There are no rules, but you break them at your peril.

The Internet is an audience of one, a million times over.

Welcome it as part of a process... you just can't avoid it... if you go to bat enough times, you are going to strike out; and you will do it cataclysmically; and you know success and failure are just millimeters apart.

A gun can be dangerous. But a gun can protect you, you can hunt for food with it - you know, the tool itself is a tool. The intention of the party using the tool is a part of the process, right? You know: the knife cuts the steak, stabs the person, saves somebody from danger, cuts somebody out of a car.

In any situation that calls for you to persuade, convince or manage someone or a group of people to do something, the ability to tell a purposeful story will be your secret sauce.

Nothing replaces being in the same room, face to face, breathing the same air and reading and feeling each other's micro-expressions.

The seminal elements of what makes a story great - challenge, struggle, resolution - are the same whether we're talking about story content for a movie such as 'Rain Man,' or telling a purposeful story to forge new business relationships or conclude a fruitful transaction, such as acquiring an NBA franchise.