Specialists have an advantage in this world. They likely always will. The typical corporation is a complicated assembly line, and assembly lines need machines optimized for one single step in the process. I was never destined to be one of those machines. I got my degree in chemistry, but only after taking courses in communications, […]

Some people are happy sticking with a single specialization their entire lives. The pathway to do that is readily laid out within your specialization. You can ask your manager or some other mentor within the field how to go about staying the course if that is your goal. What do you do, however, if you

Most of us are in career fields filled with specialists. We were also raised by people whose careers probably required specializing. We were mentored by specialists, and we have befriended specialists. We are, in all parts of our lives, surrounded by specialists. It’s no surprise that specialists are everywhere. The business world understands specialists. Companies are

There’s a reason we all want to know how to tell a story. Before I can tell you that reason, I need to talk about the hierarchy of skill specializations. Some skills are highly specialized. They only matter for a very specific type of task. I can drive a tractor, but that has never been

I think we can all agree that neither of the major political parties is an exact match for our wants and needs. Even still, we know that they will win. A Republican or a Democrat will be president next year and 20 years from now. They will control the House and the Senate every term

In a sense, all entrepreneurs have to be skeptics. We are skeptical of the current order, and we believe that we can do better. We believe that we know better. But we often fail when it comes to internal skepticism. We are readily skeptical of the ideas of Google and Microsoft, but we fail to turn

I don’t know how it got there, but in our corner of the office — right beside the printer — lived an espresso maker. It was nothing fancy. I’d be amazed if it had cost even $60, but it was worth its weight in gold. Roughly once a day, someone would turn that machine on,

I don’t do hero worship. I just don’t see any advantage to it. I want to recognize and learn from people’s mistakes instead of only seeing their wisdom. Further, hero worship too easily lends itself to unrealistic expectations of yourself and others. I do, however, value experience — particularly experience that provides a unique perspective from

As an entrepreneur, you are met with a barrage of decisions that you need to make daily. What color scheme should you use for your website? Which project management tool are you going to use? How many customer interviews do you need? How soon do you need them? How are you going to get them?

Want to know how bad my social anxiety is? I used to have a process for sending an IM to a friend. You read that right — I didn’t say a stranger. I needed a process to reach out to a friend. Triple-check the message for potential alternate meanings Worry about it constantly until I receive