Blog
Answer Your Calling
I am on a quest. It’s a full-on, can’t be stopped, no-holds-barred quest to get you to live your best life.But, I’m not going to tell you how to live your best life. That isn’t for me to say. What I am going to do, however, is demand that you...
Embrace the Edge of Incompetence
We’re grown-ups. We have jobs. Those jobs were earned because we demonstrated competence in a task. That task is valued by the boss, and so the boss pays us. Seems logical so far, right?But here’s where it goes off the rails. We learn to derive our value from the continued...
Four Words to Ban from Your Life
There are four simple words that are ruining your life.Four simple words, seemingly meaningless when uttered as if they didn’t have the power to stop time and kill dreams. They are comfort coma-inducing as they innocently usher you down the path of procrastination justification. Four simple words: “I’ll be happy...
Passion Will Kick Your Ass
Whenever I hear someone decry, “Tell me what you would do even if nobody paid you, and I’ll show you your passion,” I want to hurl.Ugh. Your passion. Praise your passion. Live your passion. Follow your passion.Stop it.Tell me what you would do even if you knew with 100% certainty...
Mentors of a Different Stripe
This weekend I had the privilege of speaking to a room full of women of color, all in the first part of their careers. Each of them were trying to figure out how to marry their passions with their skills to become the leaders that they know deep inside they...
The Key to Personal Reinvention
Grandma Moses didn't pick up a paintbrush until she was 80 years old. Steve Martin became a dad for the very first time at 67. Madonna has reinvented herself every single decade. Even James Bond was trying to figure out how to be old in Skyfall.And, why is this?Because being...
Focus on the Lesson, Not the Mistake
A few weeks ago, I tried to do a good thing for someone that I had admired from afar for a long time. We belong to a small, private community of authors and speakers. He reached out to the group with an emergency, and I, along with a few others,...
Do to Dream
“Dream it, and then you can be it!”I’m calling bullshit.You know those sun-soaked, flaxen-haired, boho-chic girls in Instagram memes, the ones who blow dandelion petals into the air as they stare longingly, and yet purposefully, into the distance? This is precisely the kind of advice they give. And it’s terrible.Don’t believe...
Live a Life of Consequence
Do you sometimes feel like your life has no consequence?We want our lives to matter. We want our love to matter. And, we want our work to matter.But, how can we feel confident that it does? It starts by first figuring out your consonance.So, what is consonance?It’s best explained by...
This is My Freak Flag
I have a freak flag. I’m damned proud of it, too.And, that makes me unapologetic.That wasn’t always the case. I worked hard to fit in, to be like everyone else, to wear the right clothes, get the right jobs, say the right things. And, I was good at it, and...
Overcome the Fear We all Face
I think what makes me different as a speaker is that I have this attitude, this fearless attitude.I know that everybody who’s sitting in the audience is just as afraid of screwing up as I am.Everyone that’s in the audience listening has the same fears the rest of us do....
Bring A Bold Confidence to the Table
Seven years ago, Katherine E. Jacobs and I ate slices of the best dive NYC pizza. Immediately after, we proudly marched ourselves into the chief executive suites at the ACLU to announce it would be a capital idea to put our little search-firm-that-could on retainer. You see, we knew the demographics of...