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I was on a client call recently, a team of folks from the financial services industry (whom I’ve been spending more and more time with lately), and we were talking over a concept that mattered to them and that they wanted to communicate. “Can’t you do some clever marketing thing to, you know, message this?”,…

Once I worked with a professional comic, helping with ideas for a talk about comedy she’d like to give. She shared with me a terrifying account of the night, decades ago, when her abusive husband threatened her with a blunt object in his fist. And how, in that moment, a joke saved her life. But…

If there’s one thing about me that you’d never guess in a million years, it’s that I play in a co-ed touch football league, and have for years. I can’t believe it myself. I’ve never been much of an organized sports person, and the memories I have of playing in my youth consist of long…

One of the things you likely dread (loathe, hate) about the holidays is not so much seeing the family, but fielding any number of triggering questions that set you on your heels, flare your defenses, and bring your blood to the boiling point. And that’s because sitting down across from relatives who haven’t seen you…

How is it that one moment you can just be sitting there, chewing your fingernail and then, a split second later, things just click? An idea or thought springs forth with such clarity it’s astonishing. How did I not see that before? Things go from foggy to clear, from flat to three dimensional, from black…

We all say we want to be authentic. What does that even mean, though? We seem to think it means “likable” and “down to earth”—which is why we want to be perceived that way. But in fact, authenticity isn’t necessarily good or bad; it’s consistent. It’s real. You can be authentically warm and funny. And…

Would you rather be handed a brochure… or a ticket? On balance, their material value is the same. In fact, brochures are more expensive to create and produce than a ticket (usually). And yet the inherent value couldn’t be more different. Brochures (most of them) give you a bunch of information about things you could…