The Impermanence of Life: A Heuristic for Handling Loss

Impermanence in sand

The moments of deepest contentment in my life have come in moments when I am forced to accept the impermanence of it. I knew it was coming. That text or that phone call would come, and I wouldn’t know how to handle it. Then, at 2:00pm on Thursday, the dreaded text came through: my grandfather,…

The Irrational Fear of Vulnerability

The Irrational Fear of Vulnerability

If you want to free yourself from the past so you can fully move forward into the future, confront your irrational fear of vulnerability. Discuss your fears and insecurities with the world. Or at least with a friend. Growing comfortable expressing yourself with vulnerability, with full authenticity, will open an entire world of possibility that…

12 Favorite Problems: A Practical Framework for Discovering Your Purpose

12 Favorite Problems

If you are having difficulty discovering your purpose in life, start by defining your 12 favorite problems. We often feel lost in life when we lack purpose. Traditionally, we have been trained to rely on our ideas, our passions, and our skills to find direction. While this puts us on track to find something, this…

The Unfinished Jigsaw Puzzle: Solving Life One Piece at a Time

The Jigsaw Puzzle of Your Life

In this post, I’m going to take you to an unfinished jigsaw puzzle table, into a forest fire, and to (but not on!) a roller coaster. This short journey you are about to experience will take some sharp turns and tangents, but by the end, I promise that the essence of this post will not…

Pencil Paradigm Shifts: Small Moments that Make a Big Difference

Pencil Paradigm Shifts: Small Moments Make a Big Differece

Paradigm shifts are fundamental changes in our thinking and are powerful influences in what become our habits. They can fast-track our formation of new habits, unlike any other experience. So, what if I told you some of your good habits can be formed in a small moment--a blink of an eye? Habits are the building…

Prove Yourself Wrong. It Will Always Prove You Right

Leave the hard climbing to the experts

Replace the need to perpetually prove yourself right, with an ingrained reflex to prove yourself wrong. Visualize climbing a thousand-foot ladder up the side of a steep mountain face. You desperately want to reach the plateau so you can rest, enjoy the view, and prove to everyone else that you are strong, determined, and superior.…

The Magic of an Orthogonal Mind

Orthogonal Mind

Orthogonal is an unusual word. Orthogonal is a unique word. Orthogonal is an orthogonal word. Here’s an easy way to think of this concept: Imagine one straight and narrow line on a graph (g), traveling in one rigid direction in perpetuity. Now imagine a line (P) branching out from your original line, like so: Another…

How to Cook Steak Like a Pro: From Novice to Chef in a Night

Learn to Cook

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook…