I’ve been teaching creative writing for many years. And teaching writing is a weird thing, because it’s not just about helping students master a subject. It’s really about helping them discover what stories they’re meant to tell, how best to tell those stories, and how to overcome the inhibitions that inevitably arise when we seize the mantle of na... See more

Write little phrases that will “open a door to a scene”: Often, we can’t see our entire project in its full form, but we can see little pieces of it. A curtain moving in the morning light, for example. A man sneaking around a house. Jotting down these little hints “open a door” for your future writer-self.

Once you’ve finished at Harvard Business School or any other top academic institution, the vast majority of people you’ll interact with on a day-to-day basis may not be smarter than you. And if your attitude is that only smarter people have something to teach you, your learning opportunities will be very limited. But if you have a humble eagerness

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It’s an entrepreneurial trope, and a tired one, to believe that I should maximize every aspect of launching . Most everybody who's been in my shoes heralds events as the best way to get people in the door, which is another way of saying that events are the best way to make money. Money is important, sure, but I’ve generally found it to be a shitty ... See more

“In many ways the magic of Patagonia comes from the constraints we place on ourselves which are grounded in our deep sense of responsibility to do right by the environment and society,” Stanley told me. “We can't go to the Fashion Institute of Technology library and choose from 5,000 fabrics for the spring line. We have a couple hundred we can choo... See more

every human being is a storyteller, that stories are how we seek to understand the meaning of our lives

There are days that compel me to walk outside of my studio, turn my face to the sky, and scream with delight “I love my life! Thank you Universe!” at the top of my lungs. But some days, when I’m in a crunch, I walk outside and hold my hands up to the sky, squint at the sun, and with a middle finger sticking out of each fist I gesture:— Yeah, yeah..... See more

In choosing how we are in the world, we shape our experience of that world, our contribution to it. We shape our world, our inner world, our outer world, which is really the only one we’ll ever know. And to me, that’s the substance of the spiritual journey. That’s not an exasperating idea but an infinitely emboldening one.

Someone has to tell these kids, “wherever you go, you’ll find yourself there, and you have to start to do the work of accepting who you are, as much as you may not like yourself.” The stakes are high.