Through the Zoom grid, I could tell nobody was paying attention. People who wear glasses will flash a bright white square in the reflection of their lenses when they navigate to a new tab. If a virtual meeting is boring, it’s easy to multitask, check emails, and scroll through social…

Every time I picked up the phone, I put another paperclip into the jar on my desk. I was playing a simple game with my work, to make it more entertaining (and achievable). The list in front of me had 10 names and phone numbers. Every time I dialled a…

When I was a kid, I spent many happy hours memorizing the colorful lights and sounds of Simon. One of the early handheld electronic games, Simon was both simple and friendly: it would light up one of four colored buttons and play a note, and in response, you would press…

Leonardo da Vinci looked at the world with the eye of an artist, and the raised eyebrow of a scientist. Arguably one of the most creative people who ever lived, he produced paintings, sculptures, feats of civil engineering, and breakthroughs in anatomy, hydrodynamics, and optics. Less than 20% of da…

Work without will or wonder is just drudgery. Play is an overlap of work, will, and wonder, and it transforms how we participate in the act of working. Bringing play into your work increases your capacity to do work well. Think of the seven dwarves, toiling in the mines; they…

When I hosted the Marketing Yourself Masterclass earlier this month (replay here), I asked everyone to answer this question in the chat box: What’s the hardest thing about marketing yourself? The answers included: Knowing the difference between marketing my brand vs marketing myself Having a well defined product and knowing…