Prose by Ben Callahan

Step into the Stream Apr 24, 2023 On Being Better From page 56 of Rick Rubin’s “The Creative Act: A Way of Being:” You can’t step into the same stream twice because it’s always flowing. Everything Earthly vs Unearthly Apr 18, 2023 On Being Better I’ve been reading the new Rick Rubin book (The Creative Act: A Way of Being). It’s so wonderful. I love how it’s structured (nice short chapters you Fluency Jun 27, 2022 On Being Better From our very beginning, the idea of fluency has been a core value at my company, Sparkbox. Today, if you read our handbook you’ll see it listed Humility and the Quiet Ego Jan 10, 2022 On Being Better Last week, I was sitting in a nice restaurant with my partner. I’m smiling even now as I write this remembering how sweet the time was. The lights Implicit Bias, Meet The Dominant Narrative Mar 25, 2016 Ever since I took the implicit bias tests provided by Harvard, not a day passes which doesn’t reveal to me some new vein of perspective I need to More Thoughts on Compromise Feb 26, 2016 I wrote about compromise last year, but when the topic for February’s @startYourShift was announced, I knew I had more to share. Specifically, the Quality, Quantity, Practice, Perfect Nov 8, 2015 “Quality over quantity.” “Practice makes perfect.” The past three months have taught me that these two statements are actually both wrong. Let me What Makes a Great Event Nov 1, 2015 I’ve been to a lot of (Web) industry events over the past few years. Some of them have been fantastic, some not so much. I wanted to jot down my What to do when your project is failing Oct 11, 2015 Dear future Ben, Projects fail for a lot of reasons. But one of the most common is the people involved. So, next time you find yourself in the Confident Humility Oct 4, 2015 Confident humility means you’re not afraid to admit when you don’t know the answer. Confident humility means you’re willing to give your team the Not all Drag is Bad Sep 27, 2015 Last week I wrote about project drag. This past Friday I spoke about workflow baggage. Both my article and my presentation are designed to help The ones you start with Sep 13, 2015 are rarely the ones you finish with. The ones you start with catch the vision, but they tire of situations (even good ones) Priorities Sep 6, 2015 What do you want to be remembered for? For me… The core of who I am—who I want to be—is a good father, husband, and man of faith. After this, I Mr. Fix It Aug 30, 2015 I’ve never been very handy. I think it’s the streak of perfectionism that runs through my blood combined with my lack of experience actually fixing 2025 Aug 23, 2015 A friend of mine asked me this week, “Will Sparkbox be around in 10 years?” Then, as if that wasn’t mind-melting enough, he followed it up with, Walk Aug 16, 2015 She turned the head of every nurse in the maternity wing the moment she was born. Not because of her looks—although, she was about as cute as human What To Do When There’s Nothing To Do Aug 8, 2015 For as long as I can remember, I’ve been busy with the work of Sparkbox. I started this place with a few friends, and back then we wrote the code