Denzel Washington

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What I Believe About Success

By John C. Maxwell, March 5, 2014

When will you be successful? If you’re like most people, what comes to mind is someday—somewhere off in the future, when you’ll suddenly wake up and think, “I made it! I’m a success!” That’s how most unsuccessful people see success: as something to strive for and hope to reach “someday.”

Each of us has a picture in mind of what we want our career to look like, our family to look like, and yes, from an early age we often conjure up images of the houses, cars, and things we would like to obtain. In many persons’ minds, success is something way off in the distance that they will run themselves ragged to get to—if they ever get to it at all.

At one time, I viewed success as a place where I would arrive. I defined it as the progressive realization of a predetermined, worthwhile goal. But over time, I realized that the definition falls short of the mark. It leads to “destination disease”—the belief that if we just arrive somewhere (e.g. attain a position, accomplish a goal, have a relationship with the right person), we will be successful.

But many years ago, I came to a different conclusion about success. All the traditional definitions either made success a destination to reach, or required some magic formula to obtain. I began to see success as a journey, an ongoing process of growth. And after over nearly fifty years of knowing successful people and studying the subject, this is the definition of success that I now embrace:

Success is…
Knowing your purpose in life,
Growing to reach your maximum potential, and
Sowing seeds that benefit others.

You can see by this definition why success is a journey rather than a destination. No matter how long you live or what you decide to do in life, you will never exhaust your capacity to grow toward your potential, nor will you run out of opportunities to help others. When you see success as a journey, then you never have the problem of trying to “arrive” at an elusive final destination. And you’ll never find yourself in a position where you’ve accomplished some final goal—only to discover that you’re still unfulfilled and searching for something else to do.

Another benefit of focusing on the journey of success instead of on arriving at a destination or achieving a goal is that you have the potential to become a success today. The very moment that you make the shift to finding your purpose, growing to your potential, and helping others, successful is something you are right now, not something you vaguely hope one day to be.

Let’s talk more about how to pursue each of the three aspects noted above.

Knowing Your Purpose. I believe that God created every person for a purpose. As psychologist Viktor Frankl said, “Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life. Everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus everyone’s task is as unique as his specific opportunity to implement it.” Each of us has a purpose for which we were created. Our responsibility—and our greatest joy—is to identify it.

Finding our purpose requires us to seek to discover two things: our passion, and our giftedness. What is the deep desire set in your heart, the thing that sets your soul on fire? What makes you cry? What do you get most excited about? And what are you good at? No one else in the world has exactly the same gifts, talents, background, or future that you do.

Think about the unique mix of abilities you have, the resources available to you, your own personal history, and the opportunities around you. If you objectively identify these factors and discover the desire of your heart, you will have done a lot toward discovering your purpose in life.

Growing to Your Potential. Novelist H.G. Wells said that wealth, notoriety, place, and power are no measures of success whatsoever. The only true measure of success is the ratio between what we might have been and what we have become. In other words, success comes as the result of growing to our potential. It’s been said that our potential is God’s gift to us, and what we do with it is our gift to him.

We have nearly limitless potential, yet few ever try to reach it. Why? The answer lies in this: We can do anything, but we can’t do everything. Many people let everyone around them decide what their agenda is in life. As a result, they never really dedicate themselves to their purpose in life. They become a jack of all trades, master of none—rather than a jack of few trades, focused on one.

Reaching your potential requires focus. That’s why it’s so important for you to discover your purpose. Commitment to continual improvement is also key. Each day you can become a little bit better than you were yesterday.

Forget the past and focus on the future. That’s where your potential lies, ahead of you—no matter whether you’re eight, eighteen, forty-eight, or eighty. You still have room to improve yourself. You can become better tomorrow than you are today. As the Spanish proverb says, “He who does not look ahead remains behind.”

Sowing Seeds That Benefit Others. When you know your purpose in life and are growing to reach your maximum potential, you’re well on your way to being a success. But there’s one more important part to the success journey: helping others. Without that aspect, the journey can be a lonely and shallow experience.

Helping others is something you can do right here, right now, whether it’s spending more time with your family, developing an employee who shows potential, helping people in the community, or simply putting your own desires on hold for the sake of your team at work. The key is to link your purpose with your desire to help others.

Entertainer Danny Thomas said, “All of us are born for a reason, but all of us don’t discover why. Success in life has nothing to do with what you gain in life or accomplish for yourself. It’s what you do for others.”

The success journey will not look the same for everyone, because the picture of success is different for every person. What doesn’t change are the principles used to take the journey. They can be applied at home, in school, at the office, on the ball field, and in church. It doesn’t matter where you are now. You can learn and apply these ideas. You can be successful today.

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One Hour a Day Keeps the Pink Slip Away

The Simple Dollar, 28 Feb 2014

Prior to 2008 (when I made the decision to write for a living so that I could have a much more flexible schedule for my family), I held a job in a research lab where I was involved with the processing and sharing of large quantities of scientific data. This required both computer programming skills and scientific skills—not only did I have to know how to manipulate the data, I had to know why I was manipulating it and what answers people would seek.

I was reasonably successful in that position. My exit from this job was entirely of my own choosing. I’m pretty sure I would still be at that job (or a very similar job) if I didn’t make a personal choice to change direction.

Along the way, I had a handful of wonderful mentors. One was a jovial older gentleman who loved to close his office door near the end of the day, open his window, and enjoy his pipe. Another was a quiet but incredibly thoughtful man from Germany, one of those people who might only say two or three things during a long meeting but each of those things would be insightful and thoughtful. Yet another was an incredibly friendly staff member who enabled my first big career opportunity.

All of them suggested one key thing that I should do during my professional career that would not only secure my job, but would secure almost every job I might want to get. It’s something really simple, too.

They told me to spend at least one hour a day focusing on learning something new related to my job. If I could possibly carve out an hour during a workday, I should spend that hour actively learning a new skill or studying a relevant topic. They also recommended trying to apply those skills to my own side projects that might bear fruit for something relevant to my job.

I really took that idea to heart. During the course of my career, I taught myself several programming languages and worked on several small projects on my own, including writing some great AJAX software near the end of my time there. I extensively studied genetics and read a small mountain of scientific papers. I learned the deep inner workings of several different database systems, even though my job didn’t involve database management. I studied a bunch of techniques for managing different data types and experimented with them, eventually implementing some of those ideas in my main work.

I spent at least an hour per day doing this whenever I possibly could (there were crunch times where that didn’t work, of course).

In the short term, this approach really wasn’t helpful. I would often have this long list of things that I needed to get done and by spending an hour or two learning something new, I wasn’t getting anything checked off of that list.

Over time, though, it became more and more and more useful. I found that by teaching myself different approaches and studying new ideas, I understood the tasks that I was responsible for on a much deeper level. Rather than just applying the same old techniques to a given task, I’d understand it differently from a scientific perspective or I’d know a new algorithm that I could apply to the problem.

I was able to solve these problems faster… but I was also able to solve them better. This made me drastically more efficient at work and people noticed. There were actually jokes about how I would have a “rough” implementation of a solution to a problem in place by the end of a conference call, simply because I had a lot of tools at my disposal. I had invested the time to learn new tools and new information and that learning consistently paid off.

This made me more valuable in the workplace. It also helped me to build a resume, as I was able to contribute and even take the lead on projects that I wouldn’t have been able to contribute to when I first started. I received raises, professional recognition, and other little perks as a result.

The key to this, without a doubt, was to simply spend an hour each day learning new skills and knowledge related to my job. It did not help me in the short term. It was purely a long term investment, but after a year or two, I saw that investment paying off almost every single day.

It doesn’t matter what your job is. There are always things to learn. There are always skills to build. There are always efficiencies you can improve. If you do it consistently, it will be noticed, and when it comes time to ask for a raise or take on a professional change, those efforts will reward you greatly.

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Why you will fail to have a great career: Larry Smith

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Once Told He'd Never Walk Again, Irish Gymnast Is Now Olympian

By Juliet Macur, NY Times, July 26, 2012

LONDON—Before life threw more adversity at him than one person ought to bear, Kieran Behan told his mother that he would be an Olympic gymnast someday.

He was just a boy, maybe 6 years old, when he fell in love with gymnastics, drawn to the thrill of it while watching the Summer Games, enamored by the possibility that he too could defy gravity and flip through the air as if he could fly.

But that was before a series of injuries, two so severe that doctors told him he would never walk again: a botched leg operation that caused nerve damage and a brain injury that kept him from doing even the simplest things, like sitting or eating.

Yet Behan, a 5-foot-4-inch plucky phoenix, pushed on.

“Doctors told me, stop thinking about your crazy dreams because you’ll never walk again and you must accept that it’s over for you,” Behan said. “But I just kept saying: ‘No, no, no—this is not the rest of my life. This is not how it’s going to play out.’ And look at me now, an Olympian. They said it was impossible, but I did it.”

Behan, 23, barely clinched an Olympic berth in January, qualifying second to last at the Olympic test event to become the first Irish gymnast to make it to the Games by his own talent, not by wild card. He benefited from a new Olympic rule that limits each team to five gymnasts instead of six, to make more spots available to individuals whose country does not field a full team.

Many of the powerhouse squads, including the United States’, criticized the rule change, saying it watered down the competition and forced some teams to leave a world-class gymnast at home. But the rule has an upside: it allows athletes like Behan to compete on the sport’s highest stage.

“Kieran has gone through so much,” his mother, Bernie Behan, said through tears. “He deserves this.”

Kieran Behan started gymnastics when he was 8, showing a talent for the tumbling. But soon came the first of many obstacles: when he was 10, he found a lump the size of a golf ball on his left leg.

During surgery to remove what turned out to be a benign tumor, doctors kept a tourniquet on him too tight for too long, causing nerve damage that left Behan with limited feeling in his left foot. It also caused such pain that even a slight brush against his leg would cause him to scream. He could not walk, heading to school at one point to the taunts of other youngsters who already had it out for him.

“They’d say, ‘Oh, look at the cripple,’ and that was so hard for me because, already, I was doing gymnastics and I was short, and I was doing a girls’ sport,” he said. “So a lot of times, I would sit at the kitchen window and watch all the kids running around the park and playing football, and I’d get pretty emotional. All I wanted to do was be an ordinary kid again.”

Doctors warned him that the damaged nerves might never regenerate. A psychiatrist told him to prepare him for life in a wheelchair. They were wrong.

Although it took 15 months, Behan did become an ordinary kid again. And he went back to gymnastics.

But about eight months after he returned from his leg injury, disaster hit again. In what he calls a freakish accident, he smacked the back of his head on the metal horizontal bar during a routine and tumbled to the ground in a lump.

The accident caused a traumatic brain injury and severe damage to the vestibular canal of his inner ear, which affected his balance so much that even the slightest movement could cause Behan to black out. And black out he did, hundreds of times, maybe thousands of times, his mother said, as Behan struggled to turn his head, feed himself and walk without stumbling and looking as if he were dead drunk.

Frustrated by his slow progress after two months in the hospital, Bernie Behan went home with her son in her arms because doctors would not discharge him. She quit her job as an aerobics instructor to care for him.

“He kept telling the doctors, ‘I can walk—tell them, Mom, that I can walk,’ and my heart was breaking,” she said. “I’d go to the car park and cry my eyes out, then walk back and say: ‘Yes, Kieran, you can do this. We can do this. I believe you, son.’ “

Nearly two years after his accident and after unrelenting physical therapy, Kieran Behan—the miracle boy, doctors said—regained his hand-eye coordination and got back onto his feet again.

And back to gymnastics he went. He swept the floors of his gym to finance his training and jumped subway turnstiles to get to practice because there was no cash to spare. His parents held bake sales, candy sales and carwashes to raise money for him.

But, again, there were rough patches. He broke his arm. He fractured his wrist. He visited the hospital so often as a teenager, officials there suspected he was being abused. In 2009, he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee, requiring six months of rehabilitation.

Yet he did not quit the sport.

But in 2010, six weeks before his senior debut at the European championships, he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his other knee. After all he had endured, the injury nearly derailed him.

“He made it back from all of those other setbacks, but that one was the hardest for him because the championships were just around the corner, and he was ready,” said Simon Gale, one of his coaches. “He couldn’t handle it. I wouldn’t say he was suicidal, but I’m just glad that his girlfriend was there to watch him at night.”

Behan, though, did what he innately did best: he picked himself up again. And he returned to gymnastics.

Finally, in 2011, he reaped the benefits of his persistence. He won three World Cup medals, including Ireland’s first World Cup gold medal, in the floor exercise, setting himself up for 2012—his best year yet.

But Behan, who has a slightly torn rotator cuff and was frightened of further injury, could barely make it through his last practice before heading to the Olympics last week. When he reached the end of it, he laughed. Then, he cried.

“I felt like I was in a fairy tale when I got here,” he said of the London Games. “All I could think about was: ‘Is this a dream? Tell me this really happening.’ “

Behan is competing in the vault, the horizontal bar and his specialty, the floor exercise, but is not fooling himself into thinking he could win a medal—or even make the finals. He just hopes his tale might inspire others to overcome hardship, whether it is in sports, at work or at home.

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Dealing with Your Handicaps

By Robert Ringer, ETR, July 25, 2012

A healthy perspective has allowed me to view so-called physical handicaps in a different light since my daughter was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at a relatively young age. Like most parents confronted with the illness of a child, I went through the usual stages of denial, anger, and despair.

However, as the years passed, I increasingly focused on how lucky my daughter was that she did not have the chronic-progressive type of multiple sclerosis. People with the latter form of the disease deteriorate rather quickly and usually become confined to a wheelchair early on. My daughter, who is attractive, intelligent, and personable, has been able to lead a relatively normal life, raise two children, and continue on a successful career path.

Knowing that there are millions of people much worse off than my daughter has had a positive effect on both of us. Even more positive are the endless stories of severely disabled people who have enjoyed great success and managed to live meaningful, vital lives by taking action to overcome their handicaps. One story of special significance to me is that of Ronan Tynan.

Tynan was born with deformed legs, which caused him to suffer severe scoliosis. It got so bad that at age twenty he made the unimaginable decision to have both of his legs amputated below the knees and wear prosthetic lower limbs. That could have been the end of his dreams, but, instead, it was the beginning of one of the most action-oriented lives imaginable.

Ronan set his sights on athletics, and went into serious training. From 1981 to 1984, he won eighteen gold medals and set fourteen world records competing in events for the disabled. These feats alone could have been the basis of an incredible inspiration story, but Ronan was just getting started.

He next made the decision to become a medical doctor, and enrolled at Trinity University in Dublin, Ireland. At thirty-two, he began practicing medicine, which one would have thought would have put an exclamation point on his huge capacity to overcome adversity. Not even close.

Having discovered that he had a gifted tenor voice, in his spare time he took up singing in pubs. In 1994, he entered a television talent show in Ireland—and won! He soon gave up practicing medicine and became a world-famous stage performer. Still, Ronan’s trials and triumphs had not all been written.

As a result of a sinus-drainage problem caused by the return of a childhood injury he had suffered, he suddenly lost his voice and, reluctantly, returned to the practice of medicine. After a long period of recuperation following surgery to correct the problem, he slowly regained his magnificent voice.

Today, he thrills audiences throughout the world with his stirring performances, and, at fifty-two, is a relatively young man. Where he goes from here is anybody’s guess, but he already has had a major impact on millions of lives, and mere mortals like myself are deeply grateful to him for the inspiration he has provided through his astonishing success.

Inspirational stories like that of Ronan Tynan abound by the thousands. From Helen Keller and Franklin D. Roosevelt to Stevie Wonder and Stephen Hawking, the evidence is clear that physical handicaps can be overcome. Always keep in mind that a handicap is just a disadvantage that makes success more difficult, but there is a clear difference between difficult and impossible.

In fact, technically speaking, a handicap is not necessarily a physical disability, but any kind of disadvantage that makes life more difficult. Indeed, over time, I have come to realize that every person in the world has at least one bona fide handicap.

An obese person has a handicap; a person with attention-deficit disorder has a handicap; a person with a low IQ has a handicap; a person with big ears has a handicap; a person who comes from a poverty-stricken background has a handicap.

You, too, have a handicap. In fact, you probably have many handicaps. I don’t know what your handicaps are, but I know you have them. Everyone you meet, in spite of how successful or how happy he may appear to be, has a cross to bear. No one makes it through life without experiencing the hardships caused by a handicap, and each of us is faced with choosing between three alternatives when it comes to dealing with those hardships:

1. We can roll over and die, figuratively or literally.

2. We can go through life in a perpetual state of anger, turning people off and virtually ensuring a life of misery and failure.

3. We can make a conscious decision to expand the boundaries of our mental paradigms, take inventory of the assets that we do have, then move forward with bold action to exploit those assets to our advantage.

As thousands of inspirational stories about overcoming adversity have demonstrated, the third alternative makes the most sense to a rational individual. We have the power to make a conscious decision to play the cards we’ve been dealt to the best of our abilities.

In the final analysis, it always comes down to what you do with what you have.

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The Importance of Understanding!

Stepcase Lifehack, 13 Jul 2012

Pilots in the early days wore silk scarves and goggles. The scarves and goggles, in fact, became icons of open-cockpit pilots, and to this day souvenir designers put them on teddy bears and ceramic turtles so people can immediately identify them as pilots. The scarves and goggles are wonderfully romantic and iconic fashion symbols, aren’t they?

But do you know why pilots wore them? The radial engines of those early planes were notorious for leaking fuel and oil, and since the pilot sat right behind them in the open cockpit, any leaking fluids ended up right on them and in their faces. They used the silk scarves to wipe the oil or diesel off their goggles in mid-flight, so they could see!

This is just one example of how appearances do not measure up to reality. The scarves seem like a fashion statement, or perhaps for warmth, but their appearance belied their true purpose. We can easily make the same mistake today, in judging things from their appearances.

For example, I knew a pastor of a church who once drove a Cadillac. Seem a bit extravagant for someone whose wages are paid by their hard-working parishioners? It was the cheapest car he ever owned; he bought it second hand and got a very good deal on it. He replaced it with a Jeep Cherokee—the most expensive car he’d ever owned. But it didn’t get second-looks and he didn’t put up with any judgement for owning it.

There is a big danger in judging things we don’t really understand by how they appear. Unless you are really “in the loop,” be wary of things that you see or things others tell you. Remember the old adage “Believe half of what you say, a third of what you see, and none of what you hear.”

There’s a lot of truth in that. Don’t let yourself be spun for a loop over office politics, or rumours and speculation of what management is planning. Steer clear of the gossips and don’t give them any ammunition, that is, don’t say gossipy things to them or even drop hints. This still applies to you if you’re self-employed; don’t believe everything you hear on the news—in particular, speculation and forecasting. A lot of times, those people are only guessing about what’s going to happen and they can cause you a lot of worry that doesn’t do you any good. They are often wrong, something they won’t usually point out in the news at a later date. In some cases, the news can even take on a “gossipy” sound to it, and whenever you get that vibe, be very wary or tune it out.

Practice being slow to form an opinion of someone or something. If something grabs your attention, research it thoroughly before making any conclusions.

“Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”

We can fall into the trap of so earnestly wanting to get our point across, we forget to listen to the person we are speaking to. And even when we listen, how often do we really seek to understand? If you find you have issues understanding those around you, slow down and try to truly understand:
* Where they are coming from.
* What they are going through.
* What is their motivation for doing something.
* What they need or want from you.

Obviously, the answers to these questions vary greatly depending on who you are having communication trouble with. Be objective as you listen, as if you were a detective trying to solve the case, and don’t take anything personally. Once you feel like you understand the other person—why they are wearing that silk scarf—then you can “seek to be understood.”

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Do All That You Say You Will Do!

Do All That You Say You Will Do ... And More

Posted: 14 Jul 2012 04:28 AM PDT


By Craig Ballantyne, ETR, July 12, 2012
My mother is not the type to get upset. But I could sense the irritation in her voice when I asked, “How’s your new house coming along?”

It had been over three weeks since I last visited the farm, and, unfortunately, there had been practically no progress made on her new house. She listed the excuses she had been given from the contractors, her voice full of exasperation.

Later that afternoon, Bally the Dog and I went for a walk from the current farmhouse over to where the driveway had been laid for her new home. It was less than a mile walk over the stream, through a cornfield, and up a hill. There we found the grounds to be almost exactly the same as they were last month. The foundation had not even been poured.

I could see why she was so disappointed. When the project was initiated, she was assured of a move-in date of July. Now it’s looking like September at best.

This was a classic case of a business over-promising and under-delivering and thus failing to meet the expectations previously set in my mother’s mind. This is one of the biggest, most common communication mistakes that people make on a daily basis.

How many times has someone promised you the following and then left you waiting?

“I’ll be home by seven o’clock.”

“I’ll have that report on your desk by the end of the day.”

“I’ll call you back in an hour.”

Or worse, how many times have you been the one making false promises? How many times this week? How many times today?

It’s a mistake you can’t afford to make, not when you want to build long-term relationships with clients or colleagues.

Instead, you must use the “make a promise-keep a promise” system. That’s the formula for success. That’s the equation for deep relationships.

Make a promise. Keep a promise. It’s so simple, yet day-after-day we see businesses, politicians, and spouses all over the world drop the ball on this.

In your family life, you simply need to do all that you say you’re going to do. If you promise to be somewhere at a certain time to do something, you must fulfill your obligation. And, just as important, as self-improvement legend Jim Rohn advises, “Wherever you are, be there.” That means not being engrossed in your smartphone while at the park with your children or, the ultimate disrespect of all, texting while having dinner with someone. Either don’t promise to have that dinner or have the patience and courtesy to wait until later to send your phone messages. Make a promise to be there, and keep it.

In your business, do all that you say you’re going to do. Honor your contracts. Deliver on the promises made to your customers, suppliers, and partners. Avoid the temptation to over-promise and under-deliver. Be clear in your offer and make sure to avoid overextending yourself in the process. If you know you can’t deliver on a promise, don’t sell it. That mistake will only cause you a nagging headache and dent in your reputation.

That’s how you build relationships the right way, from day one, so that you never lose your prospect’s faith. And so you can avoid disappointed customers, like my mother.

Fortunately, and better late than never, the contractor called my mother and said that everything was now back on track. They would be getting to work on the foundation of the house early next week.

But that relationship is permanently damaged. She’ll never have the same level of trust in the contractor as she did when he first made his promises.

Don’t let this happen in your life or business. Put yourself on the line. Make your promises, keep your promises. Over-deliver value and exceed the expectations of everyone you deal with in life.

As my friend Bedros Keuilian teaches, “You need to over-deliver, give faster results than promised, and become the go-to leader for your market.”

It all starts with doing what you say—and more.

We can all do better. Let’s start today.

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Slay Your Dragons Before Breakfast!

By Michael Hyatt   michaelhyatt.com

I awoke this morning to the dragon’s hot breath on my face. I was disoriented, not quite knowing where I was. I struggled to open one eye. Then another.

And there he was. A dragon. A very big dragon. With three heads. Sitting in my bedroom, like so many mornings before, he was waiting. His heads swerved back and forth, dancing in the dim light. Each head alternately belching fire and hissing smoke.

I groaned. Here we go again, I thought. If only I could shut my eyes and will him away. No such luck. His presence only grew more menacing.

I knew that I had to act. I leapt from the bed and ran straight at him. I have learned by experience that my only chance at victory is to slay the dragon while it is still dark. Before the first rays of sunshine strengthen his already substantial advantage.

Fortunately, once again I prevailed. But my victory is short-lived. I will face him again tomorrow. And the day after that.

Although this sounds like a fairy tale, it’s not. It’s my reality, day after day.

I face a dragon named Lethargy every morning. It has three heads: Pneuma (spiritual), Soma (physical), and Nous (intellectual).

If I don’t slay this dragon before breakfast, he usually gets the best of me. After breakfast—when the day’s activities are crowding into my life—my chances of doing battle and winning drop dramatically. Sometimes I can emerge victorious. But rarely.

My chances are better if I get in my basic disciplines before I get assaulted with the demands of the workday.

So, before breakfast, I complete the following:

1. Read the Bible. I use this weapon to cut off the dragon’s middle head. I don’t know why it is so hard to defeat, but it is. A thousand and one distractions vie for my attention. That’s why I grab a cup of fresh tea, head to my favorite den chair, and begin reading at once. The Scriptures prime the pump and strengthen my resolve. If I can cut off the middle head of spiritual lethargy, the other two go down much easier. Currently, I am reading through the Bible in a year.

2. Engage in exercise. I use this weapon to cut off the dragon’s left head: physical lethargy. Sometimes, I think this is even more important than the middle head. Why? Because if I am not exercising regularly, it negatively impacts every other area of my life. It becomes more difficult to manage stress. I find that I just don’t have the energy to fight the other beasts I encounter. Currently, I am doing cardio four mornings a week for one hour and strength training two days a week for one hour. Weather permitting, I run outside. Otherwise, I am in the gym. Gail and I usually go together. It’s helpful to have an accountability partner.

3. Listen to books. I use this weapon to cut off the dragon’s right head: intellectual lethargy. I learned a long time ago that “leaders read and readers lead.” By definition a leader (as opposed to a mere manager) stays out in front of his people. To lead, you have to set the pace. You have to be a thought leader. The problem I have is that it is difficult for me to sit still. I have a hard time finding a long enough stretch in the day to sit down and really read. I keep getting interrupted—or distracted.

However, by downloading books onto my iPhone, I can listen to books while I’m working out. Honestly, there are days when I hate to stop running or exercising because I am so engrossed in my book. It makes the time fly by.

Though I don’t do it before breakfast, I have one other discipline that I try to practice daily: prayer. I find that the best time for me to pray is in the car. This was easy when I had a commute. It usually took 35–40 minutes, so I had plenty of time. Now, I take advantage of any trip in the car. It’s become my rolling “prayer closet.”

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How to Make Optimism Work for You!

By Jane E. Brody, NY Times, July 2, 2012

My recent column on optimism drew hundreds of comments from readers who testified to the value of living life as a glass half full. But one in particular—from a 90-year-old man living in Calabasas, Calif.—was especially telling. The reader, William Richmond, wrote that a phrase in the column, “Fake it until you make it,” summed up his long and very successful life.

His approach to life could serve as a battle plan for the millions of recent college graduates now searching for work in an unforgiving job market, as well as for older adults trying to re-enter the workplace after a long hiatus and those who lost jobs and must now reinvent themselves.

In 1946, after serving nearly four years as a fighter pilot in the Marine Corps, Mr. Richmond said he returned to civilian life “certain I could conquer anything I went after.”

After all, he’d managed to fly solo and safely land a Piper Cub after just six hours of training, then spent the next year learning to be a pilot. “Do it, then learn how—I guess if it’s good enough for the Marines…,” he wrote.

Mr. Richmond loved jazz and, having been handed a drum to play in his middle school band in Rockford, Ill., he decided to go to Los Angeles to become a professional musician.

“I wasn’t very good, but I could keep pretty good time and could look like I knew what I was doing,” he wrote. “In a few months I actually got a job in a downtown bar and in due time was playing in a big band.”

But recognizing his musical limitations, he then enrolled in a music college to learn how to be a professional drummer, after which he worked almost nonstop for 15 years in big-name bands, playing for singers like Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra—and finally for Jerry Lewis.

Noting Mr. Richmond’s ability to make people laugh, Mr. Lewis asked him up to write jokes, then a movie, “The Ladies Man” (1961), which was a success even though his collaborator, Mel Brooks, quit early on, leaving Mr. Richmond, a complete novice, to write it. After taking a class in screenwriting, Mr. Richmond wrote six more movies for Mr. Lewis, and followed that with 30 years as a professional comedy writer on countless TV shows before retiring at age 73.

“The important thing,” Mr. Richmond said in an interview, “is to visualize what you want and go after it. Be ready for an opening—serendipity—all the time.”

Elaine Fox, a psychologist at the University of Essex in England and author of an informative new book on the science of optimism, “Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain,” says positive thinking is not the main thing about optimism.

“What really makes the difference is action,” she told me. “If you sit back passively, you won’t get the job you want.”

Her book includes the story of Madam C. J. Walker (1867-1919), born to former slaves, orphaned by age 7, married at 14 and divorced at 20. Undeterred by racism and sexism, she became perhaps America’s first black millionaire by founding a company that made hair-care products.

“Madam Walker’s rags-to-riches story was fueled primarily by her irrepressible can-do attitude,” Dr. Fox wrote. “Setbacks were tackled head on with tireless energy.”

After Thomas Edison unsuccessfully tried more than 10,000 different ways to develop an electric lamp, Dr. Fox wrote, “he famously proclaimed: ‘I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.’ “

In an interview, Dr. Fox said: “The important thing is having a sense of control over your life, your destiny. When you have a setback, you feel you can do something about it.”

Or, as she wrote: “Optimism is not so much about feeling happy, nor necessarily a belief that everything will be fine, but about how we respond when times get tough. Optimists tend to keep going, even when it seems as if the whole world is against them.”

Sometimes a little bluffing helps. Mr. Richmond said he got his first professional break by telling other musicians he was a great drummer. One thing led to another, until he got a job with a band that was to play one-nighters on the road for nine months.

“After the first night, I was fired—I just wasn’t good enough,” he recalled. “But they had to keep me until they found a replacement, and gradually I started to play better and better, so I kept the job.”

Many people trying to enter (or re-enter) the job market have found that it helps to put yourself where you want to be, even if it involves a monetary sacrifice.

Robin Seligman-Schmidt of Manhattan was 52 when she decided look for work in the fields she had studied in school: art and interior design.

She started by volunteering at the Leo Baeck Institute, a research library in New York that houses German-Jewish archives and art. “I worked with an art curator cataloging and doing odds and ends,” she said, and that led to a paid position as consultant for “Destination Shanghai”—an exhibition of work by and about German and Austrian Jews who escaped to China during World War II, now on display at the institute.

“Through volunteering you might find something totally different that you’d never done before or even thought of before,” was Ms. Seligman-Schmidt’s advice to job seekers of all ages. “Do something to keep your mind going, and you might find something that really interests you.”

Dr. Fox has shown that while brain circuits vary from person to person, it is possible to strengthen what she calls the “sunny” brain and weaken the “rainy” brain.

Among the science-based “retraining” methods she describes in her book are these:

* Face your fears head on. Step outside your comfort zone to help eliminate fear, anxiety and negative thoughts that can stand in the way of success.

* Re-evaluate events in your everyday life. Tell yourself that maybe things aren’t so bad.

* Practice mindful meditation. Allow feelings and thoughts to pass through your mind without judging or reacting to them; that helps create a sense of detachment from negative experiences.

* Take control over how you feel instead of letting feelings control you. A sense that you control your destiny can help you bounce back from setbacks and maximize your enjoyment of life.

* Laugh. Use positive feelings to counter negative ones.

* Be fully engaged. Get involved in activities that are meaningful to you, whether it’s a career, hobby, sport or volunteering. Do it, as Bill Richmond says. Then learn how.

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Ten Habits of Grateful People- Even In Tough Times!

Ten Habits of Grateful People … Even In Tough Times

Stepcase Lifehack, 28 Jun 2012

“Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.”—Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887)

It is no secret that gratefulness is correlated with life satisfaction and happiness. Countless research findings, particularly in the rapidly emerging field of Positive Psychology, have shown that gratefulness and life satisfaction go hand in hand. Those who tend to be more grateful rather than bitter are generally more positive, more satisfied with their lives, and will be able to see the silver lining even on cloudy days.

Despite this intuitive understanding of the importance of gratefulness, all too often when life throws us curve balls, this grateful mindset all but disappears. It certainly is easier to be grateful when you are on a winning team and things go in your favor. However, the true test of resiliency and gratefulness is when life does not go your way.

No matter what happens to us, if we “dig deep” we often can find that there is really plenty to be thankful for in our lives. The following are the 10 top habits of people who remain steadfast in their ability to be grateful, and can temper the blows life gives them with an unwavering “attitude of gratitude” mindset:

1. Grateful people don’t expect that life is going to give them everything they deserve. They realize that good things do not always happen to good people, and they have given up the notion that life “owes them” anything more than it can offer. Cancer, afflictions, and even the death of innocent people are unfortunately part of life. The question is not if life is unfair, but can we move on in spite of it.

2. They do not have preconditions to their happiness. They do not think “If this happens” only then “I will be happy.” They understand happiness is not coming from the outside, but from within. They focus more on their adjustment to what happens rather than try to change what cannot be changed. They do not attempt to micromanage people and things in their lives that are not really in their control.

3. People who are grateful have realized that you cannot have the rainbow without the rain. Furthermore, they know that you don’t have honey without the bee, and you can’t have the rose without the thorns. They see rainy days as a normal part of life rather than an aberration, and learn from the rain rather than just wait for it to go away. They admire the beauty of the rose even though it has its thorny side, and savor the sweet taste of honey even though the bee can sting. Realizing you cannot have one without the other, they are grateful for both.

4. Grateful people have hope. No matter what happens, hope is not lost. They realize the future is uncertain, and while they plan for it, they do not try to micromanage outcomes that are beyond their sphere of influence. They take comfort in the fact that once the sun sets, it rises the next day. They have faith that there is more to life.

5. Those who are steeped in bitterness and grudges have no space in their heart to be grateful. Forgiving your spouse for not being as understanding as you would have been, forgiving your children for making choices that would not have been your own, and giving up the grudge of a slight or injustice from a friend, are all parts of the gratitude equation. Forgive others for not acting or being like you had hoped. Carrying the torch of bitterness is going to hurt you more than them. As Buddha said, “Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”

6. People who are grateful know that a grateful attitude takes work. Gratefulness does not always come naturally, especially in the most challenging times. In such times, grateful people work on keeping a good perspective.

7. Grateful people have healthy thinking habits. They go by the motto, “Think Straight—Feel Great!” They can separate their perceptions from the facts and separate rational from victim-like irrational ways of thinking. For example, they will replace victim self-talk such as “They make me so mad” to victor self-talk such as “I was mad when they did that.”

8. Grateful people are flexible in their thinking. People who think flexibly are at an advantage in life, as flexibility is the key to growth and wisdom. They don’t cling stubbornly with ways of thinking that do not work, and do not need to see a shift in attitude as meaning a personal defeat and referendum of how wrong they used to be. They realize they can choose their perceptions and have a right to change their minds. With this mentality, the doors that close yield others that now become open.

9. People who love to learn tend to be grateful. Each setback or unforeseen life event offers us lessons, and grateful people focus more on the lessons they can get out of each situation rather than the disappointments. Even mistakes and failures are seen as learning opportunities.

10. Grateful people define their self worth by their determination and their dreams, not their regrets and disappointments. A grateful mindset has no room for excessive self-recrimination and low self esteem. People who are stuck in past regrets and see themselves as losers in life or as having failed badly in even certain areas of their lives will not be able to be truly grateful. Positive self esteem sets the foundation for gratefulness.

How about starting a Gratefulness campaign in your own life? Start now by writing down at least 10 things you are thankful for.

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Four Ways to Break Through Your Fear & Self-Doubt

Four Ways To Break Through Your Fear and Self-Doubt


By Fabienne Frederickson, Forbes, June 26, 2012

Just recently I read a post on a small business start-up blog by an entrepreneur who was selected to deliver a TED talk. Despite knowing what an amazing opportunity this was, she experienced intense fear leading up to the event and even considered some crazy excuses to get out of her commitment.

She’s certainly not alone. As a coach and mentor who works with thousands of entrepreneurs, I often witness how people stop themselves by allowing fear and self-doubt to hold them back. The thing is, they’re often not even aware of it. Here’s what I mean… People SAY they want something very badly, that they want a change, and theoretically, that they’d do anything to get it.

But when the rubber meets the road, it’s a totally different story. For many, when it’s time to take action, they’re just not willing to take the steps or do the work that creates the result. It’s that inner self-doubt that consistently has them questioning every single move they make in growing their business and their income.

Here are my four steps to break though that fear and self-doubt:

1. Take a No-Excuses Approach. Although, some may call them “reasons”, people stop themselves all the time by using excuses. The opportunity they want so badly finally shows up, and they make excuses so as not to go forward. The biggest excuses I hear are “I don’t have enough money,” “I don’t have enough time, “I’m too busy”, “I don’t want to travel,” and the list goes on.

They use these excuses as their trap door, their escape route.

Let me ask you this—when pressed in a life or death situation, would you find the time or money? If someone you loved was trapped in a building, would you stop trying to rescue them if the front door was locked? No, of course not. You’d try the back door, then the windows, and every other possible way, right?

To achieve success, you’ve got to be willing to take the same approach with your business. Successful people are those who take a No-Excuses Approach and are willing to do what others won’t.

So, how badly do you want it? You either have excuses or you have results. Which do you choose?

2. Feel the Fear—But Do It Anyway. The ego creates fear to keep you small. For example, fear of rejection, fear of overwhelm, fear of humiliation, fear of making mistakes, fear of losing it all, fear of the unknown, and on and on it goes. The list is huge.

All entrepreneurs I know experience fear. What separates those who are successful and those who allow fear to hold them back is the willingness to act in spite of the fear. The best way to get over fear is to walk directly into it. It takes courage but you know what? Walking into fear is never as bad as you think it’s going to be. Instead, you’ll find it liberating.

3. Be Willing to Stretch Beyond Your Comfort Zone. Most people avoid discomfort like the plague. If you want to get to the next level of your business, you’ve got to be comfortable being uncomfortable—just for a short time. Yes, it’s a little scary at first but let’s face it, it’s not going to kill you.

The question is—are you willing? Are you willing to trade short-term discomfort for long-term success? If so, are you willing to go where you have to go? Are you willing to talk to who you have to talk to? Are you willing to move for what you want? Are you willing to do what you haven’t done? Are you willing to stretch beyond your comfort zone?

4. Take Decisive Action. You can’t just wish for something. You’ve got to take action. Action is an issue of personal responsibility. It’s where you acknowledge that you are solely responsible for the choices in your life and you accept that you cannot blame others for the choices you have made. Time and time again our inner self-doubt makes us question everything and keeps us from taking action when the solution shows up. This all boils down to one thing and one thing only. In plain English it’s called self-sabotage.

Widening your perspective around success starts with a decision. Once you make a decision to succeed, it’s time to commit to doing whatever it takes to make it happen.

It comes down to taking bold and decisive action toward what you say you want in your business or your life. It’s about saying YES to what’s possible for you. Saying YES to the opportunities that are divinely given to you—and then taking action.

Back to entrepreneur, Rebekah who I mentioned in my introduction—her fear of failure and her desire to conquer that self doubt actually wound up being a driving force for success in her business. And it can for you, too.

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To Get to the Top, Do What Others Won´t

By Rory Vaden, June 26, 2012
Whether you’re a leader, a team member, or a candidate, success comes from having the discipline to do the things that you know you should be doing, even when you don’t feel like doing them. When you practice this kind of self-discipline regularly, you’ll naturally stand out from the pack—because most people avoid the hard stuff. It’s just easier to put it off.

But the truth is that what feels easy now creates problems down the line. And what feels hard now—doing the stuff you don’t feel like—makes everything easier in the long-term. Self-discipline doesn’t have to be hard—you just have to change the way you think about it.

Successful people have mastered the art of self-discipline. I’ve spent the last 10 years studying and coaching some of the most successful people in business, figuring out what makes them different. They’re not smarter or more talented than the average person—they just consistently do what others aren’t willing to do by keeping three principles in mind:

Do it scared. Fear is one of the biggest saboteurs of our goals, because it inhibits action. The next time you feel yourself putting something off because you’re afraid—of uncertainty or failure—just “do it scared.”

I once heard a true story of a woman who was trapped in a burning building on the 80th floor. She was terrified of heights and enclosed spaces, and when the fire alarm went off, she refused to follow her colleagues into the stairwell to evacuate to safety.

The firemen did a sweep of the building and found her hiding under her desk, waiting to die. She was screaming “I’m scared, I’m scared!” as the firemen insisted she walk down the stairwell until one fireman said, “That’s OK, just do it scared.” He repeated it all the way down the 80 flights of stairs, until he brought her to safety.

We’ve all faced these moments in our careers—when you know what has to be done, but your fear holds you back. In order to stand out, you must develop the habit of acting in the face of fear. It’s fine to be scared—do it scared. It’s fine to be unsure—do it unsure. It’s fine to be uncomfortable—do it uncomfortable. Just do something.

This is the attitude of the most disciplined and successful people on the planet. They might be scared, but they do it anyway. And by just doing something, you create movement and momentum that will lead to progress and results.

Habits, not results. Perfectionism is one of the most common reasons people procrastinate, and we’ve all done it at some point.

The best way to overcome this impulse is to put your self-esteem into stellar work habits instead of results. It can take a while to see the fruits of your labor—whether you’re spearheading a new initiative, trying to launch a business, or planning a second act career. To keep yourself motivated, take pride in sticking to your work habits, rather than looking for immediate results. In time, success will follow.

Remember the big picture. The pursuit of any goal will inevitably face a number of obstacles. The difference between those who stand out in their careers and those who blend in lies in what you do when you reach these critical turning points. Do you hesitate and turn back? Or do you press forward? When you feel frustrated, depressed, or disappointed, don’t give up—just get some perspective.

I have a mental reminder that helps me push past these hurdles. I hold my pen up to my eye and stare directly down the barrel. Then, I pull it away and look at it in its entirety. It’s a quick way to remind myself to look at my life in the same way.

Stop fixating on the here and now, and think about the big picture. Today’s challenges may not make sense, but you must have faith that over the long term, they will be nothing more than blips on the radar screen. Having this perspective and faith will help you press forward at the moments when others turn back.

Contrary to popular belief, people who have reached the highest levels in their careers aren’t necessarily better educated, more talented or better connected. Neither are they simply more motivated or harder workers. Rather, successful people have realized that getting to the top means that they first have to do the things that they don’t want to do related to their goals.

It’s not about enjoying self-discipline—it’s about adopting a few new ways of thinking that simply make discipline easier to endure. And when you develop the habit of doing things that others won’t do, you’re putting yourself on the fast track to the route to the top.

Rory Vaden is co-founder of Southwestern Consulting and author of the New York Times bestseller Take the Stairs: 7 Steps to Achieving True Success

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10 Questions That Create Success!

10 Questions That Create Success

Posted: 25 Jan 2012 04:18 AM PST

By Geoffrey James, Inc., Jan 23, 2012

Think that success means making lots of money? Think again.

Pictures of dead presidents have never made anybody happy. And how can you be successful if you’re not happy? And buying things with that all money isn’t much better. A new car, for instance, might tickle your fancy for a day or two–-but pride of ownership is temporary.

Real success comes from the quality of your relationships and the emotions that you experience each day. That’s where these 10 questions come in.

Ask them at the end of each day and I guarantee that you’ll become more successful. Here they are:

1. Have I made certain that those I love feel loved?

2. Have I done something today that improved the world?

3. Have I conditioned my body to be more strong flexible and resilient?

4. Have I reviewed and honed my plans for the future?

5. Have I acted in private with the same integrity I exhibit in public?

6. Have I avoided unkind words and deeds?

7. Have I accomplished something worthwhile?

8. Have I helped someone less fortunate?

9. Have I collected some wonderful memories?

10. Have I felt grateful for the incredible gift of being alive?

Here’s the thing. The questions you ask yourself on a daily basis determine your focus, and your focus determines your results.

These questions force you to focus on what’s really important. Take heed of them and rest of your life—especially your work—will quickly fall into place.

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Twelve Important Lessons! -Tony Schwartz

Turning 60: The Twelve Most Important Lessons I’ve Learned So Far


By Tony Schwartz, HBR, May 1, 2012

Tomorrow is my birthday—always an opportunity for reflection, but especially this time. For several weeks now, I’ve been thinking about what I’ve learned during the past six decades that really matters. Here’s a first pass:


1. The more we know about ourselves, the more power we have to behave better. Humility is underrated. We each have an infinite capacity for self-deception—countless unconscious ways we protect ourselves from pain, uncertainty, and responsibility—often at the expense of others and of ourselves. Endless introspection can turn into self-indulgence, but deepening self-awareness is essential to freeing ourselves from our reactive, habitual behaviors.


2. Notice the good. We each have a predisposition to dwell on what’s wrong in our lives. The antidote is to deliberately taketime out each day to notice what’s going right, and to feel grateful for what you’ve got. It’s probably a lot.


3. Let go of certainty. The opposite isn’t uncertainty. It’s openness, curiosity and a willingness to embrace paradox, rather than choose up sides. The ultimate challenge is to accept ourselves exactly as we are, but never stop trying to learn and grow.


4. Never seek your value at the expense of someone else’s. When we’re feeling devalued, our reactive instinct is to do anything to restore what we’ve lost. Devaluing the person who made you feel bad will only prompt more of the same in return.


5. Do the most important thing first in the morning and you’ll never have an unproductive day. Most of us have the highest energy early in the day, and the fewest distractions. By focusing for a designated period of time, without interruption, on the highest value task for no more than 90 minutes, it’s possible to get an extraordinary amount of work accomplished in a short time.


6. It’s possible to be excellent at anything, but nothing valuable comes easy and discomfort is part of growth. Getting better at something depends far less on inborn talent than it does the willingness to practice the activity over and over, and to seek out regular feedback, the more precise the better.


7. The more behaviors you intentionally make automatic in your life, the more you’ll get done. If you have to think about doing something each time you do it, you probably won’t do it for very long. The trick is to get more things done using less energy and conscious self-control. How often do you forget to brush your teeth?


8. Slow down. Speed is the enemy of nearly everything in life that really matters. It’s addictive and it undermines quality, compassion, depth, creativity, appreciation and real relationship.


9. The feeling of having enough is magical. It rarely depends on how much you’ve got. More is rarely better. Too much of anything eventually becomes toxic.


10. Do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do, and don’t expect anything in return. Your values are one of the only possessions you have that no one can take away from you. Doing the right thing may not always get you what you think you want in the moment, but it will almost always leave you feeling better about yourself in the long run. When in doubt, default to calm and kind.


11. Add more value in the world than you’re using up. We spend down the earth’s resources every day. Life’s primary challenge is to put more back into the world than we take out.


12. Savor every moment—even the difficult ones. It all goes so fast.

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Say "I love you" to those you care about!

Life's Frailty, and the Gestures That Go a Long Way

By Tara Parker-Pope, NY Times, February 13, 2012

Several years ago, my friend Jeffrey Zaslow sent me a chapter from a book he was writing about lifelong friendships among a group of women from Ames, Iowa. It was a powerful story about love and loss that moved me to tears.

With the draft pages still in my hands, I sat down with my daughter, a second-grader at the time, to talk about the importance of friendship. We talked about her girlfriends, why occasional fights didn’t matter and why she should always treasure her friends. It was a sweet moment, and I was grateful to Jeff for inspiring the conversation through his writing.

Later, I called him to tell him how much that single chapter had meant to my daughter and me. How, I asked him, had he managed to inject himself into this circle of women he had only recently met and so accurately depict the power of female friendship?
“I have a wife and three daughters,” he said, laughing, without missing a beat. “I’m quite comfortable being outnumbered by women.”

I thought about our conversation this weekend when I learned the terrible news that Jeff had died in a car accident on snowy roads on his way to his Detroit-area home, returning from a book-signing event in northern Michigan. “The Girls From Ames” became a best seller. But many people know Jeff as co-author of “The Last Lecture,” with the Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch, who delivered that now famous lecture after learning he had pancreatic cancer.

Despite the disparate subject matter, Mr. Zaslow noted that much of his writing centered on the theme of love, commitment and living in the moment.
“We don’t know what moment in our lives we’re going to be judged on; that’s true for all of us,” he said at a TED talk last year. “We’ve got to be honorable, be moral; we’ve got to work our hardest.”

Despite his success as a memoir co-author, Jeff’s true labor of love was his latest book, “The Magic Room: A Story About the Love We Wish for Our Daughters.” Dedicated to his daughters, the book focused on a bridal shop in Fowler, Mich., as a way to tell a story of parents’ hopes and dreams.

Jeff often said he honed his skills for listening and offering advice during a stint as an advice columnist, a role he won in a contest to replace Ann Landers. During his many public talks, Jeff told the story of a favorite letter from a man who wanted his girlfriend, Julie, to undergo breast augmentation.

“Julie deserves someone who loves her for who she is, not how she looks in a sweater,” Jeff wrote in his reply. “If you can’t do that for her, she won’t need implants anyway because she will already have a big boob in her life. You.”
In every conversation I had with Jeff and in much of his writing, he talked about how much he had learned about the frailty of life and the importance of never leaving important words unsaid.

At his TED talk last November, Jeff told the audience about a column of his that focused on the words “I love you.” It appeared two days before Valentine’s Day in 2004, and led with the story of a judge in Maywood, Ill., who often told his children that he loved them. One day in 1995, as his 18-year-old daughter was leaving the house, the judge called out to his daughter. “Kristin, remember I love you,” he said.
“I love you too, Dad,” the girl replied. That day, Kristin was killed in a car accident. It was a story that resonated with Jeff, and one he took to heart, always saying “I love you” to his wife and daughters before saying goodbye or hanging up the phone.

“All of us should say ‘I love you’ to the people we care about,” Jeff said. “We should do it because you never know. I got about 1,000 e-mails from readers saying they were going to tell their children they loved them.

“What I like about my job is sometimes I’m just writing about the obvious. By doing that, you can touch a lot of people and tell them things that will change their lives, even if it’s something simple.”

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