The richest guys I know all listen more than they talk.

— Chris Sacca (@sacca) June 29, 2012

I was in a cab yesterday with my wife and the cab driver sneezed. After he sneezed, I participated in a custom I’ve done automatically for many many years.

I said, “bless you.”

The cab driver said, “ahh-choo.”

Did I hear that right?

He sneezed again. I said, “bless you.” He said, “ahh-choo.”

I found the exchange a funny reminder of how easy it is to misunderstand people and ideas. Was the cab driver saying the word “ahh-choo”. As in, maybe when he was learning English, someone taught him about this English phrase and custom of saying “bless you” after someone sneezes. And when someone sneezes they usually go, “ahh-choo.” The cab driver must have learned or remembered the order of the custom wrong and thinks “ahh-choo” is a word that he’s supposed to utter when someone says “bless you”...

When I was 11 and in grade school, I wanted to be 14 and in high school. When I was in high school, I wanted the freedom college was going to bring. When I was in my first post-college job at 21, I wanted to have the experience and confidence a 30 year old had at the company I worked at.

Youth is wasted on the young.

George Bernard Shaw

“What do I want to be when I grow up?”

At almost every stage of our life, we think about growing up. What’s the next and better thing we are going to grow into.

It doesn’t stop at a personal level either. People love to ask this of non-human things. Business folk and investors love to ask companies: What’s your business going to be when it grows up. I’ve done this over and over again.

The problem with asking this question is that we ask it before we know who we already are.

So a more useful question is to ask yourself: What would remain if...

Some folks have been interested in where I find blog ideas and ideas in general.

If some of this type of thing interests you, keep your eyes open for future posts. Today I just want to share a tiny little bit about where I get ideas from.

One thing I’ve noticed about myself is that a lot of things interest me.

I’m not entriely sure this is a thing that can be taught.

But if it can be, I hope sharing some bits about how much even little things interest me can inspire the behavior in others. Because when folks become interested in many many things, I see awesomeness happen. People listen more. People come up with more ideas. People are more tolerant of the differences in others.

I believe it was when I was about 14 when I was sitting alone, it’s raining outside, and I was manning a golf course pro-shop my dad used to own. I realized I had started making a habit of daydreaming about...

Have you ever read something you wish you hadn’t because it changes the way you see the world? And now things look just a little bit…“off”?

I’ve been designing and helping design websites for years, but I’m not very strong at it. So I’d thought I’d take a crack at learning more things about alignment, positive/negative space, the difference between fonts and typefaces, etc.

I picked up a book called Bootstrapping Design by Jarrod Drysdale. I’ve found it to be very enlightening in a concise package. My kind of book.

Now it has me looking at things with a different eye. Which can be a bit of a curse.

I’m a big fan of 37signals and how they design things. For me, what they do is usually the gold standard. After reading some of Bootstrapping Design, I’d thought I’d take a peek at the new Basecamp homepage to see it with some new eyes.

Huh. That’s interesting.

So here’s the...

Self-efficacy is a person’s belief in his/her own competence, i.e., as the belief that one is capable of performing in a certain manner to attain a certain set of goals. It is believed that our personalized ideas of self-efficacy affect our social interactions in almost every way. Understanding how to foster the development of self-efficacy is a vitally important goal for positive psychology because it can lead to living a more productive and happy life.

Wikipedia

It amazes me how much our moods can change and how they are so easily swayed by our current perspective.

I was in such a foul mood a couple weeks ago on some random Saturday evening. No idea why. A good night’s sleep later, and I was back to my merry self about everything.

This occurs frequently in my creative work. One day or moment and I feel that everything I see or touch seems like an opportunity. An opportunity to...

No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on - it’ll come back around to be useful later.

Emma Coats (storyboard artist at Pixar)

I’ve been learning acting for a bunch of years now. Things seem to be going pretty well. I finally decided to kick up my acting hobby a bit and start getting more serious about auditioning and finding roles. So I took a 9 week monologue class recently, as doing monologues is invaluable for auditioning.

Each week we’d perform a new monologue. So each week I’d work my ass off preparing the next monologue for class. I’d work it and work it. Memorizing the material was the easy part since I practiced it so many times. After one week of working so hard on a particular piece, I was feeling great about it. This should go over well in class.

The opposite happened.

The piece was a dud.

Instead of, “Nate, that was awesome. Great job.” It...

I live in a pretty busy part of Chicago. There’s some dumpsters alongside our building. A consequence of this is that many people seem to think: “if it’s close to the garbage, it’s just like the real thing.” In other words, we seem to collect a bunch of things AROUND the dumpsters, but not actually contained inside where our trusty garbage service can easily move the waste to their trucks.

The result is gross.

There’s constantly broken bottles as I step outside our front door. Extra points because there’s a bunch of dogs and children in the building. Who doesn’t love to play with broken glass?

My wife and I find ourselves cleaning it up. Very. Frequently.

One tremendous day awhile ago someone decided to “throw” out a large glass dining room table. It of course sat outside the dumpster and shattered. Glass everywhere. That took some time to cleanup.

So this last Saturday… I heard...

Anders Conbere made me aware of a video floating around Friday about Mr. Rogers. At first, I was a little nervous about clicking. I sure hope this isn’t comedy using Mr. Rogers’ clips. That guy is too sacred to me.

I’m thrilled I clicked the link.

The video brings up a ton of emotions and thoughts about how creativity and imagination has been so important in my life and where it came from.

I’m sure it’s an equation of both nature and nurture. And I’ve had a whole lot of nurture I’m thankful for.

I’m insanely thankful for the physical and mental tools my parents gave me to play with. My mom worked in microbiology. I had an interest in science. So of course I had your typical chemistry sets you could buy for any kid. But then my mom kicked it up a notch :) Working at a hospital, she brought home fantastical things.

Pipets and pipet guns, dozens and dozens of test tubes and...

Microwaves are only good for making popcorn and baked potatoes.

A friend of mine.

Though I don’t fully agree with my friend’s assessment of the utility of the microwave, I definitely see where he’s coming from.

My wife and I take leftovers home regularly. We are very good about this. It saves money and our waistlines by trying to control those damn portions.

One drawback to leftovers however is reheated french fries.

I might as well save the paper napkins from the restaurant and eat those the next day, if I want to eat something similar to microwaved french fries.

Turning french fries into the texture of a baked potato is definitely not my desired goal.

So I finally tried some advice I feel like I’ve overheard from some conversation on [Reddit](http:/reddit.com).

I think every random piece of news or advice I’ve ‘overheard’ is something I saw on Reddit this week. When, in...

My wife pointed this out to me in Real Simple this weekend.

175 Million
The number of people who flock to zoos and aquariums in the United States each year, as recorded by the Association of, yep, Zoos & Aquariums. A 2009 Animal Science Journal study noted that visitors to zoos left with lower blood pressure and rated their quality of life as improved. So next time the world is driving you wild, go see the lions. They might just tame your stress.

I’m not surprised. One of many things which I have a hard time articulating is how much I’ve enjoyed living near the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. It’s been a terrific party of my life for a bunch of years now.

I’ve been making sure to get 5 miles of walking in a day since January. One of my favorite stops I’ve found is, yep, back to the zoo. Here’s a shot from a few months ago.