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I can’t tell you HOW many business owners, consultants, and coaches tell me that they don’t think their business should be “about” them. Why? A fear of making yourself the center of attention, of looking self-serving or full of it. I get it. But legit hiding behind your website or mission statement, or just hoping…

When you woke up today, there were problems to be solved. …This thing is broken. …This thing smells weird. …This thing needs to be returned for a full refund. Then there’s… …This person is mad (I think?). …That person won’t get back to me. …These people are impossible. It’s endless. You will not solve it…

When I had a full-time job a million years ago at a catalog company, I had a lot of questions, and opinions about the answers. Sometimes this was helpful; other times…not. (One HR woman a million years ago literally asked me if I would not speak up in meetings because when I did, people tended…

A few weeks ago, my friends and I headed over to Bill’s Place in Harlem — a teeny tiny jazz club with a big reputation. Harlem-born and raised renowned American saxophonist Bill Saxton opened the place with his wife in 2006. But it has a long history that precedes it. Bill’s Place is the bottom floor of…

There’s fear…and then there’s “danger.” We all know to avoid the kinds of danger that involve seat belts, construction sites, moving vehicles of any kind. But I’m not talking about that danger. I’m talking about the things you’ve been talked into being afraid of, encultured to fear; i.e., coming off as rude, offending someone, saying…

It’s great to work with people you love. But I’d be real careful when people try to sell you on how close everyone is, especially when the opportunity isn’t great. You need to be paid in cash; friendships are earned the old-fashioned way. Time. Respect. Trust. A friend of mine is looking for a job,…

Do you care what kind of pen Oprah uses? Curious about what kind of notebook novelist Colleen Hoover prefers? Would eating Hemingway’s breakfast give you Hemingway-sized talent? You can certainly try: Truffle omelette, Canadian bacon, and tea. And a Bloody Mary to ease the hangover. (Yes, of course I looked it up.) It’s interesting to…

I’ve been feeling weird. This whole second half of August has been like one long, awkward pause. I’m not good with too much downtime. When things are quiet, the mind will play tricks. Some of my recent interactions have felt…charged. I feel restless. I have a mild toothache, this one tooth that’s feeling ultra sensitive,…

The Netflix doc of Woodstock ’99 is called Trainwreck. And that about sums it up. Of course, you wouldn’t have caught me DEAD at that concert. I was 26 years old, and even then, was not a fan of relatively mild outdoor concerts. The heat. Nowhere to sit. Port-o-potties. $20 lemonades. No. Thank. You. The…

The literary world was abuzz recently when soon-to-be debut author Jumi Bello confessed in an essay on Literary Hub to plagiarizing parts of her debut novel, “The Leaving,” which was then yanked from Riverhead’s summer lineup. The New York Times reports: “The essay chronicled her history with mental illness and the pressures of producing a debut…