[NOTE: A version of this post appeared on my Medium blog in October. The story is even more relevant now.] In case you haven’t noticed, things are getting really weird. Global newsworthy weirdness aside, just look around your immediate environment. Perhaps you’re noticing a certain disruption in your daily life. A feeling of chaos. The …
Continue reading Personal Mastery Tools For Thriving In Chaos
Today would have been my dad’s 79th birthday. He’s been gone 5 years now and I miss him more each year and continue to learn so much from his presence in my life. A quintessential Libra, my dad was a relationship guy. He had a unique ability to forge and maintain deep, productive bonds with …
I love living in San Francisco. So much energy, creativity, big shit happening (in my best Ab Fab voice). The downside of so much shit happening: SO MUCH PRESSURE to go big. But how often do we stop to ask, "Is bigger better right now?" A lot of us are sitting on ideas that could …
Dear Adam and Andy, First, I love your new platform Yerdle. I'm a marketer and a mom (with a decent amount of disposable income) who teaches her kids that shopping is not a sport and that "used" is often as good as new. Like you both, I've seen the light and know we have to …
Continue reading An Open Letter to Adam Werbach and Andy Ruben: Growth Strategy Ideas for Yerdle
Loyalty marketing is big business and I should know, it pays the mortgage and private school tuition. But lately, I've been feeling a big squeamish about the future of this once powerful technique to drive repeat sales. The signs of a slow, painful death are everywhere. Companies are struggling with rising liabilities, and increasingly low …
Continue reading A Framework for Sustainable Loyalty–Co-written with Aristotle
Over the past few weeks I've found myself in conversations with all sorts of dear friends experiencing trauma and personal pain beyond belief. Last Sunday I was chatting to my closest childhood friend who knows me better than anyone. She was telling me of a terrible thing that had happened to one of the children …
"What, you're doing it again? I thought you said you were finished acting?" Words I heard more than a few times after agreeing to reprise my rendition of Saundra Dern in the play "Stretchmarks: Growing Into Motherhood" last weekend at the Children's Creativity Museum. The play, co-written, produced, directed, and acted in by my dear …
And just like that, a year passes and spring returns revealing the gardens we once planted. Asking us to come back and start again. But always from a place that has grown more than we could have ever imagined. I can't believe that last year at this time my father had 25 days to live. …
Day 1 of the rest of my garden. Um, I mean life. Today I gathered enough greens, herbs, and flowers to save me, oh, I'd say about $25 at the farmers market. I didn't start this garden to save money. I never really thought growing my own food, at scale, was a possibility. So, I …
I was raised in a very tight-knit, cloistered, fundamentalist religion which some might even refer to as a cult. There was a lot of love, and a lot of rules, and a lot of unnecessary angst over doomsday rather than looking at the possibilities that now might offer. One of the things that was drilled …
Mary Gilbert 