D&D, Buck Rogers, and the Funniest Negotiation Ever? [Nerd Out 11/1/23]
1997 was one of the most pivotal years in nerd history. That spring, Wizards of the Coast (makers of Magic: The Gathering) was deep in negotiations to…
Continue Reading D&D, Buck Rogers, and the Funniest Negotiation Ever? [Nerd Out 11/1/23]
There Will Be Blood & Children’s Books [Nerd Out 10/21/23]
(originally published on my Nerd Out Newsletter on 10/21/23) Let’s get weird with oil derricks and kid’s books! On an episode of the SmartLess Podcast, co-host…
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Did Einstein Suck at the Violin? [Nerd Out 9/16/23]
I like to make noise. I’ve been playing the piano since I was a kid, and picked up the guitar in college, but trying to…
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Goosebumps, Redwall, and the “danger” of books [Nerd Out 8/26/23]
Ever since I could read, my life and worldview have been molded by books. In first grade, I read my dad’s entire collection of The Happy…
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White Whales And Murder Mysteries [Nerd Out 8/5/23]
Now that I’ve broken free of “must read all the books in my queue”… I’ve been revisiting a lot of my favorites for a second or…
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A Life Lesson from T-Pain [Nerd Out 7/20/23]
T-Pain, king of autotune, put on an amazing Tiny Desk performance back in 2014, and the internet lost its collective mind because it was so dang good.…
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Great News: We’re Not That Important [Nerd Out 7/13/23]
I was recently reading My Side of the Mountain, by Jean Craighead George, a 1959 novel about a boy named Sam who escapes the big city…
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Bicycles are Morally Hazardous [Nerd Out 7/5/23]
I recently revisited The Wright Brothers, the biography of Orville and Wilbur trying to become the first humans to crack powered-flight. Prior to their flight experiments, the…
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Meaningful vs Manageable [Nerd Out 6/27/23]
I had a fun talk yesterday with my co-worker Matt at Nerd Fitness about our coaching program; specifically about the importance of finding the balance between…
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Steve Starts a Newsletter [Nerd Out 3/10/23]
Here are the books, shows, and things I nerded out about in February! Let’s get weird. Churchill’s Biography I tried trudging through the first volume…
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Judd Apatow and the Moment of Creation
Recently, Emmy Award-winning director, screenwriter, producer, author, and comedian Judd Apatow jumped on Sam Harris’s “Making Sense” podcast and talked about comedy, creativity, and flow.…
2022: Retrospective
Did you watch The Rings of Power or The House of the Dragon this year? Both new shows were perfectly…fine. They took place in lovely…
How to Create Deep Work That Survives
“You HAVE to build your brand to stay part of the conversation.” Any creative person operating online these days faces the challenge of building their…
Put On Your Hard Hat
I’m fascinated with the boring processes hiding behind creative genius. In other words, what is mistaken for “unbelievable talent” is usually just weeks and months…
Write the Truest Sentence You Know.
I’m working my way through Ken Burn’s in-depth documentary on Ernest Hemingway. Before he became a famous writer, Hemingway was just a young father, living…
2021: Retrospective
“This space that has been granted to us rushes by so speedily and so swiftly that all save a very few find life at an…
Bo Burnham’s Brilliant Burrito Ballad
I woke up today and decided, “Damnit Steve, it’s time to finally write that article about burritos and existential crises.” If that first sentence is…
Get Back to What Got You There.
I’ve been trying to work myself out of creative debt for the past 18 months. Creative debt occurs when somebody spends more time consuming other…
2020: A Retrospective
“Build a life you don’t need to escape from.” – Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key Looking back, 2020 was a dumpster fire in many…
Avoid Creative Debt
I think about debt quite a bit. Mostly, that I try to avoid it. These days, we have a team over at Nerd Fitness that…