Creativity doesn’t happen in silos.

Humanity’s greatest masterpieces were born through collaboration.

Consider the Sistine Chapel. Many believe it was created by a lone genius. But, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

In 1508, Pope Julius II asked the renowned artist to paint the ceiling of the Apostolic Palace. Michelangelo knew that he couldn’t d…

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A lifetime of coffees with you.

Coffee?

I’d like that.

Coffee?

Yes, but this one’s on me.

Coffee?

Duhhh.

Coffee?

No, but dinner tonight?

Coffee?

Last night was...

Coffee?

This morning was...

Coffee?

No, come back to bed.

Coffee?

Yes, but first come back to bed.

Coffee?

So, my parents want to meet you.

Coffee?

My momma loves you.

Coffee?

I lo—

Coffee?

I love you.

Coffee?

So our leases are coming up.

Coffee?

Is this too soon?

Coffee?

This feels like home.

Coffee?

I hate this new job.

Coffee?

You’re right I should quit.

Coffee?

You’ve been distant.

Coffee?

What’s going on?

Coffee?

I’m not giving up on us.

Coffee?

Come back home.

Coffee?

Let’s do Christmas out of the country.

Coffee?

Do you remember that night in London?

Coffee?

I’m late.

Coffee?

Baby, I’m really late.

Coffee?

Are we up for this?

Coffee?

I wonder if it’s a boy or a girl.

Coffee?

Oh my God, do twins run in your family?

Coffee?

After we drop these two off at school.

Coffee?

We’ve outgrown this place.

Coffee?

I think this is the one.

Coffee?

My momma isn’t doing well.

Coffee?

I miss her like hell.

Coffee?

I know I’ve been distant.

Coffee?

I’ve been dying inside.

Coffee?

I need to get away for a bit.

Coffee?

I miss you, I’m coming back home.

Coffee?

I’m sorry I hurt you.

Coffee?

Thank you for not giving up on us.

Coffee?

Thank you for not giving up on me.

Coffee?

Evelyn met a boy today.

Coffee?

Baby... he wants to take us to dinner.

Coffee?

Is he going to ask us...

Coffee?

He looks at her the way that you look at me.

Coffee?

My boy is not becoming a Marine.

Coffee?

You’re gonna talk some sense into him.

Coffee?

I’ve never been prouder.

Coffee?

We did okay by them, didn’t we?

Coffee?

Have I told you today how much I love you.

Coffee?

You’re as handsome as ever at sixty-two.

Coffee?

The doctor—he says it’s for you?

Coffee?

Why didn’t you tell me?

Coffee?

You didn’t want to worry me?

Coffee?

You didn’t want to hurt me?

Coffee?

No—fuck you.

Coffee?

No, baby, I could never hate you.

Coffee?

I’m—

Coffee?

I’m just—

Coffee?

I’m just gonna—

Coffee?

I’m just gonna miss having coffee with you.

By Cole Schafer.

Ernest Hemingway believed omission made a story stronger.

Like an iceberg invisibly towering below the ocean’s surface, he wrote with the belief that most of a story should be hidden from the reader, leaving ample room for the imagination to run wild.

Hemingway’s Iceberg Theory is most prevalent in the intimate moments of his novels and short stories.

Unli…

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Years ago, a farmer found a painted copper panel discarded in the forest.

His henhouse was leaking like a stuck pig. So, he threw the copper panel in the back of his truck. He lugged it home. Then, he hammered it to the roof of his coop to shelter his chickens from the rain.

A month or so later, the farmer read a story in the local paper about stolen art …

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Ray Bradbury died with a net worth of around $30 million.

However, there was a time in his life when he was so broke, he couldn’t afford rent on an office. Keep in mind, this was before Starbucks. You couldn’t hole up at a cafe and writer for hours.

To keep expenses low, the legendary science fiction writer did the bulk of his writing from his garage. Hi…

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I don’t generally write openly about dating, as I prefer these days to keep my love life private. But, I wanted to share a realization I’ve had as of late because I find it applicable to life outside of strictly a romantic context.

People tend to approach dating in one of two ways:

1. They pursue

2. They get pursued

This creates something of a game where your rol…

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You are sacred and profane.

you are sacred and profane

i crave you like sex,
like cigarettes
like moths 

crave the flame

you are sacred and profane

you illuminate like the works
of caravaggio,
you are surrounded
by darkness                     

and yet—

you glow 

as if there is  a fire
burning   
somewhere    
deep within

you are sacred and profane

i pray 
you never attempt 
to hide it

as saints do their vices,
as nuns do their vibrators,
as cardinals do their violence

you are sacred and profane

you are like the andalusians
of ancient spain,             
those born of a time 
where temptation
was a sin,    
where eye contact
was fornication

you are sacred and profane

you are mirada fuerte
you are the spanish word 
for strong gazing

when you stare, 
you grasp the subject 
with the fingers of your eyes
and you turn it over 
in your hands

before you devour it whole,
as if your are starving
for beauty

you are sacred and profane

you are a  nightmare         
for those who sleep walk             
through life   
with their eyes            

wide shut

you are the hands           
that clutch their shoulders                      
and shake them                   awake

you are sacred and profane

you are like the scorpion—
you were alive 
before man   
    
and you will be alive  
long after
man has come 
and gone

heat and ice,  
disease and famine,
war and subjugation

you will survive it     all

even in the moments  
you wish not to, 

you will survive it     all

for you are sacred and profane.

By Cole Schafer.

Five hundred years ago, the mayor of Florence found himself with an enormous block of marble that no sculptor would touch.

A previous sculptor had bored a cannonball-sized hole through the middle of the marble, right where the figure’s legs were supposed to be.

In hopes of salvaging the stone, Mayor Piero Soderini wrote to every sculptor he could think o…

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Robert De Niro hated auditions.

One day, he decided to take his fate into his own hands. The act of rebellion was inspired by a book De Niro had read.

It was about a brawny, hard-nosed boxer by the name of Jake LaMotta. He wasn’t particularly talented. But, he was as tough as a bull. He could take a beating in the ring like the world had never seen.

LaMot…

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People like to debate how much a name matters.

Generally speaking, there are two schools of thought:

1. It matters very little

2. It matters a great deal

I shamelessly fall into the latter camp.

Allow me to make my case.

Back in 1976, Apple wasn’t the obvious winner.

The personal computer industry was crowded with names.

MITS.

Kaypro.

Commodore.

Sinclair Research.

Texas Instruments.

Tandy Corporation.

Osborne Computer Corporation.

That last name on the list is long enough to choke a horse.

To make matters worse, companies were rolling out computers with names that sounded like the offspring of R2D2.

ZX80.

SX-64.

Sol-20.

VIC-20.

TRS-80.

TI-99/4A.

PET 2001.

Altair 8800.

IMSAI 8080.

Then, there was Apple.

Don’t get me wrong, Apple didn’t always nail the names of their products.

Apple II wasn’t particularly inventive.

But, it was lightyears better than the TI-99/4A.

Apple is the brand we remember.

It became a winner in personal computers.

And, one of the most valuable companies in history.

To be fair, Apple didn’t dominate personal computers because of its name alone.

They had a fanatical leader, a great product, unparalleled distribution and near-perfect timing.

Each of these factors played a part.

But, would Apple have experienced the same meteoric success if it were called something else? Something like Jobs Computer Corporation?

Absolutely not.

Apple’s name made personal computers sweet and approachable.

It didn’t sound like an evil, power-hungry conglomerate you’d see in an 80s action film. It’s products didn’t read like license plate numbers.

Instead, the name was so simple a child could remember it.

History shows the brand with the best name wins.

Best is relative here, obviously.

I wouldn’t say Smucker’s is the “best” name.

But, it’s certainly memorable.

Not to mention, they paired it with a brilliant slogan...

With a name like Smucker’s, it has to be good.

So, perhaps I’ll revise my last statement.

Instead, I’ll say the brand with the most memorable name wins.

What always perplexes me is how much time brands commit to their logo and how little time they devote to their name.

A brand’s logo matters.

But, at its most basic form, a brand is a name.

If I had a dollar for every stupid name I saw, I wouldn’t be running Honey.

The problem is that coming up with a memorable brand name is difficult.

There isn’t really a tried-and-true methodology.

I’m not so pretentious as to say I possess the formula.

However, I’d be happy to share how I approach naming at Honey.

More than a feeling.

When I think about naming, I first think about feeling.

What is the feeling I want to evoke in the customer?

From there, I think of something that symbolizes this feeling.

Nike did this beautifully.

Phil Knight’s upstart shoe company was originally called Blue Ribbon Sports.

Thank the gods he changed it.

If you think Nike would have become Nike with the name Blue Ribbon Sports, you’re out of your gourd. Their name was their greatest competitive advantage.

When we think Nike, we think victory.

This isn’t by happenstance.

Nike is the ancient Greek goddess of victory.

But, encapsulating the feeling is only half the battle.

The name has to be within reach of the tongue.

Make memory your ally.

Famous brands are like famous people. They possess memorable names.

In literature, there is:

• Margaret Atwood

• Ernest Hemingway

• Octavia Butler

• Virginia Woolf

• Oscar Wilde

In sports, there is:

• Serena Williams

• Michael Jordan

• Muhammad Ali

• Lewis Hamilton

• Tiger Woods

In film, there is:

• Meryl Streep

• Robert De Niro

• Audrey Hepburn

• Marlon Brando

• Denzel Washington

In music, there is:

• Billie Holiday

• Prince

• Dolly Parton

• Frank Sinatra

• Aretha Franklin

In art, there is:

• Georgia O’Keeffe

• Andy Warhol

• Jean-Michel Basquiat

• Leonardo da Vinci

• Vincent van Gogh

Sure, each of these individuals possess(ed) otherworldly talents. However, we have no trouble fetching their names in a hurry.

The same is true for brands.

If someone were to hold a gun to your head, you would have no difficulty remembering the name Nike or Apple.

So, when naming a brand, it’s important to test its memorability.

It’s surprisingly easy to do this:

1. Make a list of the names you’re considering.

2. Show this list to a group of people

3. Let them stare at the list for a few minutes

4. Don’t let them take the list home

5. Call them a few days later

When you pick up the phone, don’t ask for their favorite names.

Ask them which names they remember.

Any name that goes unrecited should be cut, immediately.

I don’t care if it’s your daughter’s name.

Do as Stephen King recommends in his legendary book on writing...

Kill your darlings.

Only the names that are remembered should be considered.

You will likely find that the same 2-3 names come up, again and again.

After this, it’s up to you.

You must decide which name you’re going to hang the weight of your empire on.

Godspeed.

By Cole Schafer.

This is a photograph of my grandfather smoking a cigarette in Princeton, Indiana.

Papa never wore an Ōura Ring.

He preferred the ruby ring my grandmother gifted him one year for his birthday. It took her months to scrape together the money from her factory job. At the end of his days, when he removed it from his finger to pass it on to my father, there w…

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I forgot to say thank you.

when my father called
to tell me
he didn’t think 
you’d be alive 
in six months,

i turned 
to my brother
as we cruised through 
riverside, california
and i said
i didn’t know how 
to say goodbye
to someone 
for the last time

and when i took 
your hand
as you laid 
in the hospital bed
to explain to you 
what you meant to me,
i…

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Johnny Cash was once asked for his definition of paradise.

To which he responded…

“This morning, with her, having coffee.”

He was referring to the love of his life, June Carter Cash, the five-time Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter.

Johnny asked June to marry him in front of 7,000 people. They were performing a sold-out show in London, Ontario.

After performing one of their hit songs Jackson, Johnny stopped the show, leaned into the microphone and asked…

“Will you marry me?”

June would later joke she had wished he had gotten down on one knee.

I don’t want to paint the wrong picture, though.

Johnny and June’s marriage was far from a fairytale. It was tumultuous. It was riddled with addiction. It was ripe with infidelity.

Yet, despite the turmoil, they endured.

In a 1997 interview with Larry King, Johnny reflected on his and June’s marriage. He believed their endurance was a by-product of their unconditional love for one another…

"There's unconditional love there. You hear that phrase a lot, but it's real with me and her. She loves me in spite of everything, in spite of myself.”

One of the many difficulties in writing about artistic legends is that the lines between fact and fiction often becomes blurred.

In saying that, I’m going to share commentary from Johnny on the topic of love stories. It gets recited constantly. I’ve searched and I’ve searched. I can’t seem to trace its origin. However, the romantic in me wants so badly for it to be true…

“You see, to me, the most romantic, beautiful love stories ever were the ones where two people meet, fall in love, and then fifty, sixty years later one of them dies and then a few days after that the other one dies because they just can’t bear to live without each other.”

I can’t find the source. So, let’s call it fiction.

But, what we know for fact is that June passed away on May 15, 2003.

Johnny made it a little longer than the love stories he imagined

He died four months later on September 12, 2003.

By Cole Schafer.