1: Apple founder Steve Jobs once stated: “Almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

“Remembering that we are going to die,” Steve said, “is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking we have something to lose. We are already naked.”

So, let’s imagine our funeral.

“Close … continue reading

1: “Think of a pleasant wine-tasting memory,” John Mark Comer writes in The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to Stay Emotionally Healthy and Spiritually Alive in the Chaos of the Modern World.

What is it that is underneath every thriving vine?

A trellis.  “A structure to hold up the vine so it can grown and bear fruit,” John Mark notes.

A trellis is to a vine as structure is to … continue reading

1: “I live right on the edge of downtown Portland in this fun micro-urban neighborhood,” John Mark Comer writes in The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry.

Early in the morning, as John Mark sits and prays while enjoying his first cup of coffee, his neighbors are filing out the door to do a sunrise run.

It’s “a house full of single people who are essentially a walking advertisement for Nike,” … continue reading

1: “Screw them. We could run a better convenience store than these folks!”

Twenty-one-year-old college student Ron Shaich was mad.  He and his friends had been “escorted” out of the Store 24 convenience store directly across from Clark University, which they attended.

The “beefy security guard . . . had taken one look at the trio of scruffy kids lingering over the ice-cream freezer and decided we were intent on … continue reading

1: When couples divorce, one of the main reasons they give is, “I didn’t feel appreciated.”

If creativity were our love partner, do you think it would feel appreciated?

That’s one of the provocative questions Gay Hendricks asks in The Genius Zone: The Breakthrough Process to End Negative Thinking and Live in True Creativity.

He encourages us to examine the relationship we have with our creativity.  We can ask … continue reading

1: It was a warm California evening in May 2021. Sahil Bloom and an old friend sat down for a drink.  

“As we settled in at our table, he asked how I was doing,” Sahil writes in The 5 Types of Wealth: A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life.

“I gave him the standard response that we’ve all grown so accustomed to: ‘I’m good. Busy!'” he recalls, “with … continue reading

1: One evening, future LinkedIn CEO and Executive Chairman Jeff Weiner was enjoying a pint of Belgian beer with his business coach, Fred Kofman. 

He shared with Fred that his personal mission was “to expand the world’s collective wisdom.”

“That reminds me of a Buddhist teaching,” Fred recalls saying in his book  The Meaning Revolution.  “Wisdom without compassion is ruthless; compassion without wisdom is foolish.”

“Hmmm,” Jeff answered.… continue reading

1: “If you’ve ever seen a picture of your mother or father as a young adult, you know how startling it can be,” Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz write in The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness.  

“They seem like people we might have met along the road rather than the parents who created us,” the authors observe.  “They often appear less burdened, more … continue reading

David Packard, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, was among the first executives to embrace the power of purpose.

Back in 1960, talking to HP’s training group, he said: “I want to discuss why a company exists in the first place,” he began.

“In other words, why are we here? I think many people assume, wrongly, that a company exists simply to make money. While this is an important result of a … continue reading

1: Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning has sold over ten million copies and been translated into twenty-four languages.

It’s not your typical best-seller, however.  

The topic? Viktor’s experiences as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps.

“Wondering why some prisoners survived and others didn’t in an atmosphere of hopelessness and despair, he concluded that those who made it lived with a greater sense of purpose,” Carolyn Dewar, Scott … continue reading