1: Something seemed off, Diane thought when she arrived at her client, Amanda’s house.

“I noticed immediately that there were no paw prints at the front door. Her house was spotless. The kitchen was uncluttered, no clothes on the floors, nothing out of place,”  Diane Button writes in her powerful book What Matters Most: Lessons the Dying Teach Us About Living.

Diane is an end-of-life doula. She sat with … continue reading

1: It was a broiling hot day.

Future entrepreneur and venture capitalist Ben Horowitz was early in his career.  He was married with three young children.

One day, his father came to visit.

“We could not afford air-conditioning, and all three children were crying as my father and I sat there sweating in the 105-degree heat,” Ben writes in The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There … continue reading

1: Ben Horowitz had been set up on a blind date by his friend and high school football teammate Claude Shaw.

It was the summer of 1986, and Ben had just finished his sophomore year of college at Columbia University and was living in Los Angeles with his father.

This would be a double date, and Ben and Claude decided to prepare an elaborate dinner for Claude’s girlfriend, Jackie Williams, … continue reading

1: Ever experienced a sleepless night?

Ever lie in bed “contemplating the end of a relationship, a job transition, our physical health, or concerns about children and family members?”  Diane Button asks in her powerful book What Matters Most: Lessons the Dying Teach Us About Living.

The next morning, we typically get up and start the next day. When we stop to pick up our coffee, the barista … continue reading

1: Consider the following two questions:  

“Where did you get married?” vs. “How did you decide on the wedding venue?”

At first glance, the questions seem similar. But if our goal is to start a meaningful conversation, they are worlds apart.

“Where did you get married?” is an example of a “stop sign” question, Sahil Bloom writes in his book The 5 Types of Wealth: A Transformative Guide to Design … continue reading

1: News flash.  Life is hectic.

The problem? 

“It is easy to allow our relationship with our partner to sit on the back burner while we deal with the more pressing fires of day-to-day life,” Sahil Bloom writes in his book The 5 Types of Wealth: A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life.

This week [here and here], we’ve been exploring some of Sahil’s ideas to … continue reading

1: Psychologist John Gottman can predict who will eventually get divorced a stunning 94 percent of the time.

In a pioneering 1992 study, John and his team interviewed fifty-two married couples.

They asked each couple “a variety of questions about how they met, why they decided to get married, and what changes their relationships had been through and observed them as they took part in a fifteen-minute discussion about a … continue reading

This week and next we are exploring Sahil Bloom’s concept of “Social Wealth” as outlined in his book The 5 Types of Wealth: A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life.

Today we turn to a list of “Social Wealth Hacks I Wish I Knew at Twenty-Two” which Sahil put together with Arthur C. Brooks, social scientist, Harvard Business School professor, and number one New York Times bestselling … continue reading

1: Professor Gay Hendricks was mad.

He sat in his car at a stoplight, replaying in his head the latest rant from the dean of his program at the University of Colorado, he writes in The Genius Zone.

His counseling department “locked horns repeatedly with the dean, who didn’t like some of the nontraditional things we did in our program.”

“I had left the meeting steamed up and found … continue reading

1: Skip was complaining to his boss, Fred Kofman, that he wasn’t getting the service he needed.

Earlier in his career, Fred Kofman had cofounded Axialent, a consulting firm. Skip was the manager of the Sydney-based Asia Pacific subsidiary.

“The firm’s operations center was located in Buenos Aires,” Fred explains in his book The Meaning Revolution, “where we ran administration, finance, marketing, executive assistance, and materials production. It was … continue reading