In honor of everyone’s favorite holiday celebrating death and fear, I thought I’d share some of my personal fears. My goal is not that you would make fun of me, but rather that we would see we’re all desperately insecure artists. Fear 1: That real experts will find out I’m a fraud and call me…
I was at a party the other night. There were a bunch of people, and I didn’t know a single one of them. It was uncomfortable. I was standing around, alone, holding a mediocre cup of coffee in my hand – and feeling very awkward. But I fought the inner voice that said, “I’m never…
Imagine attending an elaborate party. The room’s filled with foreign dignitaries and celebrities. Now imagine a Navy Seal shows up – especially one that’s just come back from a battle. Mr. Navy Seal walks into the shindig and immediately sizes it up. He’s scanning the room to identify potential weapons and escape routes. He’s already…
I was discussing inventors with a buddy of mine yesterday. We settled on Thomas Edison. I think it’s fascinating that so much of what we use today would not have been possible without his work. I wouldn’t be blogging today. And all this came from a school dropout. I’m convinced anyone can be extremely successful. But…
I love this quote from Martin Luther (the German monk, not the junior king): “I have so much to do that if I didn’t spend at least three hours a day in prayer I would never get it all done.” I don’t normally think of monks as being particularly busy. But Mr. Luther was a…
I experienced some pretty major creative blocks this week. For instance, I’m writing a book. I have about 15 chapters finished. But the last two chapters I wrote were the exact same chapters I’d previously written. I thought I was writing new material, only to find I’d been rehashing the same stuff. Nothing new was…
I ordered a particularly cool cell phone case. I was excited for it to arrive. Finally, the box showed up. On the outside of the box, they’d written, “Look out for a stow-away-asaurus.” Well, that was weird. I opened the box and found a little plastic T-Rex. The stow-away-asaurus.
I was chatting with a freelancer friend of mine. They were expressing their feelings of self-loathing for wasting about 50% of their time on social media. It’s a huge temptation for freelancers, self-employed people – frankly anyone who works a desk job. It’s super easy to be super unproductive. I’m experiencing that temptation daily. That…
This is the story of a mouse. Let’s call him Pipsqueak. He was small. He was fuzzy. But his voice was unique. He squeaked. He was surrounded by bigger creatures: birds, beasts, people. They had such big voices. Their voices carried far further than Pipsqueak’s. Early on, that bugged little Pip. He wanted his voice…
I’ve been working on a book. And by working on a book, I mean I have one-third of it completed, sitting in an untouched folder buried in my computer’s file system. I started it a month or two ago. I got super excited, wrote a bunch, then put it on the back burners. I still…