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Dive Deeper
Have you ever gone snorkeling? Any time I strap on the goggles and snorkel and dip my head beneath the surface of the water, I’m breathless (even after I get used to breathing through a tiny pipe 😉 ). Water looks fairly ordinary above the surface, but once you look beneath the surface, you discover…
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Your Story Isn’t Out There
When you picture “living the life”, what does that look like? How far is that life from your current location (either in kilometres, or years, whatever)? I recently read Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, where he writes about how living a good life is like writing a good story. As he…
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The Ads Know What You Need…
…but they know they can’t deliver. Ever since I started working in the advertising industry I’ve been amazed at how advertisements can tap into human desires and emotions. In 30 seconds of video or audio, or a few thousand pixels, a successful ad can pull us into a story, make us laugh, bring us to…
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Growth Starts Underground
When “self” is something we can curate by posting the right things on our social media page, we can forget about the hard work that it takes to accomplish anything. The mantra subtly changes from “you can be anything you want to be” to “you can look like you’re anything you want to look like”.…
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Coals Will Keep You Warm
Your passion, whether for a person or mission, will be praised only for while its flames are dancing. Heroic acts of love and self-sacrifice will be applauded, but these feats will eventually fizzle out like the brightest of campfires. No, the true strength of your passion will be proven the next morning, long after the…
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Gratitude is an Act of Rebellion
Nearly every advertising message tell us about the things we do not yet have, but probably need, things that will make us more happy about life. Most of the photos on our Instas and Snapchats remind us that our friends are having much more fun this weekend that we (because all we’re up to is…
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Play to Keep Playing
In his speech this morning to the Live2Lead audience, Simon Sinek outlined the difference between finite and infinite games (an idea Seth Godin has also talked about, and was originally introduced by James P. Carse). A finite game has agreed-upon rules, fixed boundaries, players, goals, and an end. A basketball game always ends, and it’s…
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Follow Your Doubt
We all have our doubts, but they’re usually stuffed away somewhere, ignored, and we’re ashamed that they’re there in the first place. Doubts in our culture are seen as weakness, particularly if you’re a leader. Leaders are looked upon to keep a strong face and produce answers and clarity amidst an ever-changing landscape. But is…
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Your Map Has Yet to Be Drawn
Years ago, when I was first making my way out of school and into the wide world of real life, I asked an older man I respected about what I should do with my life. Maybe his gray hair made him look how I imagined God to look, but somehow I thought he knew what…
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Half Our Problems
Louis CK had this great bit on Conan a couple years ago about the magic of flight and WiFi and how we all feel more entitled than ever before in history. You should watch it again: We’re all quite aware of our #firstworldproblems, but it’s helpful to acknowledge how small they really are sometimes. A…