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When I was in high school, I went to see the movie Dances with Wolves with my mom, my brother, and my aunt. It touched me deeply. After watching it I felt like crying. In fact, I desperately wanted to cry. It felt like there were tears right there beneath the surface, but I couldn't get them to come out. I hadn't cried for as long as I could remember.

When we got home, I went for a walk, alone, with our dog. It was night. Quiet. Nobody on the streets. I tried again to see if I could cry. It was…

Today, I'm attending the 99u conference in New York. If you're not familiar, it's an annual conference (6th year) for creatives. The tag line is that it's not about idea generation, it's all about idea execution. 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration.

I wanted to talk about creativity, and specifically what you use that creativity for.

When I signed up for this conference, something within me compelled me to sign up for the VIP option, which gave access to the speaker's lounge. I figured if just on…

We all have to-do lists. And there's always way more on it than we can possibly do. Often it ends up being the list of things we never actually get done. It becomes a nagging reminder of all that we should've done but didn't.

Another problem is that life offers us the opportunity to rediscover who we are on a daily basis. Each morning when you wake up, you are literally not the same person that you were when you went to bed. Every moment is new. Life invites you to ask yourself who you are toda…

One of the reasons so (relatively) few people succeed in business is that it's complicated. Business is not just one thing - it's the integration of hundreds of little things, that all need to be done just so, in harmony.

You've got to have a great product. You've got to market it. You must close the sales. You must have good customer service. You must continue to nurture your relationship with your customers. You must continue to improve your product. You must balance the books and make sure t…

Have you ever had the experience of having a panic attack as your response to discovering a new competitor? You feel like "oh shit, I'm doomed, I'm sure they're much better than us, we can't compete, we're going to be fucked".

I certainly know that feeling, and I've seen it in others. Sometimes it feels like it would be so much better if the competitors didn't exist, and we could have the market to ourselves.

Of course, that's not how the world works, and it turns out that's a good thing.

Did…

Last night I visited the offices of Basecamp and got a chance to speak with founder Jason Fried, the founder. If you're not familiar with Basecamp, they're the company behind the wildly successful project management tool by the same name, and was previously known as 37signals.

Before the recent name change, they were a serial software company. They had several products - Basecamp, Highrise, and Campfire being the most prominent ones. The feeling was that they'd keep creating new products. That …

A while back, I asked Gay Hendricks, what is the number one piece of advice he would give me? His answer: Find those pockets of fear, and turn them into flow by breathing into them. That phrase took on a new meaning for me last night.

I was lying in bed, having trouble sleeping. A couple of things transpired. An old painful sadness came up, which caused a bump in my relationship with my wife. Plus I had to get up at 4.30 to catch an early morning flight to Chicago.

So I laid there, allowing my…