Chip Conley

Are there people in your life who are living parallel lives with you? You seem to be going through similar paths even though you might only catch up with each other every year or so? Jeff Krasno, co-founder of Wanderlust lifestyle festivals and the Commune community and courses, is one of those people in my life.

I've been fascinated with the digital nomad phenomenon since my early days at Airbnb nine years ago. I noticed that there were a growing number of Millennials (mostly) who weren't looking for a "home away from home" when traveling experience. They were looking for a "home instead of home" experience.

In the midst of a global supply chain disruption that is wreaking havoc on our holiday shopping plans, what if we used tomorrow, Giving Tuesday, as a day to contemplate how we invest our time, energy and money to make the world a better place?

Aaron Taylor wears two Super Bowl rings on his brawny fingers. He’s also a part of our MEA guest faculty, where he introduced us to the concept of the Three Vaults in our MEA workshops. You might look at the vaults as how we approach the world or, more accurately, how we choose to be seen in the world.

Did you know that demographers predict half of today’s kindergarteners (in the developed world) will live to be 100?

I love this day for all kinds of reasons and am excited to be spending it with my family here in the Bay Area. But, I also love this time of year and appreciate that MEA alum John Anderson shared this lovely quote from inventor and writer Lin Yutang on the beauty of autumn:

A flock of seagulls. A pride of lions. A quiver of cobras. A dazzle of zebras. A prickle of porcupines. A charm of hummingbirds, A drove of donkeys. A parade of elephants. A conspiracy of lemurs. An army of frogs (or ants). A bloat of hippopotami. A pandemonium of parrots. A rafter of turkeys (live, not on your dining room table).

Our societal and personal narratives on our aging are at odds. Are we bored or content, selfish or stewards, irrelevant or essential?

Say the word alchemy, and it will likely conjure up thoughts of mysticism, quests for gold, and Fatima, the alchemist character in Paulo Coelho’s book, The Alchemist. While historians consider the Age of Alchemy to be somewhere between the centuries 1300-1700, no definitive timeline has been given for its newly discovered offshoot—the Alchemy of Age. Ask this historian, and I’m guessing it reigns today!

This title was the headline of a New York Times story this summer—an evocative headline that has me personally wondering if my body is failing me or am I failing my body? Am I the victim or the perpetrator?