Blog Category: Impression Technique

Originally I was going to make this a post about habits I’ve developed. You know, “habits to be the amazing, successful person that I am.” But I realized I don’t really have that many good habits. And I’m not sure I’m worth emulating. There is only one super important habit that stands above all the […]

Willy Wonka was a sad god who disappeared from the world. He only wanted to make magic with chocolate. But then he wanted to give the world one more chance. To find an heir. To find a human to love. The last scene of the movie: Gene Wilder and the winner of his contest, Charlie, […]

They kidnap your husband, they say they will kill him in 24 hours if you don’t come up with a million dollars. What do you do? You call up Chris Voss, the former lead hostage negotiator for the FBI. Chris has saved thousands of lives in hostage negotiations. He’s negotiated against the world’s most maniacal […]

So then I put Turney in a cage. Turney Duff, who wrote the bestselling book, “The Buy Side“, was once so torn up by drugs and addiction, that he lost his seven figure job, his family, his self-esteem, everything. Bit by bit he climbed out of it. He wrote a book. He wrote more books, […]

“OK,” I said, “Here’s what you do. Just be interested in other people.” My friend had just spent an hour telling me his problems. Job problems. Girl problems. Health problems. He was miserable. He couldn’t meet people. He was lonely. Nobody was calling him back for a job. He was worried he was going to […]

“You know that ‘penultimate’ means ‘second’, right?” she said to me. I forget why. But it was in an horribly embarrassing situation. I remember that. I remember thinking I thought ‘penultimate’ meant ‘number one’. ‘You know it’s not the best. It’s the SECOND best,” she repeated. I remember the blush. I remember her asking the […]

I visited a friend of mine in jail. He had been protesting a war. Whenever you protest 18 year olds being killed, there’s a chance you can get arrested. When he was in the county jail, he took off all his clothes and tried to flush them down the toilet. They had forgotten to give […]