In October 2016 I gave a TEDx talk at TEDxCharlotte about something that had been bothering me for years: the light bulb. Not the invention — the symbol. The light bulb is an intimidating stand-in for ideas, implying that good thinking arrives in a sudden, unpredictable flash of brilliance. It doesn't. Ideas are the product of diligence, exploration, and collaborative thinking — observation, experience, and good old problem solving. The eureka moment is a myth. I've been thinking about this ever since, especially in the studio. The paintings don't arrive as flashes either. They come from the same slow, searching...

In September 2012 I spoke at Ignite Charlotte 5 — one of those wonderful formats where you get 20 slides, 15 seconds each, and exactly five minutes to make your point before the slides move on without you. My talk was called How To Get Pretty Much Anyone To Do Pretty Much Anything, but it was really about empathy. Specifically: that there are always two valid points of view, and that the ability to genuinely inhabit someone else's perspective — not just tolerate it, but really stand in it — is the most powerful skill a person can develop. The...