One of my biggest frustrations with corporate culture is the tendency for companies to treat everyone like interchangeable parts. That is such an outmoded, out-dated, obsolete way of thinking! People are not widgets. We’re not meant to sit in boxes all day under bad lighting in a gray office. We’re not meant to kowtow to petty authority and avoid asking tough questions for fear of reprisal. This is not the 1920s – we’re not working on assembly lines anymore. We’re not all doing the same, repetitive task over and over again – and companies that treat their employees...

A lot of people have given me advice over the years. Sometimes it’s helpful, sometimes it’s not. Most of the “bad” advice I’ve been given was very well-intentioned and I don’t hold it against the people who gave the advice, but I think it’s interesting to reflect on why this advice was “wrong” for me. So here it is: some of the worst career advice I was ever given. “Be a teacher.” One of my college advisers told me that he thought I’d be a good teacher. And I was, for awhile – I taught English in Japan for a year on the JET...

If you want to start your own business, especially while working at a day job and keeping up your relationships with your family, you need to be prepared to give up some things. For example: Television. I hardly ever watch TV anymore. Of course, I already wasn’t watching much TV because we don’t have cable, but still. It’s amazing how much you can accomplish when you’re not staring at a TV screen for 2 hours (or more) every weeknight. Nintendo Wii. I used to play the Wii quite a lot – especially Tiger Woods Golf (which is entertaining for all the wrong reasons now that...

In the olden days, we all were farmers. Then the Industrial Revolution happened and we all were (more or less) interchangeable parts on an assembly line. In the future – and to some extent this is already happening – we’re all going to be artisans. Not “artists,” but artisans – independent practitioners of a creative craft. Like carpenters, or jewelry makers, or potters – but instead of physical objects we will be crafting ideas and information and knowledge. (I think “artists” get a bad rap, by the way – if you tell people you’re an...

Part of a continuing series on the fears that hold people back from being self-employed. There won’t be enough business to keep me in business. This is a big fear for every would-be self-employed person. “Will there be enough business to keep me afloat? Will enough clients want to pay me well enough for what I do?” Every business is ultimately a leap of faith. Whether it’s a car mechanic or a restaurant or a cupcake bakery, some businesses fail and others flourish. It seems to me that the businesses that succeed have some kind of underlying “it” factor that drives...