Magic

After 20 years of incredible personal and professional growth, revelational conversations, and unforgettable experiences, I’m choosing to walk away from all of my professional affiliations and all of the tools I have used in my practice. I wouldn’t change a single thing about any of it, but I’ve come to realize that those tools and affiliations are no longer serving me. And equally to the point, I have lost confidence that my contributions in those circles are helpful, because my ideas aren’t being field-tested in “real world” business environments. It’s easy to say something ought to be some certain way — much more difficult to show evidence that the way works.

My beliefs aren’t coming from evidence of what works.  They are coming

In the 1800s, “Consumption” was the common name for tuberculosis, a widespread and deadly disease with the notable symptom of coughing up blood. In the modern era, “consumption” is a common name for what Americans do for fun. We consume food, media, and various products, all of it in excess, and much of it not very good for us. We snack on industrial waste, stare at screens depicting other people’s suffering with near-addictive fascination, and accumulate brightly colored but poorly made plastic items in staggering quantities.

Most Americans also work ridiculously hard, because the Puritan work ethic has driven work culture since the first white people stood on American dirt.

Language is a funny thing. We have this crazy idea that words have “definitions,” when in fact the meaning of words is nothing more (or less) than a broad consensus of a lot of people. As the consensus shifts over time, so shifts the meaning of a given word. And in this way language sometimes becomes more precise — and more often, becomes much LESS precise. (Case in point: swell, neat, keen, cool, awesome, hot, and dope have gone from meaning seven very different things to all meaning basically the same thing!)

One of the keen, cool, awesome things that happens with language evolution is when a word that was used in a mean or hateful way is “reclaimed” by the people it was once used to deride. “Queer” went from being an

If you can step far enough back from the noise and chaos of current events, you can see a long-term trend that needs our attention. Key leaders in business, culture, and politics are wringing their hands about “jobs” and the rate at which people are employed. There is much wailing and gnashing of teeth about jobs “disappearing” due to automation or offshoring or simply the elimination of obsolete industries. “Job creation” is the watchword of those who hope to make friends and influence people. 

What nobody seems ready to consider is how this shift reflects a step in human evolution, and how that evolution will change not only the nature of work, but the amount of it that is necessary!

Technological advancements and automation have made it possible to produce more