Essays & Articles About Business, Leadership, and Culture
Entrepreneurship For Humans
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I Quit! How The Ethos Of The Great Resignation Is Fueling The Great Pivot
"This did not feel like real life, exactly, but nowadays what did?" Patricia Lockwood I first saw the Fisher-Price My Home Office playset cross my...
Thinking Systems? Here’s What Every Small Business Owner Needs To Know
“I need to create some systems for my business.” It’s one of the key needs we hear from small business owners. Recognizing that they have something...
The Tourist, The Artist, and The Archeologist: How Changing The Way You Think About Business Changes What You See
The way we think about business shapes what we can do and build with our businesses. Two different perspectives will...
The Latest
“But should you, really?” or, How to Challenge Your “Shoulds” and Get Back to What Matters
This is a should I can get behind. How many shoulds or supposed-tos do you utter in a day? How often do you put yourself down because you’re not doing something you believe you should be doing? And how many times do you think critically about whether taking those...
The Economic Functions of Busyness: From Convenience to Debt
I'm not a very busy person. I don't mean that as a weird flex. Nor do I say it as a way to eschew the elevated status of Very Busy Person. There simply aren't a lot of varying demands on my time. There is plenty that I want to do—books I want to read, ideas I want to...
Busyness Decoded: How to Limit What You Say “Yes” To
If you feel overcommitted or overwhelmed regularly, you’re not alone. In a 2022 survey, Gallup asked Americans to gauge their stress levels. Nearly half of the adults polled responded that they felt stressed daily. In a Pew survey in 2018, 60% of U.S. adults deal with...
Laid Off: What’s the future of social media?
When Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter finally became officially, he immediately fired the CEO and other top executives. That much is perfectly normal when a new owner takes over. But on Friday, half of Twitter’s workforce opened their personal inboxes to learn their...
Putting in the Reps: A Love Letter to Podcasting & Practice
This week, I celebrated both the release of my book and the 400th episode of my podcast. It’s been a big week. Just about seven years ago, my production team at CreativeLive and I launched this little podcast baby out in the world. For the first 120 or so episodes, we...
The Satisfaction of Practice in an Achievement-Oriented World
An excerpt from What Works: A Comprehensive Framework to Change the Way We Approach Goal-Setting by Tara McMullin The rules had been constructed long before I was born, and I did not know yet I was allowed to break them or redefine them or ignore them entirely. — Jami...
Hustle Culture: How did we get here? And what do we do about it?
American culture is hustle culture. We place extraordinary value on productivity, efficiency, and the willingness to suck it up and squeeze more in. Our heroes are entrepreneurs and artists who put in the work. We are educated in hustle culture from the time we start...
What Type of Goal-Setter Are You?
I've explored goal-setting and planning with small business owners, creatives, and independent workers for over 12 years now. That means I've observed many different types of goal-setters. Some confidently choose a new goal and get to work. Others rebel against...
The Body at Work: Why Self-Control is the #1 Rule of the 21st-Century Economy
The first time I recognized that my body should be controlled was when I was eleven or twelve years old. Thanks to some particularly nasty asthma medication, my body was already well on the “after” side of puberty by that point. A large three-way mirror, inviting...