The Blog

To make a difference is to make change happen.

And to make change happen is to take on risk.

Exploring and exploiting the edges of what's possible in the pursuit of better means also embracing uncertainty and the possibility (indeed likelihood) of failure.

Difference-makers wrestle with "This...

Calling me a lapsed Catholic would be a gross understatement for my relationship with the faith tradition I was born into.

However, it is a filter through which I witnessed the world for many years (and still do).

One frame that continues to help me practice a “less is more” approach...

Do you ever catch yourself chalking up an unreached goal, desired outcome, or misfortune to “bad luck?”

I know I do.

Being down on my luck has been just my luck more often than not.

Better luck next time, I guess.

When things go my way, it’s just the luck of the draw.

But of...

There’s a time and place for learning new things and taking risks.

After all, difference-making and growth occur at the edges of our current understanding and abilities.

By definition, developing our potential, delivering on our promise, and making change happen means engaging in activities...

What is luck?

It helps to start with what luck is not.

What I notice is that luck is often confused with fate.

Fate is what is happening now. A moment predetermined by destiny (what's going to happen).*

Maybe luck is simply a story—a narrative we make up and tell ourselves ...

The most important conversation you ever have is the one you have with yourself on your deathbed.

That moment is a reckoning—the time when you answer the question, “What meaning did my life have?”

After all, your life’s meaning is derived from what you did while it was...

What matters more, the way something looks or whether or not it achieves its intended purpose?

Based on the amount of time, attention, money, and effort being invested in the look of most brands' products, services, sites, and social media, the clear winner appears to be form.

Even independent...

Humans embrace a many-splendored life.

We crave comfort—a desire to know where we stand and what’s expected of us.

Societal, educational, and occupational institutions provide the external validation and rewards that encourage this monolithic, linear view of who we are and what we do....

During my 4 years as a head coach at Seth Godin's Akimbo Workshops, I was consistently asked the same question by students a workshop was winding to a close.

"Which workshop should I take next?"

My consistent answer was, "Are you sure you need another workshop?"

Students were often taken aback by...

When I hit bottom in my "all is lost moment" in midlife, the famous line from the Bond film Goldfinger neatly summed up my experience.

"Shaken, not stirred."

This, of course, was Bond's preferred martini preparation. But I wasn't asked how I wanted my midlife crisis cocktail prepared...

I was introduced to the Bhagavad Gita in the 7th grade by my English teacher.

Both the book and teacher remain important to my life to this day and my adventures in midlife.

Although the Gita is one of the world's oldest spiritual and philosophical texts (written well over...

Life's challenges can precipitate a breakdown.

But life's difficulties (and disasters) can also catalyze a breakthrough.

My breakdown moment came just as I was entering midlife.

I thought I had myself and my life all figured out, and it was running more or less on autopilot.

And then it all...