1: Getting better at getting better is what RiseWithDrew is all about.

Monday through Thursday, we explore ideas from authors, thought leaders, and exemplary organizations. On Friday, I share something about myself or what we are working on at PCI.

This week we’ve been exploring David Brooks‘s insights on grief as outlined in his book How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being … continue reading

1: “To know a person well,” David Brooks writes in his book How to Know a Person,  we “have to know who they were before they suffered their losses and how they remade their whole outlook after them. . . 

“To know someone who has grieved, we have to know how they have processed their loss—did they emerge wiser, kinder, and stronger, or broken, stuck, and scared?”

Knowing how … continue reading

1: Getting better at getting better is what RiseWithDrew is all about.

Monday through Thursday, we explore ideas from authors, thought leaders, and exemplary organizations.  On Friday, I share something about myself or what we are working on at PCI.

One of my goals for the year is to experiment with different approaches and tools to strengthen my relationships with the people I love and care about.  

We’ve been … continue reading

1: Author Fred Kofman was leading a leadership seminar at a chemical company.

“I love molecules!” Boris (not his real name) exclaimed with humorous exasperation.   “Molecules are so well behaved. You apply a certain amount of heat and a certain amount of pressure to them, and you know exactly what they are going to do.” 

Everyone laughed.  

“The problem,” he went on, “is that I did so well managing molecules … continue reading

1: It was the spring of 2019.  Author and columnist David Brooks‘s close friend Peter Marks was struggling with depression.

They had gathered for a weekend together.  “My wife noticed a change immediately,” David recounts.  “A light had gone out.  There was a flatness in his voice, a stillness in his eyes.” 

Pete told David what he already knew: “He wasn’t himself.  He was doing what he loved most—playing … continue reading

1: On July 2nd, 1776, the Second Continental Congress voted to declare independence from Britain.

The following day, July 3rd, final revisions to Thomas Jefferson‘s draft of The Declaration of Independence were agreed to.

Which brings us to the 4th of July, 1776.

“In later years the excessive summer heat of Philadelphia would frequently figure in accounts of Thursday, July 4th, 1776,” David McCullough writes in his Pulitzer … continue reading

1: On July 2nd, 1776, the Second Continental Congress voted unanimously to declare independence from Britain.

“That these United Colonies are, and of a right ought to be, free and independent states, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved,” so read the motion.

But “there was … continue reading

1: “Monday, July 1st, 1776, began hot and steamy in Philadelphia, and before the morning was ended a full-scale summer storm would break,” David McCullough writes in his book John Adams.

John Adams, then one of Massachusetts’s delegates to the Second Continental Congress, was up before sunrise. 

Early that morning, he wrote a long letter to Archibald Bulloch, the new president of Georgia: “This morning is assigned … continue reading

This week, we’ve been exploring cancer and cancer treatment as outlined by Dr. Peter Attia in his book Outlive. Many of us have been impacted by cancer.

Below are eight reflections from my friend, mentor, and coach, Dr. Danny Friedland, who passed away 2 1/2 years ago after a year-long battle with brain cancer.

Following Danny’s death, a moving memorial service was held in his backyard. Here are … continue reading

1: Roman Emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius lived a hard, difficult life. 

“He was not strong in body,” the Roman historian Dio Cassius writes, “and was involved in a multitude of troubles throughout practically his entire reign.”

Marcus was surrounded by death and dying. 

He lost his father when he was three. In 149 AD, when he was twenty-eight, “he lost newborn twin boys,” Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman … continue reading