columbus, Ohio. Having been in one major city for the past nearly 10 years, I’ve been able to dig deeply into different communities here, and create a good name for myself in a handful of circles. Because I pushed myself to “network” and volunteer in the community several years ago, it’s actually not very …
the hidden risk of taking advice
Make no mistake, one of the most important factors in my life has been mentorship. But there’s a surreptitious risk to mentorship — and it’s when “advice” isn’t really advice. Sometimes, “advice” is really a veil over self-validation. Instead of giving thoughtful, calculated, and unbiased recommendations based upon personal experience, sometimes people will simply give prescriptive “advice” that you follow …
getting to the edges pt. 2
Yesterday I wrote about getting to the edges of a space in order to create new and original thought (therefore being a leader in defining the next edge). That sounds simple enough — but it’s certainly not easy. It’s a time-consuming and intense challenge to stay at the edge while also trying to lead others at the edge. It’s easiest …
getting to the edges
If you’ve been following along recently, you know I’ve been on a kick about forming original thought. And it continued yesterday during an Unreal Collective group call when we discussed the merits and challenges of creating unique or proprietary language! As I think about writing more and making my own assertions, frameworks, and methods, I find myself having the most …
making assertions
I am a big fan of the new Nike Just Do It campaign with Colin Kaepernick. Whether you agree or disagree, it’s provocative of a conversation. It asserts itself and forces you to reckon with whether you are with Nike, with Colin Kaepernick, or not. And it’s that forcing mechanism — making you first acknowledge that there are differing viewpoints …
living like a tracker
One of the podcasts I’ve gotten into lately at the recommendation of my upside cohost, Eric, is Invest Like the Best by Patrick O’Shaughnessy. What I like about this podcast is that besides speaking with obviously great investors, the individuals he interviews have very interesting perspectives on life outside of investing. Recently, he re-ran an episode with Boyd Varty, a …
relationships and infinite games follow up
I got a lot of great feedback on yesterday’s piece related to relationships and finite/infinite games. A little bit of inside baseball, I realized the terms “finite” and “infinite” games may be new to some folks. I borrowed the phrase from a book by James Carse called, Finite and Infinite Games. The phrases are defined on the cover of the …