Ben Bickerstaff

The dog days. Long, torturous ones that seemingly never end. Even though these are normally in the hottest parts of the summer, that doesn’t mean we don’t experience them in other times of our lives. In fact, these kind of situations arise when we are the most unhappy.

Starting the final semester of MBA school, I had just won a business plan competition and was ready to make a run at getting my company off the ground. I couldn’t have been more scared. But that was overshadowed by the excitement I felt to be chasing my dream

One time I gave a presentation to practice for an upcoming business plan competition. We had mock judges to give feedback to help us improve before the big show down. I got eviscerated. According to one judge my idea would be beat by an email and a spreadsheet. The company

You can’t be extraordinary doing the same things as everyone else. Sure it’s a cliche, but most of the time cliches are true. This is one that has stuck with me though, especially an entrepreneur. This lifestyle lends itself to being different, yet so many of us just

Carol Dweck teaches us in her book, Mindset that there are two types of people in the world: people with a fixed mindset and people with a growth mindset. In short, fixed mindset people view success as a way to prove they are smart. Growth mindset view it as a

Mark Manson, author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck, actually encourages you to give one. In his trademark cynically optimistic style, Manson suggests that by giving less fucks, you actually improve the quality of the fucks you do give. His argument is a simple one: It is

When I was in the 10th grade I wanted to quit the baseball team. I had never quit anything in my life, but I suddenly found myself despising a sport I’d loved my whole life. I had lost my drive to play , and probably worst, I lost confidence that

Full disclosure, for the longest time I thought the lyrics “A long way to go” until I finally looked it up to learn it was “No place to go.” This kind of ruined my angle on the song. I thought I had no where to go with the song. At

Beethoven’s 9th symphony is widely considered, not just one of the greatest symphonies, but one of the greatest pieces of music ever written. At the time of its premiere, it was the longest symphony with the largest orchestral assembly to date. It was also the first time vocals had