instinctual adventurer

Expected elation. Society has built a world that defines what's appealing and what's not. What success should look like. I spent years chasing this idea, and achieved it. And never felt truly happy. Why? It seems so obvious, there are a million songs and movies about how wealth and fame aren't the end all be all for human states. Yet we pursue it a... See more

I don’t think that humans can really move forward into whatever’s coming for us next without facing what we’ve done to our home and each other. Such a reckoning includes the beauty, joy, and community found in crisis, as well as the pain. The sociologist Donna Haraway calls this “staying with the trouble.”

In 1985, Nike held a 24-hour shoe design contest. Nike was struggling. Their stock dropped 50%. They had to lay off people. Adidas, Converse, and Reebok were all selling more shoes. So in a panicked attempt to find creative talent, Nike held a shoe design contest. The winner was a corporate architect named Tinker Hatfield. “Two days after the compe... See more

There are a lot of benefits to being good at that narration. Describe your “calling” convincingly and you've defined a new game that others want to watch and play. But it’s a catch-22: if you spend all your time constantly sketching (probably quickly outdated) pictures of your thinking on the bigger questions we’ve all been tasked with answering, y... See more

I’ve learned that if I think about this problem on a daily basis— what positive impact can I have here and now on this day? —I start making better decisions. I begin doing better things. Even the smallest matters of daily life provide an opportunity for this. That’s reassuring—because those are constantly at hand and don’t require changing the whol... See more

When we invest in different parts of ourselves, research shows that we’re better equipped to deal with life’s inevitable challenges. For example, in one study, Dr. Patricia Linville found that subjects with a more differentiated idea of themselves—what she calls having greater “self-complexity”—were less prone to depression and physical illnesses f... See more

I’ve concluded that the metric by which God will assess my life isn’t dollars but the individual people whose lives I’ve touched. I think that’s the way it will work for us all. Don’t worry about the level of individual prominence you have achieved; worry about the individuals you have helped become better people. This is my final recommendation: T

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J Curves are stretch opportunities where you take on a role outside your comfort zone. In the best case, these roles make you feel like you’re on a whole different planet. They’re high risk, but if you succeed, they accelerate your growth like nothing else can.

These opportunities can be transformative for someone’s career trajectory but they are al... See more