I have a couple of questions for you and an urgent warning about how little time we have left. But first I want you to understand that you and I have a few things in common. We both come from humble beginnings. I’m not sure exactly where you grew up and what…

Today I want to talk about a Street-Marketing lesson I call “How to take it in the shorts… and love it”. It’s about how to get qualified critiques for your writing. First, I’ll hit you with the big setup statement. Here it is: Writers do not work in teams. Stay with me…

Before he became the most brilliant and famous man in the ad business, David Ogilvy sold vacuum cleaners door to door. Because of that, he never forgot that advertising is just a slightly more scalable form of creating demand than door to door sales. But the rest of us, decades away from…

What do the world’s richest men, Bill Gates (net worth $21 billion), Oracle founder Larry Ellison ($15 billion), and computer innovator Michael Dell ($11 billion) have in common? None of them has a college degree — which goes to show you that a college degree is not necessarily a prerequisite…

Today’s children are riddled with shots that chip away at their self-esteem and self-worth. From bullying—whether overt or passive (i.e. being left out of games or groups)—to learning disabilities to familial dysfunction to peer pressure, they are constantly under fire. Positive self-talk is a crucial, effective strategy they can use…

When I was trying to get on the national volleyball tour, that was the only thing I was focused on. So eventually, I played professional beach volleyball. When I was trying to get my memoir published, I was focused on that more than anything else, and eventually, University of Colorado Press came through.…

“I want to get rich.”My friend Dean and I were out for a drink the other day. He recently quit his job. It was a stable, six-figure government post. But it was boring… and there wasn’t much “upside” beyond his current position.If he’d stayed, he would have ended up doing…

There is a lesson you may have heard connected with one of the most successful product pitches in history. Forrest E. Mars grew up in a candymaker’s house. And, with some big shoes to fill. His father’s home business grew to invent and sell some of the world’s most famous…

$70 million was a lot of money for me at the time. And I couldn’t sleep at night until I gave back every dollar to the people who gave it to me. I was running the sort of fund where people gave me money and then I invested it in…