Welcome To My Blog

In a recent planning session, a friend wanted to find out what my core values were. I’m embarrassed to say I couldn’t state them immediately. I had to think a little bit before I said something like truth and art and that sort of thing. My friend then asked what sort of scenarios or events or even people made me angry. And I knew the answer to that immediately. Injustice makes me angry, specifically when somebody is controlling and takes away the will of an innocent person. People who don’t know boundaries make me angry. Bullies make me angry, and I have no problem standing up to them. From there, my friend helped me create a list of core values, which were justice, truth and freedom. Very American, I suppose. What was most interesting, though, is that the stories I tell out of my core values are going to be better because they are taylor made for me. If I work on books and projects that set people free from manipulation and lies, from bullies, my projects will be fueled by who I am and my story will be authentic. And the opposite is also true. If I work on [...]

The first conversation we have with somebody can be awkward. We don’t know them, so the first thing we do is make connections, how do you know so and so if we are at a party or a wedding is a routine question. If we are both married with kids, we might ask about that, too. We just find common ground, essentially asking the question What do we have in common so I can understand you through the lens of my own experience? Or, perhaps more crudely How are you like me, and so how are you human? From there we tend to ask what they do, where they work. That’s not a bad question, because work often encompasses our passions and even our education, but it also rings of you are your work. We are much more than our work and even our family. These formulaic questions evolved from the need to make conversation more than the desire to get know somebody. What results is we begin to think that people are fairly boring. But it’s not the case. After writing Million Miles, I realized every person has a story. And I started asking different questions when I met [...]