I’m always on the lookout for questions that lead to more profound, useful, and hopefully inspired discussion.

To that end, David Burkus and Marcel Schwantes jointly created the following brain busters. They’re great. You should use them. I know I will.

To keep things interesting, I’ve taken the liberty of quickly answering them myself. 

1. What excites you right now? Pickleball—I’m obsessed.
2. What are you looking forward to? Hiking Navajo/Queen’s Garden Loop and Peak-a-Boo/Spooky Slots with my wife and children.
3. What’s the best thing that’s happened to you this year? I published my first book after nearly nine years of trying.
4. What’s the most important thing I should know about you? I write sentences for a living, believe in the afterlife, think people are inherently good, consider the glass half full, and know first-hand that offline is better.
5. What’s your story? I was raised by loving parents, have lived on both halves of the U.S., am in love with my soulmate, am attempting to change the world by raising good kids of my own, and am trying to be a force for good in my own small way.
6. What is one of your defining moments? Being forgiven by the front office manager of the Atlanta Hawks in 1994, after he invited me to job shadow him as an eighth-grade boy and entrusted me at the end of the work day to send pre-canned letters to people asking for donations, to which I added lewd childish drawings to and of course got caught and suspended for.
7. Why did you choose your profession? I chose writing because it’s a seemingly endless outlet for all the questions I’m constantly asking in my head, most notably “why the world works the way that it does?” Basically I get paid to experience and learn new things. It doesn’t make sense.
8. What are you currently reading? The Book of Great Books
9. How can I be most helpful to you right now? Read my book and tell me if it changed your life or not.

Thanks for reading this far.