The Grand Game of Story

An article in the New York Times a few weeks ago broke my heart and angered my soul. It was about the rapes that are occurring in the African Congo. This particular news story told of repeated rapes on an 80-year-old woman. Of her experience, she says she was “demolished.”

When I read stories like this, the . . . → Read More: Right Work

The drummers—there were eight of them—were lined up on the stage like toy soldiers, each with a set of drums and cymbals. One drummer began by calypso-ing a beat. Another drummer responded with a unique cadence. And then another and another and another joined the musical conversation. Within minutes, the entire stage rocked with eight heart . . . → Read More: Remember the Music

As I watch my self-esteem rise after a year of ego-humbling, I wonder about this elusive feeling. When I observe people who get what they want in business, it appears their simply knowing they deserve it attracts success to them. High self-esteem, then, appears to be a magnet.

That said, how do you raise the bar of . . . → Read More: Raising the Bar

A trip to the bookstore last night triggered the blues, where it appeared everyone had published but me. I reacted like a jealous child. “Why her and not me,” my ego demanded.

My ego likes to play the victim. It likes to tell me that I’m a failure if I don’t live up to its bloated goals. . . . → Read More: Your Life’s “Work”

My mother told me once she had to “make me conform” when I was a child. Her comment startled me at the time. But reading James Hillman’s The Soul’s Code, I realize that even as a child, my unique soul’s blueprint was peeking through.

The exercise of itemizing my work history recently for a prospective client showed . . . → Read More: The Soul’s Work

We cannot escape fate, much as I would often like to, much as it pains me sometimes and causes me sleepless night. This is the awareness that came to me recently when, at the request of a prospective client, I made a list of all the places I’d worked, and who I’d worked for, in my . . . → Read More: Fate

Life is a creative act. I forget that sometimes, in the angst of putting food on the table. I forget, too, that our lives are a testament to our beliefs and that, over time, those beliefs become our “truths.”  Where I get into trouble is to accord those “truths” a spiritual status or “right way to be” . . . → Read More: The Work of a Life

Like most writers, my income fluctuates. Some days I’m resigned to my economic state. Most days, I’m too preoccupied to care. Occasionally, I feel embarrassed. Recently, I’ve gotten angry.

Only five percent of writers make a living at writing. Yet those who enjoy our work tell us, explicitly and implicitly, that what we create has little value, . . . → Read More: Art and Survival

I’ve been an entrepreneur most of my life and have often felt isolated. But according to futurists Thomas Frey and Raymond Alvarez, I am about to have a lot of company.

Frey and Alvarez believe we’ve entered the age where entrepreneurial “Empires of One”—one-person enterprises with global reach and lifestyle promises—are the new business model. All I . . . → Read More: The Art of Business