10 Things the Most Successful People Are Always Doing
1. Planning their Lives, Working their Plan. Ordinary folks with a plan will go further than a genius without a plan. Most folks go the…
Back to The Well
To go “Back to The Well” is to go back to the source of something valued, anything that nourishes you, replenishes your strength. When the storm…
Understanding the Overton Window
The Overton window is the range of generally accepted, politically or socially, ideas in a culture or sub-culture. This window moves over time: “Positions which…
Junzi or Xiaoren: Which are you calling forth?
Junzi and xiaoren are two concepts from Confucianism and refer to two types of leaders. A junzi is one who puts the people first, speaks…
The Hard Thing a Leader Does Better Than Most
In hard times, in times of unusual risk or even potential danger, when things are in flux, when uncertainty lies all around, people desperately need…
Living from the Heart
Over a quarter of a century ago, a lovely little book was written carrying a kind and gentle message in parable form. While it was…
Escaping the Tunnel
Tunneling occurs when we are (or at least feel we are) overwhelmed. When folks get slammed with problems, they often enter the tunnel, adopting tunnel…
Problem Blindness
One obstacle with solving problems is when we can’t or won’t see the problem aka “problem blindness”. Problem blindness’s most common form is when something…
The Power of Upstream Thinking
You are walking by the side of a river when you hear screams of distress: a child is drowning. You plunge into the water and…
Things Mentally Strong People Do
They Release Allowing the emotions of a situation or event to stay behind, to deliberately choose to NOT carry them forward with you is incredibly…
When “Nice” Isn’t
“He may be too nice a guy to fix things via challenging others.” We’ve all seen it, the person who lets sub-optimal situations fester, the…
Our True Measure
It is in times like these that life takes our “true measure”. In times of crisis, of peril, when the storms of life rage, when…
The Healthy Upside and Potential Downside of Amour Proper
Amour proper is French and means literally “self-love”. As a philosophical concept, it is found in the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Blaise Pascal, La Rochefoucauld…
Summum Bonum
Summum bonum is a Latin phrase meaning “the highest good” and represents a concept introduced by the Roman philosopher Cicero. While some philosophies associate the…
Walking the Valley
Between every mountain lies a valley. Some are wide and smooth, others narrow, rocky, and rough yet all must be traversed. Most of us have…
Beware Brittle Learning
“Brittle Learning” is superficial knowing; where you’ve memorized a few “lessons” but do not truly understand the underlying principles. The minute the environment changes (and…
Overlearning: Practice Beyond Perfect
Overlearning means learning more about a subject than the minimum necessary; also practicing a skill above and beyond achieving threshold mastery. The theory being that…
A Faster Horse
“If I had asked people what they wanted they would have said a faster horse.” – Henry Ford 1863-1947 We don’t always fully understand what…
What Gift Are You Withholding?
“I’ve always wanted to….” We can all fill in the blank with some skill we have never developed, some dream we’ve never followed, some ability…
The Stories We Tell
Take a moment and reflect back upon the life stories you return to, that repeat in your mind, that define you. These “root stories” create…
The Mysterious Alchemy of Teams
The best performing group isn’t necessarily the one with the smartest people in it. Team Performance is a lot like happiness: success is best brought…
Better is better than Best
Business (and Life) is a multi-player, multi-move game that is never ending, where new players can enter the game at any time and the rules…
Deep Work: Superpower of Success
“Deep Work” is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task; in contrast to “Shallow Work”: the routine work, everyday tasks that…
Embracing MFD
MFD stands for “Mostly Fine Decision” and means what is the minimum outcome that is satisfactory, that you would be fine with? MFD is designed…
Choosing The Road Less Comfortable
A life of severe abstinence can be as destructive to the soul as a life of excessive indulgence. As always, it is the Middle Way…
Failure: Stepping Stone to Success?
Can failure be a GOOD thing? Yes, certainly, but with caveats! Demanding perfection is a prescription for paralysis and the only way to never fail…