Storytelling isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.

Narrative is our basic tool for making sense of the world, the currency of human contact, the fundamental instrument of thought and the foundation that psychologically sustains our species.
And yet, in the past few years, social scientists keep reporting that human attention span has declined to a mere nine seconds.
Really?
Tell that to the millions of viewers who watched thirteen episodes of House of Cards in a single day. Tell that to the legions of listeners who made Adam Carolla’s eight hour audiobook, Not Taco Bell Material, the top selling album of the year. Tell that to Kevin Smith’s global fan base, who tuned into Twitterfor his twenty-four hour question and answer marathon.
Perhaps time is an irrelevant construct.
Perhaps when we tell stories, we should be less interested in how much time we have, and more interested in taking people on a tour of our heads and hearts, sharing crumb by crumb and clue by clue the universal human experiences and great sweeps of change that convinced us to believe what we believe, so that by the time we get to the end of the story, the story that we paid for and earned the right to tell, the audience is already nodding and yessing and laughing so much that they’re intellectually and emotional satisfied and can’t imagine another final action beyond where we’ve taken them.
It all depends.
Do you want to give people an answer that checks their box, or engage them with a narrative that wins them over?

My grandfather has a knack for making artifacts.

When he was a kid growing up in the thirties, he found a poem crumbled up in his father’s roll top desk. The passage talked about how to live a good life, be a person of character, stuff like that.
But since the poem had such an impact on his life, he kept it for the next fifteen years. And when he started a family of his own, he turned that anonymous piece of writing into a bronze plaque for all of his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.
Eighty years later, that poem still spurs conversations in each of our homes. We not only show it to everybody, we tell them the story behind it. We have conversations around the ideas in the poem. And we think about how they apply to our lives today.
That’s our artifact.
What’s yours?
The word itself means, “a skillfully made object.”
But it’s more than that. An artifact is a strategically made social object, too.
Something people can come back to. Something that’s a currency for conversation and collaboration. Something that sets the standard for everyone around you. Something that becomes a canvas for sharing ideas and making observations and asking questions. Something that serves as a platform for expanding people’s abilities. Something that reflects your brand’s human purpose. Something that holds up a mirror that demands people look at themselves.
Want to create one for your organization? Consider these ideas:
Artifacts start with a story. Or a process. Or a system. Or a framework. What’s your unique approach to solving problems or telling stories or building technology or doing business? That’s the content of your artifact.
Artifacts continue with a structure. Make your story visually compelling. Simple enough that an audience could digest it on their own, but provocative enough that they would seek you out to learn more.
Artifacts extend with stuff. It’s not an artifact if you can’t hold in your hands and smell it and touch it and share it. People are yearning for texture. No memorialization, no mesmerization. Pixels are fine, but tactile is divine.
Artifacts perpetuate with social. The goal is to create a verbal incident. It’s not about the artifact, but the conversation around it. It’s a sharing device that allows people to connect with each other.
Looking back, my grandfather was right.
Artifacts matter.
They signal the collective spirit of a culture. They help create an environment worth passing on. And they engage the people living and breathing in that world, day in and day out.
And there isn’t a team, company, department, brand or organization in this world that couldn’t be producing and promoting their own.

Sentences are my spiritual currency. 
Throughout my week, I’m constantly scouring and learning and reading and annotating from any number of newspapers, blogs, online publications, books, articles, songs, art pieces, podcasts, eavesdroppings, random conversations and other sources of inspiration.
Turns out, most of these sentences can be organized into about eleven different categories, aka, compartments of life that are meaningful to me. And since I enjoy being a signal tower of things that are interesting, I figured, why not share them on a regular basis?
In the spirit of “learning in public,” I’ve decided to publish a weekly digest of my top findings, along with their respective links or reference points. Sentence junkies of the world unite!
Creativity, Innovation & Art “People fall in love with the merchandise first, then the art behind it,” from the recently released and fascinating Calvin & Hobbes documentary, Dear Mr. Waterson.
Culture, Humanity & Society “No, I’m not going to rush your fraternity,” from the Francis Pedraza article about standing up to the digital cool kids.
Identity, Self & Soul “You let go of the dream you killed yourself for,” from John Moffitt’s story about walking away from that which defined him.
Lyrics, Poetry & Passages “Drop what you’re doing right now and entertain me,” from the new 37Signals book, Remote, about mobile workforces.
Meaning, Mystery & Being “Understanding with your life is fully believing what you understand, but also finding yourself incapable of disbelieving it,” from Psychology Today.
Media, Technology & Design “Focused and oblivious to their surroundings, these people unknowingly made the decision to live in new kind of loneliness,” from PSFK.
Nature, Health & Science “In science, you are studying truth and have to prove everything,” from the obituary of Nobel Prize Winner, Frederick Sanger.
People, Relationships & Love “When they vet people, they need to see more than twinkles, they need sparks,” from the handsome and inspiring Pharrell.
Psychology, Thinking & Feeling“Generate positive emotions on your own without support from the environment,” from Martin Seligman’s new book, Flourishing.
Success, Life & Career“Don’t let the bad guys find a narrow opening and bring you down for trivial reasons,” from the Tom Peters blog.
Work, Business & Organizations“Your management style makes me focus all of my energy on staying out of trouble,” from Dilbert.

See you next week!

Game raising is the quiet catchall.
Just keep getting better, and everything else will take care of itself.
I learned that from a famous comedian. When describing his rise to fame, he attributed his success to constant work at the alter of improvement.
What I like about that approach to success is, it has the least amount of glamour and speed––and the most amount of grit and patience. It’s the gradual ascent. Hustling while you wait. Playing the long arc game. Mastering the art of not going away. Practicing your way out of obscurity.
And where the advantage comes from is accumulation.
Racking up the nights under the lights to multiply your talent base. Which allows you to outlast most of the people you hit the starting blocks with. Because while they were too busy marketing and networking and complaining and perfecting their personal brand, you were quietly improving.
Proving, that the best way to build your own leverage is to raise your own game.
It insures that nobody can take away the most valuable asset you own.
What you’ve become.
Go get good. 

The vehicle of better will drive you to greatness.

I used to be a board member of a small mastermind group of artists, freelancers, performers and entrepreneurs.
Once a quarter, we gathered for a weekend retreat. The agenda was to give updates, share news, disclose struggles, offer feedback, solve problems and of course, make tons of inappropriate jokes.
And I was always blown away at the quality of people’s insights. During our meetings, tears were shed, gasps were made, epiphanies were realized and sighs of relief were exhaled. Each time, we quickly remembered that the roller coaster isn’t as scary when you have other people to scream with.
The only problem was, we had no record or reinforcement around people’s insight.
And that wasn’t okay with me.
We were trying to build a culture. A community worth belonging to. An atmosphere worth talking about. And an environment worth passing on. And we needed a communication ritual to glue it all together.
So I had an idea.
During our final dinners, I would ask each person to go around the table and share two things. First, one action item they planned to execute as soon as they got back to work. And second, one jokethat made them laugh the hardest during the meeting.
As the resident scribe, I volunteered to document people’s individual contributions during the discussion. And the next morning, I promised to send out the recap as the artifact from our retreat. I believed everyone in the group deserved a front row seat to their own brilliance. Not to mention, a ticket stub to remember the show.
Five years later, people still talk about those dinners. Nobody remembers what we ate, but that’s not the point. Culture isn’t about the food on the table, it’s about the people around it.
And that’s the power of ritual.
It’s a conscious practice and a ceremonial acknowledgement. It’s an intentional experience we layer on top of the activity to make it more purposeful. It’s how we make meaning, affirm belonging and turn disconnected events into an ongoing story.
And whether it’s our peer group, work team, sports squad, extended family or neighborhood community, any time we tap into our natural human instinct to build communication systems, we come alive.
What communication rituals have you created?

Sentences are my spiritual currency. 

Throughout my week, I’m constantly scouring and learning and reading and annotating from any number of newspapers, blogs, online publications, books, articles, songs, art pieces, podcasts, eavesdroppings, random conversations and other sources of inspiration.
Turns out, most of these sentences can be organized into about eleven different categories, aka, compartments of life that are meaningful to me. And since I enjoy being a signal tower of things that are interesting, I figured, why not share them on a regular basis?
In the spirit of “learning in public,” I’ve decided to publish a weekly digest of my top findings, along with their respective links or reference points. Sentence junkies of the world unite!
Creativity, Innovation & Art 
“If people in your life aren’t uncomfortable, you’re not really writing,” from a podcast conversation between Chris Rock and Alec Baldwin.
Culture, Humanity & Society “Buying more education only to scale new heights of stupidity,” from my new favorite book, Shop Class As Soul Craft.

Identity, Self & Soul “Build your story where you are,” from an interview with David Wild.

Lyrics, Poetry & Passages 
“They’ve taken their brave pills,” from a fascinating article about being Harry Potter.
Meaning, Mystery & Being 
“The principal medium of my salvation,” from an old Susan Sontag interview.
Media, Technology & Design 
“Email is now just another stream,” from an insightful Techcrunch article.
Nature, Health & Science 
“There’s no free lunch in nature,” from a podcast conversation between Dr. Drew and Amber Smith.
People, Relationships & Love “People who are too stupid to be important,” from Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain.

Psychology, Thinking & Feeling
“In order to make the changes that you need to make, the first step is tolerating thoughts,” from an article by Eric Maisel.
Success, Life & Career“There’s tons of money if you’re good and want to take it,” from The Lefsetz Letter.

Work, Business & Organizations“Once you can own the moment that matters, you build a loyal customer base,” from <a href="http://www.livemint tamiflu online.com/Consumer/DmvCRDAp98yRrHAMD7KaIM/Theres-a-hot-new-job-in-technology-race-Delivery-Guy.html”>The Wall Street Journal.

See you next week!