From the inimitable Wake Up Tiger:

The great affliction of our age is not the axis of evil — it’s the axis of mediocrity. We are far more likely to die from a lack of passion than from some great evil.

The BIG [elephant in the room] question then is: “So what the heck am I passionate about?”

– a note on PASSION

What …

Every so often, I come across words that resonate deeply with me, with my particular circumstance at a particular time.

This post by Michael Tate is the most recent. Via Mia Jane.

My summary below – though I strongly urge you to read the entire original post:

It is extremely difficult to maintain courage ?under fire?, particularly in maintaining inner-strength, character, fortitude, and the clarity …

This is a quick snip snip of the choicest bits, the bits that stood out for me as I was reading this article, “Nice and nasty does it: Shirky the ‘net guru’ on what the future holds” by Decca Aitkenhead in the Sydney Morning Herald:

“And to put it in one bleak sentence, no medium has ever survived the indifference of 25-year-olds.”

The business model of the traditional …

A beautiful, short, fun and thought-provoking animation about mirror neurons, empathy, the future and the world. Challenging the assumptions about human nature, the assumptions that many of our institutions, like education, are based on. Eg we are hard wired for sociability, attachment, affection and companionship. Not aggression or self interest.

“We are soft wired to experience another’s plight as if we are experiencing it ourselves … The first …

Marketing managers have now more or less learnt the topical key words – emotional engagement, authenticity, engaging in conversations…

But the doing of marketing is still essentially flawed – because marketing is still treated as a standalone function at the end of a linear service/product development pipeline. Marketing is still treated by many businesses a veneer/façade function, and thus necessarily shallow.

You want to be authentic, genuine, appeal to …

Just like we are personally subjected to the tugs of what I should do vs what I want to do, businesses are similar affected – what the world, “common wisdom”, “experts”, trends, and the media tell them they should do, versus what their leaders and people truly want to do.

In the race for authenticity and differentiation, doing what everyone says you should is probably not a good idea. …

I have been pondering this for a while now: Why is it that the older I get the less I get to do what I “want”, and the more I seem have to do what I “should”?

Just when I have finally assembled a somewhat decent carpet bag of knowledge, experience, skills, nous and resources – ready with the stuff to engage more broadly and deeply with the …

Luxury is something much of the world seems to aspire to without question. It is sold as the pinnacle of personal success, excess, and self-worth.

Luxury seems to equate waste no matter how you look at it. And huge amounts of waste at that; in the form of disposable goods (I can afford to throw perfectly good things away), disposable people and lives, pointless activities (growing lawn in drought-ridden …

The Singapore government has a long history of running social improvement campaigns: be gracious, be kind, smile more, don’t forget to flush the toilets, and it’s cool to speak Mandarin.

This made me wonder: how would one go about inducing an entire nation to start thinking outside the box? Or for that matter to appreciate, value and desire quality over quantity? (These are challenges that are by no …

Image from http://www.wordle.net/

The RSS feed link for Cody McKibben’s Thrilling Heroics blog invites us to “join the rebellion against the status quo and follow Cody’s adventures in lifestyle design, entrepreneurship & travel!” He goes on to say:

I started Thrilling Heroics in 2006 to encourage young professionals and entrepreneurs to pursue an unorthodox, exciting lifestyle and career, strive for excellence, …