A Voice in the Wilderness
There's an ancient passage that describes "a voice crying in the wilderness..." I've been wondering... why was the owner of the voice out in the wilderness if he was a trying to affect change? …
Breakless Time
This is a note to my oldest son upon his graduation from the Culinary Institute of America. On the one hand, it's personal, but on the other hand, it's very applicable to the idea of being remarkable:
Extraordinary Singleness of Purpose
The best professional advice I've ever received came on a lunch hour in 1983, and it changed my life. I was in architecture school at the time, and we had a program called “Lunchline” (concocted by beloved professor Marvin Rosenman) where students would brown-bag lunch and gather around one of the original speaker phones (a big wooden contraption with protruding electronics) and have a conversation with a prominent architect. …
Miss Mary's Method
Miss Mary is an aged homeless woman on South Beach. You can usually find her on Washington Avenue between 9th and 14th Street. Our office is between 12th and 13th, so we see her every day. …
Outliers and Transformations
I'm a huge fan of Outliers... great book by Malcolm Gladwell, if anyone hasn't read it yet. It's enormously insightful and very entertaining, but it has, IMO, an important flaw: most of the stories leave me saying "I could never do that." …
Reflections at 50
I did this post the morning after my 50th birthday. While personal, it also might shed some light on the hope of being remarkable:
I finished my first 50 years of life last night. If life insurance companies are to be believed, I'm not likely to be alive at the end of another 50. …
Time Passages and Fully Living Life
Italy unlocked the strangest secret to me this week. I've just returned from there, where I spent more time (almost 3 weeks) than ever before because with airfare skyrocketing, it's uncertain how much longer I'll be able to afford to go.
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Unqualified for That
You can be good at something you're qualified for, but greatness most often comes because of people doing something they're unqualified for. How can that be?
Ever hear someone say "he's unqualified for that"? …
Zero-Sum Greatness?
Conventional wisdom insists that there are only so many hours in the day, so if you plan on working really hard to be remarkable on one aspect of what you do, other things must suffer. …
