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Sit Up Straight! How To Align Your Story Spine to Win At Business

*Allow stillness to feed your creativity. Only in the quiet moments will your ideas gel and take root. -Praying Mantis This morning a praying mantis appeared in the upper right corner of my bedroom window. Could the message be any more clear? When was the last time you prayed? When was the last time you […]

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Daddy’s Little Girl…I Never Really Was

“Creating a relationship with the daughter I abandoned is the most meaningful thing I’ve done in my life.” The brightly lit lecture hall falls silent. You can cut through the air with a kitchen knife. This man — let’s call him Adam to preserve anonymity — stands at the microphone before a crowd of his […]

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Ballad of the Lonely Entrepreneur: You Are Not Alone!

“When was your last relationship?” I sip water, stall for time. The man sitting across from me leans in. So close I can feel his breath graze my cheek. We are at a high-end restaurant, tucked into a prime beachside location. The kind of joint where Hollywood types hide out, knowing people won’t bother them. […]

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How Hungry Are You? Connect With A Stranger In 20-Minutes Using The Power Of Personal Story

“I was twelve when I started panhandling.” Mary sits across from me, bright-eyed and cheerful in a hot pink stretchy shirt. She tells me she, too, went hungry as a kid. She too had a mother who was suicidal. Who checked out from her motherly duties. Who forgot to feed her kids. So Mary panhandled. […]

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Stop Being Selfish!

STOP BEING SELFISH! That’s my New Year’s resolution for you. I just got off the phone with a brilliantly talented woman who worked with me five years ago. Then she quit. You have gifts. They’re not yours. They’re the world’s. Since then, she keeps marking how many years go by she hasn’t told her story. […]

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Dia de Los Muertos — How to Wake Your Business from the Dead!

November 1st, 2014. 6pm. Annual Dia de Los Muertos — Day of the Dead — festival. Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Hollywood, California. Only a few feet away, the woman with the blue-feathered headdress waves her torch through the twilit air, trailing thick smoke around the circle of Aztec dancers — then quickly, unexpectedly shoves the fire […]

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Are You Afraid to Step Into Your Power?

Early morning. Casa del Mar hotel. Book BlastOff client Michele Brown writes her first on-the-spot timed exercise. It’s such an honor to witness that kind of concentration, creative flow…and trust. Personal story is truly the most intimate act — to write, and to share. Whether on page or stage. Whether to one — or many. […]

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Burn This! The Art of the Moment is Marketing At Its Most Essential

Here I am on a giant bicycle. If I didn’t ask Pete from Playa Bike Repair to take the shot, I might not’ve believed I climbed that bike. Nor remembered how gargantuan it was, how slippery and treacherous. Nor how elated I felt once I was up there, perched over the Playa, on my Mad […]

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So I just bought a yurt…

…because I’m going to Burning Man in Black Rock City, Nevada, again. Round Two. Thanks to the business I’ve built this past year — I’ve upgraded. No More Tent! This time, you will not see me lose my mind on the Playa from lack of sleep, wearing amber-tinted motorcycle goggles that hide eyes so tired […]

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What I Did On My Summer Vacation! How to Strategize Your Change of Scenery for Maximum Brand Shake-Up + Sexier Storytelling

Late afternoon light sifts through the boas of Spanish moss, striping the veranda of Foxy Loxy Cafe with gold. I rock back and forth in a rocking chair, sip hardcore coffee. One year ago in Savannah, I made the decision to join the Hell Raisers II mastermind — a private group of high-level entrepreneurs committed […]

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