Last night, I found myself at a house party with a handful of friends. While people all around me chatted away in the kitchen, my mind drifted to the fact that the next morning I would be flying home from the three month sabbatical that allowed me to circle the globe with my fiancé Tehillah.
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The 3 Most Unexpected Outcomes from not using Social Media for a Month.
In early June while on my sabbatical I realized that I still wasn’t fully disconnected. Yes, I was thousands of miles away from home and work, but my connection to that life through social media still brought it to the forefront of my mind. Part-experiment,
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Over the past year, I’ve quietly told people about my plan to take a three month sabbatical. If this is the first you’re learning of this, starting April 21st I’ll be away from email, calls, meetings and texts until late July. I’ll be traveling through South Africa, Europe and SE Asia with my fiancé Tehillah in search of the most meaningful experiences we can find around the world.
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The Secret System I Use to Manage Everything in My Life.
Over many years, I’ve developed a series of systems and shortcuts to manage my life. For the first time, I’m going to write them all out and share not just what I use, but how I use them. A few simple tweaks to each secret system allows me to address emails, remember tasks,
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How getting engaged changed my views on gay marriage.
Seven weeks ago, on the greatest night of my entire life, I asked the woman I love with every ounce of my being to marry me. The night took months of preparation, and in a moment of absolute perfection, she said “Yes."The next morning the gravity of it all began to hit me, and I just couldn’t stop smiling.
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Three years ago today, I wrote the scariest email of my life. It began, “To my Bain family, it’s been real. It’s been great. It’s been really great.” I was saying farewell.When I pressed “Send”, the four paragraph email was delivered to more than 400 employees across the Bain & Company system- The entire NYC office, international partners, managers, mentors and friends.
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12 Actions to Discover Your Purpose and Become Unstoppable
This is actually a guest post from Nick, a reader of The Promise of a Pencil:I just turned 30, am working in a well-paying but emotionally bankrupt job and have found my life lacking the purpose or compelling mission that I so desperately want.
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I'm gearing up for some upcoming travels and it got me thinking. As someone who's traveled relentlessly since my early 20's, I have a tremendous appreciation for great travel gear.
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We each know the sensation. You struggle to come up with that big idea that will solve all your current problems, and then one day it suddenly appears.I call them “lightening moments” and they’re one of the best feelings in the world.It almost feels like a bolt of energy hits you all at once, and suddenly you’re unstoppable.
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Millennials have been on my mind a lot lately, so I’m rolling out a series of posts about them and their leadership skills.You can read the first part in the series here: Social Consciousness and Why Millennials Prove InvaluableIn my career I have ONLY managed Millennials.
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3 Steps to Turn $25 Into the Company of Your Dreams
In October 2008, I opened a new bank account with just $25. In six years we bootstrapped that meager deposit into an organization that raises millions annually and has broken ground on more than 250 schools around the world. How did it happen? How do you turn $25 into the company of your dreams?
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The most important iPhone feature you had no idea exists.
Are there certain phrases, addresses, or numbers that you find yourself consistently typing into your iPhone? How many times per week do you enter your email into a form field, or send someone your office address including the floor number and exact cross streets?
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Last month, I noticed a few people on my Facebook feed sharing a link to a Reddit post that announced the launch of something called the Pineapple Fund. The person behind it wrote that they’d been an early investor in Bitcoin and felt as though at a certain point, enough money is enough, and he or she now wanted to donate $86M in Bitcoin to charities.
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When my friend Dan Teicher sent me the music video above, it did just that. For years he's been telling me about his desire to craft a music video using the years of footage he has of his grandparents' life together.
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The Most Important Daily Ritual You're Missing Out On
It's not every day that you have the opportunity to meet one of your real life heroes. Not a mainstream celebrity, but someone who you've watched and admired from a distance thinking, "Am I the only one who is so transfixed by this individual?"
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Every so often you come across a clip that's just so insane you have to share it. This crew of "urban skiers" prove that you can pursue your passion in any environment. Using wooden crates, cinder blocks and snow, they create ramps out of abandoned buildings, rooftops and anything else you can imagine.This clip is well worth all 10 minutes.
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Sometimes you see news headlines proclaiming miracles that seem too extraordinary to believe. “Man reunited with lost love fifty years later,” or “Child falls thirty floors and only suffers a broken leg,” they read. I’ve always questioned the truth of these tall tales, but for the first time in my life I read one of those headlines last night and when I clicked to watch the local news story, I saw a member of my own family being profiled.
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Have you ever had someone directly criticize you in public? It’s humiliating right? Earlier this month I hopped on a flight to give a talk at a college that chose The Promise of a Pencil as the common read for all their students.
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Strong Ties, Weak Ties and the Surprising Power of Dormant Ties.
People often wonder, "Who should I connect with to advance my personal or business objectives?" When considering the relationships in your life, they can be identified in three main groups.
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At the age of 23 I found myself in the mountains of Banos, Ecuador in the midst of a year of living around the world as a traveler. One afternoon I decided to write the preface to a potential book I might write about the adventures I'd undergone as a backpacker exploring as much of the world as my 20-something eyes could see.
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Lately I've been thinking a lot about how much competition drives people. Would you describe yourself as personally competitive? How are you viewing competition?
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3 Pieces of Advice I'd Give to my 17-year-old Self
Our lives are often a result of the influential experiences we encounter, and in my case each significant event played a role in creating the trajectory of my life’s ambitions. If I could go back to my 17-year-old self,
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The Common Place Where Everyone Draws Their True Strength
Yesterday I found out that The Promise of a Pencil will be spending its second week on the New York Times Bestseller list. It debuted at #2 last week and within five days completely sold out all of Amazon and BN.com’s stock nationwide.This week it’s at #8, joining a list of authors in the Top 10 that includes Arianna Huffington, President Jimmy Carter, Malcolm Gladwell, Bill O’Reilly, Chelsea Handler and Sheryl Sandberg.
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As one of many proud Millennials, there are clear trends I’m seeing amongst my peers and the emerging generation of young people rising behind us. The most obvious of which, is that we all want to work on something we’re passionate about.
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Last night, I found myself at a house party with a handful of friends. While people all around me chatted away in the kitchen, my mind drifted to the fact that the next morning I would be flying home from the three month sabbatical that allowed me to circle the globe with my fiancé Tehillah.
Contrary to popular belief, Lorem Ipsum is not simply random text. It has roots in a piece of classical Latin literature from 45 BC, making it over 2...