65 Comments
From time to time, it's good to have a conversation with yourself—maybe even an interview. This is how you do it.
First, sit yourself down wherever you like to sit. Get coffee or your drink of choice. Turn off the distractions and take it seriously. (Wouldn't you take another interview seriously?)
Then you open the conversation like this:
Dear self, you are x years old. What do you have to show for it? Are you living the dream?Read More
69 Comments
Sorry I was rude to you the other day, someone said. I've just been so busy.
Guess what: we're all busy!
Every one of us. It's not a very exclusive club. And here's another reality check: because we're all busy, no one really cares about how busy someone else is. One way or another, we all make time for what's important to us.
Read More
70 Comments
Dear friends, This photo from Ivan reminds me yet again what it’s all about. Thanks for an amazing 2009. I can’t wait to hear your stories of awesomeness in 2010. I know you’re up for it, and everyone will be watching. Happy New Year’s, Chris ###
Read More
57 Comments
If you're involved in any kind of creative work, you and inertia are probably well acquainted. I wish I were an exception, but no—inertia and I are mortal enemies. Every day I get up and fight a battle against that beast. Sometimes I win; sometimes I lose. Sometimes we get “stuck” in something and have a hard time figuring out what to do next. If you're feeling stuck, try one or more of these ideas ...
Read More
76 Comments
This is the first in a series of five articles about my Annual Review. Every year since 2005 I've set aside an entire week in December to look back on the previous year and set goals for the next year. This time I'm taking two weeks (it was an intense year!), but I'm also editing my book and outlining a couple of projects for January at the same time.
Read More
69 Comments
A while back I needed a reference letter from a professor from graduate school. I went to see the first guy I thought of, who was widely-known in the field and could have helped strengthen the application I was preparing. We hadn’t really hit it off so well in class, but I thought it was…
Read More
54 Comments
Today is Blog Action Day, where the blogging world (such as it is) unites to write about a single topic. I know, so conventional—but in this case, I don’t mind going with the flow. The theme this year is Climate Change, so I thought I’d contribute something about travel and its impact on the world ...
Read More
83 Comments
Just say no. Assert your boundaries. You can't do it all. There's a time and a place for everything, sure, but is that always the best advice? Whenever I hear things like “Say no five times for every time you say yes,” I think... “Really?” I take the opposite approach, and it generally works out just fine.
Read More
22 Comments
In 2005, U.N. Secretary General Koffi Annan was struggling with a series of scandals and other challenges in his administration. I read this short quote in a magazine interview with him and wrote it down in my notebook:
Question: Senator Coleman says you are 'damaged goods.' What do you say to him?Answer: Watch and see.
Read More
48 Comments
Hi everyone. I’m high on life and writing in from the Cathay Pacific LAX-HKG flight. I’m fading fast, but with 13 hours to go until arrival, there should be plenty of time to a) sleep and b) write this note to you.
Read More
43 Comments
At any given time, most of us have no shortage of challenges we’re trying to work through or overcome.
Entrepreneurs must create something out of nothing — a process that is both fun and tiring. Ambitious people who work in organizations have to work with colleagues in pursuit of collective goals. Sometimes the colleagues aren’t as ambitious or have other ideas.
Those of us who go it alone have plenty of issues, too. If someone ever implies it’s easy out there, put your skeptic hat on.
Thankfully, there is one challenge that is entirely optional. This challenge is the question of how to be yourself, otherwise known as authenticity.
Read More
15 Comments
Early this morning I sent out an envelope containing an official Freedom of Information Act Request to the U.S. government.
Am I a conspiracy theorist? Have I started stockpiling canned food and building a bomb shelter behind my apartment?
Sorry to disappoint anyone holed up in a cabin somewhere, but not really. I refuse to visit any bomb shelter that doesn't provide wifi and a french press. In this case, I'm mostly just curious ... what do the feds know about me?
Read More
69 Comments
Congratulations to the great Lance Armstrong on his third-place victory in Paris yesterday.
I'm aware that third place is not a real victory. Lance knows this too, and said so himself in the post-race interviews. However, when you've been out of the tour for four years, you broke your collarbone a few months ago, and you're more than a decade older than the teammate who ended up winning, I think that third place is pretty good.
Lance is still a winner in my book. He's already planning to come back next year, and I'm pretty sure he won't settle for a mere third place out of 180 riders in 2010.
Read More
32 Comments
Last year at about this time, I took what I called the Monster Trip of 2008.
It involved four continents, driving through Italy in the middle of the night, visiting Iraqi Kurdistan, roaming by train and bus across the Baltics and Moldova, and finally coming home through Asia – where I mistakenly double-booked myself on two non-refundable tickets home from Japan.
What fun that was. Now it's time to repeat the process, although with a completely different itinerary, and hopefully without getting stranded on a faraway continent three days before I'm supposed to come home.
Read More
77 Comments
Something’s been bothering me lately, and judging from what I know about the people who read these articles each week, I bet it’s bothered some of you before too.
It’s that phrase—“Welcome to the Real World.”
Have you ever heard that? It’s usually intended as a sarcastic remark about what someone else has said or is doing.
Read More