Thanks to Twitter, I learned about the Slow Money conference — I hadn’t heard of it until I saw Stowe Boyd’s 140-character updates Thursday. BusinessWeek writes: There’s a conference going on in Santa Fe this week about Slow Money. The idea behind slow money, modeled on the 20-year-old slow food movement, is to create an infrastructure for investing in local…
John and I have just started watching This American Life via Netflix. Since John worked at an NPR affiliate for eight years, we’re well acquainted with the wonderful radio version but we’ve just gotten the first disc of the Showtime TV series. Ira Glass is a spectacular story teller. I don’t know if his approach is the same for television,…
When I first met Sarah Endline at a Michigan alumni event, she had the kind of job lots of MBA students envy, working at Yahoo as the major search engines were really coming into power. When she told me she was leaving the corporate world to start a premium chocolate company, I was surprised. She didn’t have a background in…
My post earlier this week, “Is it true you can’t work harder than your clients?” got people talking — but since some of that conversation happened over on Facebook, I thought I’d copy it into the blog so more people can benefit from the commenters’ wisdom. Julia Collins, owner of Fitness Chick personal training service, said: I want my clients…
Some people don’t pursue their dreams for very practical reasons — they have to pay the rent and they worry that being a musician, artist, filmmaker or writer won’t make any money. A story in the New York Times this week introduced me to Kickstarter, based in our back yard here in Brooklyn. Earl Scioneaux III is not a famous music…
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about a blog post I stumbled onto headlined You can’t work harder than your clients. Diane Sieg, an emergency room nurse turned author and life coach, writes on her blog: As I start my second month of Life Coaching at the Wellness Treatment Center, I am reminded of a very important concept: You can’t…
I grew up in an agricultural state. Michigan grows cherries, apples and sugar beets, among other things, and to live in Michigan is to know the mantra “knee high by the Fourth of July” is a growth measure for the huge expanses of corn fields all over the state.
But I don’t think I’d even heard the phrase “farmers’ market” until I was out of college. Ironically, it’s in super urban New York City where farmers’ markets have transformed both how we shop and how we eat, in both cases for the better.
Believe it or not, the Internet is good for more than watching videos of skateboarding dogs — you can find loads of help on your journey to become a better person. One consistently great site is called Zen Habits. Articles on their Web site include: 20 Things I Wish I Had Known When Starting Out in Life Simple Living Manifesto:…
Do you have a story to tell about change? It could be your own or someone you know or admire. Maybe it’s a business that’s reinvented itself. I would love your input on stories you would like to read here. If you would like to write a guest blog post, I’m open to that. If you want to share a…
I love serendipity and coincidence. When we visited Ann Arbor last weekend, I was talking to Matt and Rene Greff about how much I’d enjoyed Eat Pray Love — a book I thought would be a lightweight beach read but instead turned out to be a thoughful self-examination of a woman’s journey to rediscover herself after a divorce. She travels to…
I recently started reading The Geography of Bliss — our friends Matthew and Lisa bought it for John and he enjoyed it so I’m taking my turn. Here’s how the author’s Web site describes it: Eric Weiner’s The Geography of Bliss signals the arrival of the next great category of literary nonfiction: the philosophical self-help humorous travel memoir. Weiner, a…
Hip Slope Mama, a Brooklyn-based blogazine led by a friend of ours, turned me on to the 3/50 project with this recent post from contributor Mark Caserta. Since last September, business along Park Slope’s commercial streets has fallen off significantly and my store, 3r Living, has struggled to stay afloat in these difficult, uncertain times. Of course, many of our customers are feeling…
Grumpy old man Carl Fredricksen is an unlikely cartoon hero — his wife has just died, developers want to tear down his house, and after he beats one of the developers with his cane, a court order is about to send him to a nursing home. “Up” is a cartoon that tackles some grown-up themes: love, loss, change, the evaluation of how you’ve…
Making the rounds on the Internet the last month or two, fueled by graduation season and a story in the New York Times, is a beautiful commencement address the author David Foster Wallace gave back in 2005. The insights on how to live life become that much more profound after Wallace’s suicide last year. Maybe he knew what he needed…
Have you ever had the experience of hearing someone articulate what you need better than you could yourself? Keith Ferrazzi, author of the hit business book “Never Eat Alone,” spoke at the Mediabistro Circus conference I went to this week. He has a new book out called “Who’s Got Your Back?” and I expected a talk that would be part…
After a few posts about how we’re all going to die, how about one about how to live longer? Sure, it’s a good idea to quit smoking, exercise regularly and eat healthier. But what if going out with your friends this weekend could add years to your life? Research shows that people who have more friends live longer. Here’s a…
New York magazine shows us P Diddy’s white party. Obviously after Memorial Day. It seems like at least once a year I read an article in Vogue or Glamour that says the “don’t wear white before Memorial Day” rule is dead. Wear lovely white wool pants in the winter, wear a beautiful white winter coat, they suggest, and forget that…
And now for the trifecta — a third post on enjoying your precious time on earth while you can. It’s the theme this week. It was the great prophet Frank Sinatra who implored us to live until we die. And though sadly I couldn’t find video of Frank singing, I can offer you this audio courtesy of YouTube. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQh0-CYTPj0] Related…
I’m a big believer in the silver lining — that what initially looks negative can turn out to be a real positive. You might just need to be willing to accept that disguised gift. The New York Times recently ran a story headlined Weary of Looking for Work, Some Create Their Own. Part of the story says: Plenty of other…
Remember in high school art class, when you learned that two parallel lines like railroad tracks converge in the distance? Joel Zeff’s career path looks like that, with his day jobs as a reporter and PR guy merging with his hobby as a stand up comedian and improv troupe member in his current incarnation as a motivational speaker. The beauty…
