by Mark O'Brien | Oct 16, 2014
I have a theory. It goes like this: If I remain naïve enough, I’ll never get old. If that’s so, then I just found the Fountain of Youth. The German writer, Thomas Mann, once said: “It is impossible for ideas to compete in the marketplace if no forum...
by Mark O'Brien | Oct 9, 2014
With all of the emails I receive about funeral insurance quotes, I shouldn’t have been surprised by this. But I was. Call me naïve. After all, if we’re too lazy to get out of our cars for coffee or fast food or banking — things we want, presumably, and...
by Mark O'Brien | Oct 8, 2014
To understand how absurd a notion is settled science, we needn’t tread the politically inflammatory territory of weather, climate change, and global warming. Nor do we need go so far as to read — let alone comprehend — the one tract that utterly debunks the...
by Mark O'Brien | Oct 6, 2014
What’s the most valuable attribute of successful people? We can find lots of answers to the question from lots of sources: Courage. Vision. Imagination. Persistence. Willingness to fail. Iconoclasm. Lunacy. Every one of those attributes is a factor in the...
by Mark O'Brien | Oct 1, 2014
A statement finding its way more frequently and annoyingly into the vernacular of business and politics is this: Hope is not a strategy. Yeah. The statement is true. But enough already. Its corollary statement is this: A tactic is not a strategy. Yeah. That’s...
by Mark O'Brien | Sep 29, 2014
Some people go to great lengths to make sure they’re not taken seriously. That’s sad because it’s really quite simple. If you want to ensure whatever you have to say is dismissed immediately and out of hand, all you have to say this: “We...