Skip “personal branding” work on this instead… Go from being a mess to being the best, all by knowing what you want to be true, and then working towards that goal. Once you figure out what you want to be true, everything else becomes easier: Your personal story now has…

You need two decks: the Backdrop Deck that you use when you give a talk and the Ambassador Deck that you create for others to flip through when you are not there. Your Backdrop Deck is for live performance. The story is delivered by you, and the slides are there…

Instantly increase your conversational charisma with these 5 techniques. Each only takes 10 seconds. Each works wonders. Each edges you closer to a life free of dull conversations and rich with the interesting ideas gleaned from others. Speak on the exhale. When we get nervous, we often take a sharp…

The artist’s guide to becoming a world-class finisher. Starting vs Finishing Most artists are good starters. We are a seemingly endless source of spontaneous brilliance—at least on our best days. This is a great skill for anything where the distance between the idea and the output is nearly instant. But what about other…

Your guide to writing the first sentence of a novel, speech, pitch or screenplay. A great first sentence opens the door, sets the stakes, triggers your curiosity, and gives you a reason to care. A great first sentence wins you over as a reader and causes you to root for…

You’ve been asked to give a toast. Do it well and everyone loves you. Mess it up and you’ll lose the trust and support of everyone in the room. High stakes, high rewards. Sounds like fun, non? Here’s a structure you can put to work immediately for your next important…

Setting the scene… If you were to use generative AI to blend the French new wave star Jean-Paul Belmondo with American jazz performer, Chet Baker, the result would look plausibly similar to the person sitting in front of me, Etienne Genvrin. He was explaining to me his radically inverted theory of learning languages…

Traverse the streets of New York or Paris and you’ll notice galleries appear about as often as dogs — at least a few every blocks—Tokyo, however, hides its art just around the corner. To help future travelers, I put together a list of galleries, museums, and few art-related shops. Here’s…

Gone are the toll-bridge collectors on the Golden Gate Bridge. Gone are the checkout clerks from your favorite grocery store. But what about us artists? Writers? And thinkers of any stripe? Are we about to get gone too? AI will not mean the death of artists, intellectuals, or anyone else…