This summer’s #1 bestselling business book, Triggers, by Marshall Goldsmith, describes how not to worry about things not worth worrying about. I’m going to improve what he wrote. He created an acronym, AIWATT, which he rhymes with “say what,” short for the first six words of this question: Am I willing, at this time, to make the investment required to make a positive difference on this topic? If you are[…] Keep reading →

My colleague and friend, Tim Francis, whose online course I took and loved on moving a business online, told me about how simplifying his life is improving it. I sent him a link to my post, “Less, please,” which got him looking at his bookshelf. In a few minutes he went from describing the books’ value to questioning it to seeing value in the freedom of not books and putting[…] Keep reading →

“He’s so lucky! He never puts on weight!” “She’s so lucky! She loses weight so fast!” I hear people say things like that all the time. If I eat one unhealthy meal, I can see it on my belly. But then even after running a marathon I don’t see that fat go away. Fat goes on immediately and takes a long time and a lot of work to get off.[…] Keep reading →

“To serve is to live.” Frances Hesselbein had the fastest, clearest, most direct, and most meaningful answer of anyone I remember asking her passion. Five minutes into our pre-lunch conversation and she went right to the point. Experience and, I believe, only experience enables people to encapsulate great meaning in a minimum of words. I was immediately struck by the power and meaning in these few short words: “to serve[…] Keep reading →

I read with sorrow and disdain a New York Times editorial the other day, “There Ought to Be a Law Against Hate.” I feel compassion for a man who lost a mother to a neo-Nazi, but don’t agree with him about outlawing a human emotion. The part I object to most is the title, that there should be a law against hate. Hate is an emotion that all humans have.[…] Keep reading →

I once read that the difference between activities that cool kids do and uncool kids do is that uncool kids’ activities tend to be based in rules and cool kids’ less so. I don’t know how you’d verify the idea, but I found exploring it told me about myself. Uncool kids play chess, which has clear rules. You can count the possible states. Cool kids play football. Football has rules,[…] Keep reading →

My mom grew up on a farm. I forget the details, but she said the family of six would have about a pound of meat for a meal (or maybe for a week). Dessert would be an apple. Americans today routinely eat over a pound of meat in one meal and turn down apples in favor of sweetened delicacies only royalty enjoyed a few generations ago. Poor Americans today have[…] Keep reading →

Lou Gehrig was one of the greatest athletes of the twentieth century. He died in his prime from the disease often named after him. On July 4, 1939, he gave his retirement speech, which I copied below. Some career highlights from Wikipedia: He was an All-Star seven consecutive times, a Triple Crown winner once, an American League (AL) Most Valuable Player twice, and a member of six World Series champion[…] Keep reading →

Simplicity, structure, and useful habits keep unimportant things from distracting you and allow you to focus on what you want, which makes life fun and rewarding. They give you mental freedom. When I met David Allen he described how the structure of his processes in his book Getting Things Done create freedom, not just make you more productive. I follow them with my adjustments that I wrote up here, and[…] Keep reading →