In Over Your Head

Month: August 2010

  • Why We Say “Because”

    “Because” is the place where experience ends and faith begins. Children have two ways of discovering how the universe works: one is to experiment, and the other is to ask “why.” The result is a complex series of if-then conditions that tell a child what can be done, and what can’t, creating flags that are used…

  • Have a good blog? You need a good archive.

    Your archive page is probably the least considered of your blog’s design. Look at any WordPress blog out there, and you’ll see basically the same thing– a sidebar with links, kind of confusing, not much else. Stresslimit and I decided to solve this by releasing our first WordPress plugin. Justin, Colin, and the rest of the…

  • The Body Remembers

    If you have been healthy before, you can get there again, easier. Research shows that muscles that have been strong remember how to be strong again. Your body remembers where it has been and what it has adapted to, and even years later, it keeps that adaptability the same way those that have been fat…

  • The Myth of Behind

    There is no such thing as past failure. There is only now. As I write this I am on vacation in Paris, eating like crap, writing no blog posts, not working out– generally doing nothing productive at all. Sometimes, it feels awesome to be this way. Other times, it sucks. As you read this you…

  • Free to Cheap to Expensive

    “It’s all chips.” Chris and I once used this phrase when keynoting at Affiliate Summit last year– it represented the idea that you need to buy-in to every game (like poker) with winnings from another table. As you move from one table to another, the competition gets tougher but you can also win big. What…

  • We Will All Become Old Men

    When we are young we will: Think we can own the world Want to destroy institutions Fall in love with love Join radical movements But when we grow old, we will change. We will talk about what’s been lost Enjoy convenience Want things a certain way Protect what we have built Are all of these…

  • Everyone will judge you (but no one cares)

    “No one is really judging you; they’re too busy wondering if you’re judging them.” I was very easily embarrassed as a child, so this is the kind of thing my mother used to say often. When she talked to strangers, I pretended I didn’t know her, and she’d remind me again not to be so…

  • You Do Not Have an MBA

    If you’re John Doe, there are a lot of hoops for you to jump through if you want to become Dr. John Doe. Between Jane Doe and Jane the lawyer, there are hoops, too. In both cases they’re pretty important to go through a certain way. This is not the case with an MBA. But…

  • Life Doesn’t Start Tomorrow

    There isn’t a single thing in this world that’s made better by starting tomorrow. Everything you care about, everything you are about, needs to begin today or it may never happen. If you don’t want to do it now, you clearly don’t want it bad enough. Momentum comes from pushing, not from planning. Confidence comes…

  • Your World is Not a Corridor

    In Sept 2004 I had just moved out of a trendy neighbourhood apartment, and into a nightmare. The loft that I moved into was 3000 square feet, had huge windows across the entirety of two of the four walls. It was huge, it was a disaster area, and I had moved in willingly… because of…