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This Beauty That I See
When Ann Patchett has an idea for a book, she says it whirls around her like an “oversized butterfly whose wings were cut from the rose window in Notre Dame.” She’s. So. Good. That’s exactly what it feels like when inspiration strikes. That moment when your idea is so beautiful, you have to sit with (…)
How To Become Exceptional and Extraordinary
Hi |*FIRST NAME*| I wrote that on purpose. It wasn’t a mistake. I wrote FIRST NAME and put asterisks around it and then added lines. DO YOU HAVE ANXIETY. The first time I sent an email out to a BIG list with, “Hi |*FIRST NAME*|,” I was 100% certain I was going to be fired. (…)
Remote Bartending Is A Thing Now
Few years ago, I had my own column at Inc. Inc sold my email address to some company named Meltwater that has since distributed it to every bad PR company in the Western Hemisphere. No matter how many requests I make to be removed (and how many years go by that I am no longer an Inc (…)
Brace For Impact
I’m fighting every bone in my body that wants to win the Performance Activism Anti-Racist Olympics right now. Drive-by activism is appealing. I get to post and share and it doesn’t actually cost me anything. Listen, I am nowhere near qualified to address what’s happening right now and am in the midst of confronting my own (…)
Stop Blaming Advertisers
For a hot second during quarantine Hulu had a bunch of old Bond movies up and my husband and I could not get enough. Old James Bond movies are terrible. They’re slow, the plots are dumb, the special effects are obvious, and the fight scenes are super awkward. They’re also EXTREMELY racist. Like, next-level offensive. (…)
A Few Things I’ve Learned About Writing
So, I’m knee-deep in book writing after a two-month hiatus of non-stop existential crises and some actual crises. I know they say circumstances are never ideal for creativity, but calmer would be nice. I heard Adam Grant say in an interview once that he used to write term papers in college while his roommate threw parties and it (…)
What Malcolm Gladwell Can Teach Us About The Joy Of Intellectual Disagreements
A few years ago my friend David went to an event in Manhattan where Malcolm Gladwell was speaking. Gladwell presented some theories on the mortgage lending crisis in that way only Gladwell can – a captivating story that borders on conspiracy theory, but appears to be founded on research and investigative journalism. The audience was (…)
It’s Time To Start Writing
Writing is weird. It’s weird because in order to do it (well) you need long stretches of uninterrupted time. But when you get those long stretches of uninterrupted time, you go into a mental mind-fuckery of all the reasons why you can’t possibly write. And I blame Lizzy. Lizzy is the (not so) lovable asshole (…)