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I’ve written three dozen books books, and there isn’t a single one of them that doesn’t have at least one typo.  Not because I have incompetent editors or negligent designers. Not because I’m playing a game to see if my readers can find them. Not because I’m leaving an imperfect stitch in the rug as a crack where the light comes in.  But because editing is redundant, expensive, labor…

Doubt is an unavoidable feature of the human landscape.  It’s a sign that our faith has a pulse.  And so, the secret in executing anything is having that default move chambered and ready to go. That way, when the doubt comes crashing in, we don’t have to think or ponder or choose.  We simply engage our core. We take action on a foundational activity that calibrates the experience and…

What I love about playing music is, virtuosity isn’t necessarily relevant for getting what you want across.  Because a song is something that’s felt long before it’s heard and seen and touched and understood and evaluated.  And so, whether your music is bad or average or good or great or even amazing, isn’t the point. Because emotion trumps talent. Feeling arrives at the scene first, before the audience has…

When we’re in school, we don’t take boring classes like organic chemistry and applied trigonometry and advanced isotope geology because that knowledge will serve us later in life.  We take them to master the habit of doing things we don’t want to do. That’s the real education. Because once we graduate, eighty percent of life is just that. Waiting in line and sucking it up and powering through and…

I have a friend who, god bless him, always goes out of his way to show me a bigger picture of myself than I am willing to see.  He opens to the complete possibility of what might be.  And although I’m not always in the right headspace to confront and embrace that picture, his effort never goes unappreciated. Because as I learned from bestselling architecture book of all time: It’s better…

In my lowest and most loathsome moments, I forget to treat myself as I’d like to be treated.  I start using cruel language to cut myself down. And I say things that, if I said them to another person, they’d probably punch me in the face.  But then I remember, having compassion for myself is how I bounce back from failure and struggle and hopelessness. It’s one of the…

When times are tough and sales are low, you take your confidence and momentum wherever you can get it.  Otherwise you’ll never free yourself from the tyranny of pessimism and get back into the game.  And so, instead of forecasting and foreshadowing every possible negative scenario you think might occur, start looking for signs that the universe is on your side.  Treat it like a game. Use optimism to…

Hell isn’t other people, hell is trying to change them.  Unfortunately, that’s the crux of every argument in human history. It always boils down to one person silently asking another, why can’t you be more like me?  And so, if you want to deepen your reservoir of empathy and care, start by never assuming other people are having the same experience you’re having. No matter how tempting it is to…

One of my clients is an insurance company who specializes in writing policies for farms. Their claims department abides by the motto: If it’s grey, we pay.  Meaning, if there’s ambiguity whether the policy covers a claim or not, the priority favors the customer, not the company. If it’s not clear from the available evidence whether an insurance claim is genuine or not, the company still pays out.  This…

Innovation starts with pursuing our own thoughts in the privacy of our consciousness.  Answering the questions life is asking us. And the good news is, this process doesn’t require extraordinary effort, merely habitual attention.  Debono, the godfather of innovative thinking and creativity, once released an obscure book about this very issue. It contains dozens of previously unreleased, privately subscribed issues of his lateral thinking newsletter from the early eighties, outlining strategies for…