It’s Time To Blackmail Yourself

It’s Time To Blackmail Yourself

Over the last three years, I’ve worked tirelessly to improve my city (Fargo, North Dakota), to shift its global image and create something special for my community of friends. We’ve had a tremendous amount of success, with glowing local and national attention, plenty of nights with the fondest of memories to fill a scrapbook, and […]

A Moment of Zen Could Be The Answer

A Moment of Zen Could Be The Answer

I’ve just had my first Zen moment in Japan. For a while now, I’ve been wrestling with what to do next with my life. Something we all face, at some stage. I’m staying on the sacred island of Shikoku – hot springs and 88 main temples, plus 20 minor temples, to make up the magical […]

The Original Assumption

The Original Assumption

Last week I was the most exhausted I have been for quite a time. I was so tired that I could not finish my blog post on The Kindness Virus. I have to confess that the second half (or better half) of the post was actually written by my wonderful wife, Valerie. This was the […]

A Journey Into The Unknown

A Journey Into The Unknown

On the 3rd of August 1492, Christopher Columbus set sail with 3 ships to discover a Western trade route to the East. Interestingly, his journey was the result of a miscalculation that the world was smaller than it actually was. If not for the existence of the New World, they would certainly have all perished. […]

Skin In the Game

Skin In the Game

Why do I pick up a piece of rubbish at Burning Man, when I would typically let if fly past me if I was at home? This is the question I asked myself, as I compulsively ran off into the desert in the extreme heat of the day, chasing a bit of paper that flew […]

The Faster Horse

The Faster Horse

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said ‘faster horses’.” This quote from Henry Ford has more relevance now than ever. The gap between what is already possible for humanity and what is actually being delivered is widening every day. We are trapped in a world with governments aspiring only to […]

Build Peaks – Don’t Fill Troughs

Build Peaks – Don’t Fill Troughs

There is no ‘one size fits all’ way to do things. I see so many people trying to be someone they are not. There is this belief out there that things should be hard; should be a struggle and you ‘should’ be a certain way. I don’t really buy it. Any struggle provides information that […]

The 4th R

The 4th R

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”   – Viktor E. Frankl If ever there were a quote that highlighted one of the main opportunities for growth in every human being, it is this one. Because […]

The Power of Safe Spaces

The Power of Safe Spaces

One of the things I have come to recognise in recent times is the power of safe spaces. Without them, we cannot explore our full potential. To me, a safe space is somewhere you can explore whatever you want to explore, freely and without consequence. It can be a crash mat when you are learning […]

The Struggle

The Struggle

It would have been easy for me to not share this post at all. It would have been easy to project an aura of invulnerability to the world, as if the journey is always easy. The truth is – it isn’t always easy. One of life’s great problems is the gap between what people project […]