Telling stories for fun and profit in the cutthroat world of serious business The title on my business card reads, “Raconteur.” It’s a somewhat archaic term that simply means storyteller, but it’s a hell of a lot better than consultant. The word itself has a rapscallion air to it, as if describing someone…
Browsing CategoryEssay
Why’re You Drinkin’ Like The Night Is Young
Why’re you drinkin’ like the night is youngWhy’re you drinkin’ like the night is youngThe kids are in the bed and the day is long doneSo why’re you drinkin’ like the night is young— Holly Williams Searching for a new perspective for enjoying the experience of dining without booze There is a…
Christmas Means Comfort
A meditation on the food that means home to me, and my ongoing battle with one pesky rooster It finally feels like the Christmas season to me. I still have work to do before the end of the year, but it’s going to be winding down soon, and I’ll have more time…
The Rewilding Of Christmas
In my efforts to reignite joy in the holiday season, I discover the magical promise of Grandie’s Eve As a child, Christmas always felt wonderfully magical to me. It was arguably a strange mix of mythologies, all of them imagined and none of them real, but combined, they created a sense…
The Lost Art of Listening
Maintaining quiet confidence in the face of uncertainty My wife Jane is the type of person who likes to ask a lot of questions during a movie. She has never quite accepted the idea that the filmmakers are only interested in revealing the amount of information they want to reveal, at…
We Can Be Heroes
How tragedy plus time equals comedy “I wish you could swim, like the dolphins, like dolphins can swim. Though nothing, nothing will keep us together. We can beat them, forever and ever. We can be heroes, just for one day.” — David Bowie Tragedy plus time equals comedy. You could probably amend it to…
Is Your Imagination Robbing You Of Real Experiences?
A vivid imagination can let you explore life in ways otherwise impossible, but is it keeping you from experiencing the real thing? The Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman said that he never allowed himself to dream of winning the Nobel, because as a child, growing up during World War II, “he’d…
All That Remains
When it’s all over, who and what will live on “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.” ―Robert Frost Sometimes, I think of hope as the palliative we use to keep from getting lost or going insane, and not much more. It may…
When Huey Newton Ruled The Roost
When the protection racket fails to produce a beneficial outcome Huey Newton is a bad boy, a hard case, a tough guy. It was kind of the point, and how he got his name. The problem is, he’s so disruptive that we had to kick him out of the house for…
The Man Beneath The Beard
The tricky nuances of visual identity and personal expression I lost the beard yesterday. The whole thing. Kaput. Gone. Adios. Sayonara. I went upstairs with a long, grey beard, and when I came down, it was gone. Just some stubble in the shape of a beard, like the shadow of an…