Going into a decision knowing you could walk away keeps you from accepting terms purely out of fear or pressure. The real question is whether you’re prepared to walk away. Do you know your alternatives?   A bottom line?  Some layer of detachment from the outcome?   Are you honest with yourself about the cost of your…

Dilettantes dabble, and talk a good game.  All noise, all spark, but so rare the flame.  They posture as craftsmen, but you live the grind.   You stay with the work when it stops feeling kind. That’s when they quit and you get defined.  There are no shortcuts or others to blame.  At the end of…

It’s almost legally blind. (paraphrased from Benjamin Graham).  It doesn’t give you clear vision, it creates a distorted, biased version.  Once you see an outcome, you reconstruct your faulty memory to what it seemed likely beforehand, making that outcome feel more inevitable than it actually was.  Don’t be the clairvoyant who only makes predictions after…

Resist the impulse to fill pauses in conversation.  Read the room. Let a pause in conversation be long enough to let the other person initiate or respond.  Speak too soon and it’s a signal you may be more interested in telling than listening.  Thoughtful listening is the connector that builds trust and reduces defensiveness.  Most…

What’s your mission today? Every morning people need to review their mission. Otherwise, they start to question themselves and start to slow down. (paraphrased from Alexander Gerhan) Why did you awaken so early today?  What’s your priority?  What do you desire to accomplish that moves you one step ahead of where you were yesterday, one…

“Resolve to surpass your yesterday’s self today.” – Miyamoto Musashi Moving to the better today means recognizing who you were yesterday and why you intend for more today.  The difficulty is that there is nothing outside yourself to enable you to get better.  It’s all in you, and all accountability on you.  Today, and every…