Regardless of if you’re hanging out with friends or running a business, you will need to make a request of your peers sooner or later. On one hand, you need to get something out of the request. On the other hand, you don’t want to be that guy.   This...

I’m not here to hawk any self-help products, yet like many book writers I will make the bold claim that I know the formula to success… and it is simple. Surprisingly simple — and widely overlooked or ignored.     I’m not saying that this formula will make you rich....

Malcolm Gladwell uses the term “Outliers” to describe people who are exceptional in some way. His point is well made, but at the end of the day we tend to forget that outliers are people who are different. Strange. Weird.     To have unusual success, you need to be...

I once read an article that called my generation the “Mr. Rogers’ Generation…” and it was not a compliment.   The author’s point was that our generation has a sense of entitlement that has not been earned. We have been told “you are special” so many times that we began...

When it comes to safety, appearances are much more important than fact. Thieves choose their victims based upon who looks like and easy mark.   I just landed in Lima, Peru last night and at no point did I feel at risk. Yet, many people warned me on my way...

No matter where I go in the world, I always know that sanity is just a plane flight away.   I tell people that I meet that I do not really have a “home” and that I move countries every 2-3 months. While this is true, if you look at...

A wise Geometry teacher once explained to me that a point in space is infinitely small. Imagine a sphere that takes up absolutely no space. So, no matter how many points you add together, you’d never be able to fill even a matchbox.   Sometimes, this is how I feel...

After I learned Mandarin Chinese, Spanish and a little Arabic I did not think that switching between foreign languages was very hard. The three (plus English) were all from distinctly different language families, which made the task relatively painless. Not only did they sound different but the very grammar and...

It can be tough to be happy in bad (or even just unusual) situations. Emotions overwhelm us and threaten to disturb our inner-peace. Yet we can each use the power of spontaneity to be a little happier, even in the worst of times.   Somewhere in the world, Edward Murphy...

This is a guest post by Joel Runyon of the Blog of Impossible Things. As I (Zane) prepare to perform a number of health and fitness related experiments, I asked Joel to share his recent experiences.   Believe it or not, before November 2009, I had never run more than...