Each month I approach a threshold. It’s a threshold of fear. I have thirteen article each month (for Sunday| Mag) that need to be both written and designed for. That means I contact at least twenty-six people to volunteer their time for my project. Twenty-six very busy and talented people. And crossing that threshold means…
I got a courtesy call from my car dealer the other day. “Hi, just checking on your AC repair. Is everything working ok?” Oh. How nice. They wanted to make sure everything’s good. I answered affirmatively. “Excellent. Well you’ll receive a survey in your email in a couple days from the manufacturer. Can you make…
I’m about to make your inner perfectionist feel really really good. Wait for it… Are you stressed? Are you freaking out about something you’re working on? Are you worried it won’t get done in time or won’t be up to par? Here it comes… It just doesn’t matter. There is absolutely nothing you’re working on…
You don’t have enough time to defend your ideas and act on them. I’m a people pleaser. No surprise there. I love when people are happy with me. I take pride in being well liked. But when it comes time to follow through with my dream, I have no time to make others happy. I have…
We all have down days. This was one of them. I didn’t get much sleep last night. Got a fairly discouraging call first thing in the morning. Didn’t have time to eat a proper breakfast. And the affects of caffeine have suddenly disappeared off the face of the earth. I don’t know about you…but I feel…
The other day one of my Sunday| Mag writers approached me with a problem. He had writer’s block. I’d assigned an article to him earlier. He was eager to write. But he couldn’t get past that mental block. I love his humility in approaching me. That’s a hard task in itself. And of course I…
You’re making chocolate chip cookies. You have your ingredients. Time to put them all in a bowl. But it isn’t quite so simple. A great baker knows you don’t just drop the ingredients in a bowl and (voila) cookie batter is ready. But you also don’t throw it all in a blender until it combines…
I have an idea. It’s an idea for Echo Conference 2014. I’m so nervous to present it to my bosses. I already presented it to one of my co-workers to help me refine the idea. “Is this even good? Will it work?” What makes this even more nerve-wracking is that it’s an attempt to revive…
I’m the opposite of cool. Cool people aren’t supposed to get excited. And, I – I’m very easily excitable. My wife laughs about it. Because she knows me so well, she knows how excited I get. And she’s quick to point it out. “You think that guy’s cool, don’t you?” That’s what she asks me when…
I’ve developed a new mindset when working with a team. Whenever I have an idea, I’m completely convinced it’s right. (That’s not the new part.) The new part is that I’m completely convinced I could be wrong. This is such a liberating thing. I can present the best case for my idea. I can give…