Some traditions are powerful, even in their simplicity. This weekend we celebrated Memorial Day, an annual favorite holiday of mine, as our tradition is to celebrate it with extended family at the beach. Staring at the ocean, the soft, rhythmic roar of the waves is almost hypnotic, allowing me to step out of […]
I’ve always been a huge musical theater fan. Show-stopping tunes like “One Day More” from Les Miserables, “The Gods Love Nubia” from Aida, “Defying Gravity” from Wicked, and more recently “My Shot” from Hamilton leave me on the edge of my seat. But what makes these shows so powerful is not just their ability […]
Do any of the following sound familiar? You thought you hit reply… but actually hit reply-all You agreed to help someone with something before realizing exactly what you just committed yourself to doing You said something to someone, and instantly realized it sounded different (and much better) in your head You rambled on and […]
To my own surprise, I’ve managed to achieve a number of things I never thought would be possible, most of which, early in my career, I never would have imagined doing at all: I got a PhD (surprise #1; I never wanted to go to grad school) from an ivy league school (surprise #2) […]
Imagine a conversation with your point person just a day or two before one of the biggest presentations of your life. As part of their last-minute notes, they share some details about who would be in your audience, and how you’d be required to accommodate them: A large percentage of your audience would be […]
When my son Thomas was in middle and high school, one of our favorite programs to watch together was “American Ninja Warrior,” (ANW). Think of the world’s craziest carnival-style obstacle course, where contestants take turns watching each other try to get to the end of each run and hit the buzzer, or more commonly […]
One of my favorite TED talks is Angela Lee Duckworth’s Grit: the Power of Passion and Perseverance. Grit, as Duckworth defines it, is a combination of passion and perseverance over long periods of time, as in years, or even a lifetime. Grit was the strongest predictor of success when compared to other variables ranging from […]
Q: “Why does a dog wag its tail?” A: “Because the dog is smarter than the tail. If the tail were smarter, the tail would wag the dog.” The notion of “the tail wagging the dog” is an expression that has been around for 150 years, alluding to the idea of something small and seemingly […]
Did you ever wish you could be a fly on a wall, undetected but freely able to listen to people’s conversations so you’d know everything that was going on? The closest I ever came was when I moved to Japan to teach high school English. I was instructed to run an immersion class, all […]
One of the most popularly referenced passages from the Bible – which most people don’t realize is from the Bible even when they’re quoting it – is from Mark 6:4, when Jesus said, “…a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown, and among his relatives, and in his own household.” For example: Have you […]
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