mushroom coffee

So You Want to Be Your Own Boss?

Hate your job? Love that the economy is improving? You want to be your own boss and open a consulting firm? The way to run a boutique consultancy based around a lifestyle is pretty simple. Get great clients. Charge what you’re worth. Keep your overhead low. Unfortunately, when you’re starting out, it’s tough to get great…

mushroom coffee

The Busy Trap, Revisited

One of the most important things I’ve ever read in my life is a short essay called “The Busy Trap” by Tim Kreider. (Have you read it? Read it right now.) Kreider is a writer who finds himself too busy to write. He forces himself into a state of solitude and contemplation and reaffirms a crucial…

Good Friday, 1986

It’s Good Friday 1986. I am in sixth grade at St. Wenceslaus, a weird and quirky Catholic school on the northwest side of Chicago. My classmates are working-class descendants of Polish, German, Mexican and Filipino immigrants. There’s a first-generation Peruvian American in my class, too. We are the model UN of Catholic schools, and our…