LATEST BLOG POSTS

I couldn’t help share Jia Jiang’s sidcha. I’ve favored fitness sidchas like my burpee-based calisthenics, a mindfulness one in cold showers, and the expressive one of writing here. I’ve also described business ones like cold-calling five of sales leads daily or writing a business idea every day. There are aesthetic ones like drawing a picture every day or dancing every day. I also describe social ones like talking to a[…] Keep reading →

Do you feel gratitude toward people who have helped you? Do you express that gratitude more than enough, not enough, or about right? You’re probably familiar with research that expressing gratitude and feeling it improve people’s lives. I loved my exercise of writing ten gratitude messages a day for a week. Here is the Inc. piece I wrote on it: I Wrote 70 Gratitude Emails. Here Are My Awesome Results.[…] Keep reading →

For context for today’s guest, those who know I’m avoiding flying might also know I’m learning to sail to explore off North America. When considering acting on their values, most people focus on the part they like of what they’re stopping. They don’t seem to have trouble ignoring undesired side-effects, like the pollution flying causes. Sailing and the other things I’ve replaced flying with have given far more than I[…] Keep reading →

Tom Szaky has been working on waste since his undergrad days at Princeton in 2001. Then I suddenly heard about him from many sources in the past few months. His company, Terracycle, recycles waste others don’t. The new initiative, Loop, got attention at Davos and support from many companieswhose business plans depend on producing waste, within an economic model that promotes growth. He also published a book, the Future of[…] Keep reading →

My series answering the New York Times’ Ethicist column with an active, leadership approach instead of an analytical, philosophical perspective continues with “Is It O.K. for a Chinese Restaurant to Favor Chinese Patrons?”. At a Chinatown restaurant we go to for lunch, there is a “lunch menu” and a “dinner menu.” Whenever a Chinese person comes in, he or she is automatically given the lunch menu. When a non-Chinese person[…] Keep reading →

If you’ve never heard Carl Sagan’s spoken essay Pale Blue Dot, you’ll get to hear it in today’s episode. It still chokes me up. Here is an Earthrise image taken a few years ago like those he contrasts the pale blue dot image with. Here is the Pale Blue Dot image.

A few months ago I attended the Summit. It was expensive, so I wasn’t sure I’d get the value out of it that I paid. As it came together for me, I met the founder, Elliott Bisnow, and then happened to meet his mother, Margot, this episode’s guest. She was a big part of making the event great for me. As you’ll hear in the conversation, she was like a[…] Keep reading →