2020 changed my life in the most fantastic way.

I had never written a book before but had always wanted to. As luck would have it, I befriended a wonderful artist here in Taiwan who had also had similar aspirations for a long time.

Lo and behold, we put our minds, words, and fingers into action creating a silly little work combining politics, satire, and children's books.

Although the journey was incredibly fun, we only ended up selling about 300 copies.

But that was more than good enough for us for two reasons:

1. We set our expectations low in the…

Jesus Christ wouldn’t be allowed into the US today.

No job, poor, dark skin, born in the Middle East — he’d be persecuted and kicked out of the country faster than Trump could down his third breakfast Big Mac.

But that doesn’t stop his biggest believers and supporters from promoting the exact party that despises those individual traits.

According to election polls, between 76–81% of white evangelicals who voted chose Trump back in November. Less than 20% went to Biden. Him being a devoted Catholic surely wouldn’t fit in with their religious ways.

White evangelical Protestants are almost a shoo-in…

If that face above doesn’t look familiar to you, look a bit closer. He’s the grandfather of one of the most famous US presidents in the last 100 years.

And he has quite the life story behind him.

Born in the small Bavarian town of Kallstadt, modern-day Germany, Friedrich was the son of Christian and Katharina. Kallstadt at the time was a land known for viticulture, the caring for and harvesting of grapes destined for vineyards. But caring for grapes isn’t as blissful as the end-product tastes.

It’s long hours, hard work, and grueling backaches if you do it for…

I’m sure you’ve played this card game before. Some call it President, others call it Scum, Janitor, or even my personal favorite, Asshole. It’s a simple game that many of us learn as children.

You take a full deck of cards and distribute them evenly to 4 or more players. You then follow the rules to capture cards each round, with the ultimate goal of emptying your entire hand before anyone else.

Rules of Engagement

The crux of this game is the rankings. After each round is completed, players are assigned a position based on the order in which they placed.

Let’s say…

Publications aren’t everything on Medium. But they sure can help a hell of a lot. And equally important — you can help them just as much.

Most major publications on Medium have a huge amount of writers already added, hundreds more applying every week, and potentially thousands of stories to sift through in the same time period.

In short, they’re incredibly busy trying to make the best publication they can.

And while editors are almost surely keeping an eye out for the next up-and-coming Tim Denning, it’s exponentially difficult the more volume of new writers and articles they get.

So…

I just bombed another headline. I spent 5 hours researching a topic I felt was incredibly interesting. 2 hours writing and rewriting. 1 hour of meticulously editing it line by line.

I applied to a big publication. It was unusually accepted straight away. They accelerated the publishing of it to just a few short hours later and it was even featured by Medium!

Then…crickets.

I’m sure you know this feeling. It friggin’ sucks.

Could the writing have been better? Most assuredly. Could it have been more succint, elaborate, or stylish? Absolutely. …

Humor

Becoming a high-flying manager isn’t as easy as it used to be. Bipolar CEOs, stressful pantsless Zoom calls, and a lack of complimentary employees are just a few of the many problems we face as managers on a daily basis.

But don’t worry friends, you can still easily get ahead even without those pesky pants. Here are my ten favorite tricks to earn respect as a manager in any office.

1. Use as many buzzwords as possible

Keeping up with modern industry slang is a great way to gain respect. …

Way back in 1920, the newly founded Nazi Party put out a document stating its beliefs and platform.

While the document was full of a lot of eye-opening viewpoints and crazy beliefs, there was one point that remained hidden in plain sight — a bullet point that explained the Nazi Party’s views on religion in Germany — point 24:

“The Party as such represents the viewpoint of Positive Christianity without binding itself to any particular denomination.”

Confused? Me too.

But here’s a supporting statement for what they really meant:

“…insofar as they do not jeopardize the state’s existence or conflict…