I launched my blog in 2009 when I was wrestling with a midlife crisis. Since then, the digital world has changed so much. I was new to both Facebook and Twitter when I started blogging, and I was still rocking the BlackBerry for email. Instagram hadn’t launched yet. Podcasting and short videos are what the cool kids do these days, blogging is considered old fashioned. But I still find it the best way to share my thoughts and to profile people who inspire me.
I hope you’ll find something here that inspires you, or at least sparks a conversation. Some of my favorite posts are pinned to the top, scroll down a bit more to find the most recent, or check out the categories in the sidebar.
A mutual friend introduced me to Heather Newgen when Heather was moving to New York from LA last year. After trading several messages, we met for the first time in New Orleans — I was there on our semi-sabbatical and Heather was shooting a TV pilot she’s pitching called The Voluntourist. I was impressed by her passion for this new…
I’d never heard of St. Vitus’ Dance until I read an ABC News story recently about its anniversary: St. Vitus’ Dance, back in 1374, groups of people — sometimes thousands at a time — started dancing uncontrollably. It continued for days, and in some cases, weeks and months. Some people reportedly danced until they collapsed from exhaustion or even death,…
If you’d like to take some deep thoughts into your long holiday weekend, here’s a great way to spend about 20 minutes. Dan Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, explains in scientific terms that we overestimate the effects of things outside ourselves have on our happiness and that we have great capacity for creating synthetic happiness. In more concrete terms,…
Today is installment #3 in the “Things I Have Learned” series, with this latest list coming from Amanda Hirsch, a friend I met thanks to the wonder of Twitter. Previous lists have come from: me Margaret Yang Amanda Hirsch is a writer and comedian. She lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband, Jordan, their dog, Cosmo, and a lot…
I subscribe to Christine Kane‘s email newsletter, which offers a variety of business- and life-related advice. Christine, an Asheville, N.C.-based musician turned life coach, offers her content for free reuse, as long as its attributed, so here’s one I especially liked recently: The Sharp Edges of Expansion: Why Your Life Purpose Hurts Sometimes Somewhere along the way, we learn to…
Giant spoiler alert: If you couldn’t tell by the headline, this post is about the ending of a movie that’s still in the theater. So if you haven’t seen it yet and don’t want me to wreck everything for you, why don’t you check out another post for now and maybe come back to this after you’ve laughed your butt…
Zen Habits is one of my favorite blogs, and the author offers full permission to share his content. So today I’m reposting one of Leo’s recent articles that really got me thinking, about what discipline really is. Enjoy. The Myth of Discipline Post written by Leo Babauta It’s one of the most prevalent myths of our culture: self discipline. The…
Timed to Cirque du Soleil bringing its new show, Zarkana, to New York this summer, the New York Times offers up a lengthy profile of its creative force, who is described as a “very nice bulldozer.” With the caveat “analyzing his character is challenging since he has few close friends, and even his longtime associates say they hardly know him,”…
Earlier this year, I launched Newvine Growing as a marketing communications consulting firm, with offerings including media training, social media coaching and strategic planning. One of my next steps is providing coaching to those who don’t have the budget for one-on-one consulting but would benefit from a cookbook with guidance on press releases, marketing materials and email newsletters, for example.…
I’m a big fan of setting goals but writing down what I want is not the same as achieving it. My friend, Sara, and I have agreed to hold each other accountable for moving forward on our high-flying aspirations, since creative types often excel at using our creativity to procrastinate in new and interesting ways. That’s why I loved this…
My piano teacher has instructed me that I’m to have a glass of wine before I practice piano. He’s constantly reminding me that it’s OK to make mistakes, that as a beginner I need to make mistakes to learn, and he wants me to give myself permission to be imperfect. Thus the wine, to chill out a bit about whether…
Maybe it’s because I’m a beginner piano player — and I admit it, I sometimes get myself through practice by fantasizing about sitting in with my favorite musicians — but this video of a recent Paul Simon concert chokes me up. Apparently a fan named Rayna yells out that she learned how to play guitar playing Simon’s song “Duncan,” and…
Lately I’ve read a number of articles that discuss the difference between happiness and life satisfaction. In my market research role, I often discussed with people the importance of words in survey questions — asking someone if they are satisfied with a product is different from asking if they’re happy with it, for example. I’m satisfied with my light bulbs…
My blogging to-do list includes several stories I’m excited about, so I hope you’ll stop back in the weeks to come for: a profile of Brook Eddy, a single mother of twins who made the unlikely move from nonprofit fundraising to starting a chai tea company that’s approaching $2 million in sales. Brook is an old friend of ours from…
There’s been a lot of discussion, some serious and some snarky, about the rapture coming today. Personally, I don’t believe God sends an Outlook calendar invitation for the end of the world, but I respect anyone’s right to believe whatever feels true to you. Still, the talk has gotten me thinking about a big philosophical question: if you truly believe…
I moved to New York City from Ann Arbor five years ago this month. Earlier this week I shared a laundry list of tourist tips, in part because visiting friends often ask for “real” guidance beyond what they’d get in a guidebook. Today’s post is more about the experience of being a New Yorker — five reflections on being a…
Five years ago, I packed up and moved to Manhattan for my first post-MBA job. John followed about a month later, after managing a speedy sale of our house, thanks in part to our fortuitous timing before the real estate crash. I think five years is long enough to consider myself a real New Yorker. Obviously not a native, but…
Tim Robbins apparently became such a fan of New Orleans and the HBO show about it, Treme, while he was in NOLA shooting the Green Lantern that he just called up Treme’s David Simon and asked if he could direct an episode. Timed to that episode airing Sunday, the New Orleans Times Picayune ran a great feature about Robbins —…
