“I’ve arrived!” the young Hungarian announced to an audience of none. The year was 1921. The place was San Francisco. He’d been traveling for days, but instead of looking for a place to rest, the man had one last thing to do.

“Excuse me ma’am!” he politely said to an elderly woman. “Would you be so kind as to tell me which building houses the city press?”

“You can’t miss it!” the woman replied while pointing straight ahead. “It’s that building right there with all the flags hanging from it.”

After giving the woman a hat tip to show his…

It was the fourth week of quarantine when my wife began to cry.

One of her dad’s favorite things to do is to go hiking every Tuesday with his buddies. For the ten years I’ve known him, the only thing that’s ever stopped him from going is either being hospitalized or lockdown. Bad weather doesn’t stop Lluis. He loves the mountains. It’s his place. The moment he steps onto a trail he blends into it. But even more than the mountains, he loves getting a day out with his friends. They’ve had this weekly tradition for over a decade.

It…

With the exception of salespeople and telemarketers, I’d be willing to bet a delicious bag of french fries I start more conversations with new people than anyone I know.

Over the last few days, I’ve gotten to know a man who took a raft from Africa to Italy to start a new life for himself who writes beautiful and inspiring words. I’ve also spent an hour speaking with a woman in San Fransisco who spends her Sunday mornings trying to make her blueberry pancakes look like the faces of her friends.

These conversations are fun. They give me energy. They…

I like Robert Glazer’s most recent book entitled, “Friday Forward: Inspiration & Motivation to End Your Week Stronger Than It Started.” It’s fun. It’s also got some really good ideas and reminders in it. This is particularly true of the list of “life hacks” he shared courtesy of Morgan Housel, a partner at Collaborative Fund including:

“Marketing hack: Make a product that people need.
PR hack: Do something newsworthy.
Writing hack: Write every day for years.
Learning hack: Read a book. When finished, read another.
Organization hack: Clean up your mess.
Savings hack: Lower your ego and live below your means.
Investing hack: Give…

When given a head start in Monopoly for a study, people displayed unusual behavior. After receiving an additional $1,000 of fake money, they put their feet on the table, grabbed snacks without asking, and spoke in an uppity tone to the people around them. In short, they moved from kind to cold in seconds flat.

This in itself isn’t too shocking as we all know money and power do funny things to people. But what really caught my attention was the research wasn’t performed on Wall Street, nor was it gathered at Elon Musk’s monthly poker party. …

“My horse! My horse! Has anyone seen my horse?”

The villager ran into town asking everyone and anyone if they’d seen his prized possession. Hours later, after inspecting every barn and bakery, the defeated man sat down on a nearby bench to think about what in the world he was gonna do.

“What’s troubling you?”

Startled, the villager’s sunken head shot up and locked eyes with an elderly woman who’d quietly sat down beside him.

“What’s troubling me? the villager snarled. “I’ll tell ya what’s troubling me, them damn thieves stole my only horse! He’s gone. Just wait till my…

“You have one minute to tell me why I’m here and another minute to tell me why I should stay!”

When my dad was starting out in his career, he was asked to give a presentation to the bigwigs in his organization during an extremely sensitive time. As you can imagine, when the biggest wig of all stopped him five minutes into his talk, my dad was frazzled. In the end, he pulled himself together and was later commended for telling them exactly what they needed to know and not a word more.

When I asked my dad for his…

Hi, my name’s Michael Thompson, and growing up my primary goal was to live as many lives as possible. Towards the end of my twenties, however, I learned the hard way that constantly reinventing yourself without taking the time to truly get to know yourself wasn’t necessarily a smart move. As a result, I spent the better part of my thirties trying to learn how to smile without having to fake it.

Now that I’m in my forties, I’ve got a new goal: find a little corner to do the work I care about surrounded by the people I care…