I always thought I wanted it pretty bad. I thought I was willing to take the hits, but when I look back and really think it through, I’d be hard pressed to make the case. It was all just plausible deniability. It was never my responsibility. Always something else. Some reason. Some excuse. Sometimes – maybe more times than not – it’s just easier to think more of yourself than to be more of yourself.

But though you can tell yourself whatever you want, life has a simple formula. You do, it gives. You don’t, it takes.

They say the bigger they are, the harder they fall, and you see it all of the time. People hit the wall – … Read more...

Sometimes, the shit hits the fan, and you’re stuck cleaning the mess. And it sucks. How much does it suck? It sucks to the tune of about 10.9 million results plus or minus a few when you Google “What to do when your client is unhappy.” As it turns out, there’s no dearth of advice on how to slink your way through the gauntlet.

And, yet, for all that, the first time I ever Googled those words was exactly 36 minutes and 12 seconds before I started writing this.

Here’s my small contribution to the mix.

When things go wrong, as tempting as it is, this is not your chance to get your passive-aggressive on. People sniff out self-interest faster … Read more...

I just polished off The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt last Friday. Not quite binge-watching, but when you have two kids, you can only go through things so fast.

That’s how the world has changed. It used to be, you watched a show once a week. Now, watching a season in about a week is nothing.

Kimmy Schmidt is a show for our times. Not only delivered instantly, but unrelenting. The references and gags fly fast and furious, as your mind races to catch up. It never does. Between Ellie Kemper’s pitch-perfect performance and Tina Fey’s break-neck pace, it just keeps going, going, going.

And that’s how the world has changed, too. Everything keeps going, going, going, burning through the burn rate. … Read more...

For a long time, whenever I had one of those dejected and down sort of days where you want to curl up into a ball, I would pull out a fresh, crisp 12″x18″ sheet of paper and write out my financial projections for the next five years.

But these were no ordinary projections.

Equal parts delusion and fantasy, grazed only ever so slightly by the constraints of reality, it’s not so much that I couldn’t achieve them, as much as the fact that I knew deep down, I wouldn’t. And I suppose it didn’t really matter a whole lot to me at the time. I just wanted enough to get the blood pumping.

What I didn’t see at the time … Read more...

Better safe than sorry.

Those are the words I’ve known. Those are the words I’ve lived. A calculated existence, staying the course, climbing the hill, waiting to become all the me I could be.

Don’t fight windmills.

Don’t chase the dream.

Be safe.

I had a steady stream of clients, an office in the middle of Manhattan, and a brand new Brooklyn home.

Everything was perfect.

And if you were to ask me what perfect felt like, the best answer I could give is it somewhat resembles staring down the barrel of a 45-caliber loaded gun.

It looks like long hours with mismatched clients, constant insecurity, and a deep well of doubt. It looks like a big mess of yourself, … Read more...