For starters, a warped sense of humor helps. When he first came from New York, shortly after college, Paul Geffner began selling handmade leather bound journals, along with a crowd of other street vendors on the sidewalk near The Embarcadero in S.F. Even then people were drawn to him.

Soon, with childhood friends, he started Captain Video. They designed the first video rental display shelves, a style still used today. Video rentals popped up on many street corners back then yet his stores were packed, staff became like family. Some went on to be managers and then part owners.

With Blockbuster looming, he and his partners sold the rental outlets, with money from the sale flowing through to many employees. Along the way, he continued his weekly basketball games, read and wrote poetry, took friends on rock mining trips for Herkimer diamonds and amethysts and more – all pursuits he started in childhood. Longtime partners became friends, split off and invested in each other’s businesses, still staying in touch. Over the years the ones I recall include Amoeba Records, Escape From New York Pizza (pizza and poetry), Purity and (my favorite name) a chicken take-out place in S.F. called Poultry in Motion.

Yes, he’s made money, and deep friendships. He’s happily married to Lisa Bennett. Along the way he’s been a retail start-up helper, owner of several mines, board member, Big Brother, team mate, frequent best man, jokester, – and the rich source of a quirky, soulful life philosophy. He started a “do good” fund called For Love or Money. He launched a holiday that you, too, can celebrate simply by wearing your shirt inside out, an easy way to recognize others who’re celebrating it, eh? I thought of Paul when I first saw The Wire because I knew he’d love the brilliant script, chaotic storyline and true-to-life characters.

This has been a stellar year for him, even by his standards. I thought of him when I read Rita Carter’s Multiplicity and Marci Alboher’s Slash Life.

Paul embodies the spirit, generosity and ingenuity of the Me2We spirit in enjoying work and life – with others. Want an emotional lift, a few laughs and some insights on how to grow your business and live a life that takes in into different worlds, a life you can savor with steadfast friends? As Robin Sharma wrote, Who Will Cry When You Die?

That irritating co-worker you’re stuck sitting by (again!) sees a decidedly different side of you than your best friend does. That’s because you have many people inside of you (no they’re not imaginary). That’s what veteran science writer, Rita Carter discovered as she began reading about bi-polar personalities for Mapping the Mind. Emerging research shows that several, “personalities are made and kept separate in the human brain” … of everyone. Want a glimpse of how many you have? Depending on the situation and who you’re are around, different people pop out and speak for you. If it is of some comfort, you do play one main character, much of the time, in the unfolding movie that is your life story. Discover Yourselves At Last.

Yet even the argumentative or otherwise darker personalities are in your life for a reason. In Carter’s newest book, Multiplicity, you can get to know your “people”, the one who plays the most likeable role and the one who keeps getting you in trouble.

In a conversational style, Carter describes the research on our multiple personality brains. In the second part of the book, find exercises to understand more about the multiple you. As a quiet child I’m still surprised at the diverse personalities that appear out of me in my multiple, overlapping careers, as a high tech exec, journalist and, perhaps most peculiarly, public speaker.

Imagine doing these exercises with a spouse, best friend of co-workers at a retreat. It would be a vulnerable time – and an opportunity to explore ways you can bring out the best side in each other more often.

Combine this self-discovery and how you relate to others with the fascinating work by Steven Pinker, Helen Palmer, Dan Pink, Marty Seligman and Marcus Buckingham and you may find that you become happier, get along better with others and get more done with less stress. (I’m stumbling along in my own practice here.)

Possible Side Benefits

• You can design a more satisfying work and life.

• You won’t let somebody else determine your behavior. With heightened self-awareness of your many roles, you’ll be more aware of your hot buttons and the type of people and situations who set them off. You can protect yourself from being “primed” to react.

Instead you’ll have a better chance to choose how you want to act. Hear more in this podcast interview with Rita Carter.

Those mortifying accidents. Stephen J. Dubner unleashed a pent-up flood of guilt and shame from readers of his New York Times column last month. Ever written an email, then sent it in haste … to the wrong person? Or cc’d people who shouldn’t have seen your candid message? Or mistakenly received an email that was not meant for your eyes? Within days after Dubner told his tale, 166 readers shared their stories of regret, outrage and in Marci Alboher’s case, a happy ending. Wonder what’s the proper etiquette in this new world of instantly sendable missives? Like advice on avoiding such mishaps?

Want to read more stories to feel better about your mistake? Visit the Web site Think Before You Send, for the book, Send, by the New York Times’s Op-ed editor David Shipley and Will Schwalbe, former editor at Hyperion.Gossip. Billion dollar goof. Mis-directed love notes. Quick-trigger lawyers. CEO’s insults. Doomed convoy.

Nope. There’s no retrieve key. Just apology. Done right.

It’s an unavoidably and increasingly transparent world. Some are proudly, vividly telling all in the name of authenticity – often humorously – sometimes attracting a large community (or audience), posting personal or “social” information on several sites, Twittering away throughout day.

Some, like Claire, create Great Email Disasters.“Oversharing.”It seems we are diving into this new way of public living, even if we aren’t (yet) celebrities. iPhone. Flip video. The tech toys are alluring. (I love them.) And the bravery and exuberance, especially of women, to tell it like it is, inevitably opens the conversations for us all.

Today had its slow moments, right? Yet life flies by fast. With each year it passes faster. So why not go slow to go fast? Sometimes anyway. Make more moments memorable. Consider your concentric circles of family, friendships, colleagues and acquaintances.

Pause to contemplate the most thoughtful ways to reach out, and with whom. Until Facemail arrives, pause again before you send. Preserve reputations. In this “always on” anywhere, any time, anyone (photo.video.word) coverage of most any situation, consider how you want to connect. Keep confidences. Be trustworthy. Cultivate relationships in a transient, time-starved world.

We need some privacy to be our truest selves. Akin to the old-fashioned notion that fences make good neighbors, our thoughtful lines of privacy may enable us to grow ever closer. I am a situational extrovert and value my friends. Yet I look forward to walking and driving without talking on the phone or even listening to music, to notice the world around me, the thoughts and feelings seep that into my consciousness. Anybody else like that?

Maybe I’m simply clinging to a world where we choose between solitude and constant contact with others.Our life is our ultimate art. Found your line of privacy? As someone once said, “In art as in life it is often a matter of where you draw the line.”

When a dot com founder and a real estate developer can bankroll successful movies for profit or for noble social goals, then the movie studios better watch their backs. They have more than the writers’ strike to worry about in a power shift that L.A. Times reporter, Patrick Goldstein predicts will crack open the movie business to further ground-breaking alliances (and inspire you to create your own.)

Like other hyphenates (as Marci Alboher knows), the writer-director of “Michael Clayton,” Tony Gilroy, was thrilled with the opportunity to use his multiple talents – and add one – “entrepreneur” to his tool-kit.

Notes Goldstein, “Hollywood is a town awash in hyphenates. TV is loaded with writer-producers. The movie biz is full of writer-directors. There’s even a legion of actor-filmmakers like Clint Eastwood and George Clooney … .

Visiting a UCLA film class the other night, I was asked to name the most influential filmmakers of our era. The choices were pretty obvious: Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, John Lasseter, George Lucas. . . . As the names spilled out, I realized they all have something in common. They’re filmmaker-entrepreneurs, artists-turned-businessmen who helped start their own companies to further their work, became financially independent and created a world that operates under a radically different set of rules from the vacuous studio assembly lines. It’s telling that the current strike is about new media yet both sides seem to be following old-school models.

… It’s hard to equal the way studios launch their summer popcorn extravaganzas with a $40-million marketing blitz. But as more entertainment migrates to the Internet, where distribution is basically free to anyone with a computer, the studios will lose that monopoly as well. If the last couple of weeks are any indication, with clips from out-of-work comedy writers popping up every day, the Web could be littered with new must-see video sites by Christmas. Remember: After barely a year in existence, YouTube was bought by Google for $1.65 billion. On the Internet, good ideas travel fast.

‘The world is about to change,’ (writer-director) Scott Frank says. ‘Anyone with an Apple computer can make a movie now — it’s never been a more democratic medium. The studios should be very afraid. Once the independent financiers start going directly to writers, things could change really fast. I ask myself every week — why aren’t we all working with them? Look at the movies they’ve made. They are the new Medicis.’”

Marc Andreessen’s blunt assessment of the seismic power shift in how creatives and entrepreneurs will be able to work on a larger stage is reflected in the “suicide by strike” that is hastening the “rebuilding Hollywood in Silicon Valley’s image.”

Opportunities will explode for entrepreneurs and creative folks who can work with people extremely unlike them – and not just in movie-making.

As Mathew McCall wrote on AlwaysOn, “The writers’ strike, and the studios’ response to the strike, may radically accelerate a structural shift in the media industry — a shift of power from studios and conglomerates towards creators and talent.” And, echoing Dan Pink’s prediction (good news for non-mogul creative folks), “the current B2C phase we are in has dropped the cost for start-ups and has shifted more of the power to the “creators.”
Just yesterday an amazing team of hyphenates announced a new movie, under development ironically about someone who “straddles two worlds”, Bobby Martinez, “one of the top professional surfers and the first Mexican-American on the world tour. “

For your next big dream, how many of your skills will you use – and what kinds of hyphenate partners will you recruit to make it happen?

Colleen (communicatrix) is excited about Maggie Renzi and John Sayles’ way to bypass the movie studio/theater so you can see Honeydripper.