Jim Shulman on Practically Everything

This Friday my father turns 89–which is an utterly amazing achievement. He’s confronted a wide variety of health issues over the past five years, ranging from hypoglycemia to broken bones, yet like the Energizer bunny keeps thumping away. While our conversations...

What makes a great (or even moderately successful) entrepreneur? We’ve all seen the large-type business book cliches about drive, determination, and curiosity, but I find these behaviors are less characteristics than effects. In working with entrepreneurs for more...

Today I drove by my old synagogue and Hebrew school, now a Baptist church and day care center.  I remembered what, inadvertently, was the most important lesson I learned in my ten years of religious education imprisonment.  Imprisonment is about right.  By the fifth...

This past weekend my parents celebrated their 58th wedding anniversary which, given their health of the past few years, is nothing short of remarkable. It gave me some pause, too, when I considered what I’d learned from them–particularly patience and...

Long before Uber, long before Philly Ride Share, back in the era when the Checker Marathon ruled the Earth, I learned a valuable lesson about business and life. One evening in the early 1980s I was hanging out at a bar on South Street, commiserating with a group of...

When I’m not working with clients, or talking with almost anyone who’d love to share a cup of extra-strong coffee, I’m off taking photographs. My photography falls somewhere between a passion and obsession; virtually every weekend (and on several weekdays) I’m off and...

Today’s New York Times featured two fascinating articles which, taken together, speak volumes about ethics and appearances. The first was an op-ed piece by Frank Bruni, which analyzes the obscene payments (both salary and retirement bonuses) to university presidents...

The current issue of the New Yorker includes a profile of Mark Bradford, one of the hottest painters of the decade. While his works now fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars, his success was hardly an overnight phenomenon: he worked in his mother’s beauty salons for...