1: Meg was in a bad place.

“I hated my job, and I saw little hope of anything in the future,” she recalls in Jane McGonigal‘s book SuperBetter: The Power of Living Gamefully.

At twenty-six, Meg was living in Boston and working for a large company that didn’t share her values.

“I took the chance to sign up for SuperBetter,” she recalls.

A key element of the SuperBetter … continue reading

1: Laura was pregnant when she learned about SuperBetter.

“I’m getting SuperBetter because my second baby is due any day now,” Laura says in Jane McGonigal‘s book SuperBetter: The Power of Living Gamefully.

“As all parents know, the first three months or so are pretty rough,” she remembers. “I figured anything that encouraged me to take care of myself would be a good thing.”

The SuperBetter framework asks … continue reading

1: For the first twenty-plus years of my adult life, my morning routine revolved around this question:

What is the absolute last possible minute I can set my alarm where I have time to shower, shave, and still make it to the office on time?

When I say the “absolute last possible minute,” I mean Absolute.  Last.  Possible.  Minute.

There’s a better way.  And a better life.  It starts with … continue reading

The stats tell a sobering story.

Obesity is a national epidemic. Rates of depression are at an all-time high. More than 50 percent of marriages end in divorce. Personal debt continues to skyrocket.

In his book, The Miracle Morning, Hal Elrod shares statistics from the Social Security Administration: If we take 100 people at the start of their career and follow them for the next 40 years until they … continue reading

Question:  How do we “develop a real plan for a better life?”

Answer: We create personally meaningful, powerful goals for the upcoming year.

This week, I’m outlining a straightforward approach to set motivating goals for the coming year, based on a methodology first outlined by Trent Hamm.  

So far this week, we’ve selected the areas of our lives on which we want to focus (Step One), outlined … continue reading

This week, we are exploring a goal-setting methodology from Trent Hamm called “Developing a Real Plan for a Better Life.”

Yesterday, we looked at STEP ONE: Selecting the areas of our lives we want to focus on.

Today, we turn to steps two, three, and four. 

STEP TWO begins with blocking off some quiet time to do the necessary work.  

“While it’s great to give this process some off-the-cuff … continue reading

1: That’s the opportunity.  

How?  

First, set powerful 2026 goals.

Next, achieve those goals through a simple process designed to optimize follow-through.

Over the past seven years, I’ve utilized a goal-setting methodology from Trent Hamm titled: “Developing a Real Plan for a Better Life.” Implementing Trent’s framework has resulted in the following:

o The decision to get married!

o Transforming our business at PCI through the launch of the Oral … continue reading

“If you don’t know where you are going, you might not like where you end up.” – David Bach

2026 is now officially around the corner.

A chance to start again.

I’m a big, BIG believer in goal-setting.  Why?

Setting thoughtful objectives for the coming year can transform our lives.

Reason #1: When we set a clear goal, our subconscious minds go to work, closing the gap between our current … continue reading

1: Ever heard of the “effort paradox”?

It’s the reason most New Year’s resolutions fail.

We “overcommit to a bunch of lofty aspirations,” Anne-Laure Le Cunff writes in her book Tiny Experiments. 

“The human mind has a love/hate relationship with effort,” she notes. “We are drawn to the idea of it, yet we would rather not have to put in actual effort.”

We think we will be happier if … continue reading

1: We get mixed up.

Means, ends, and by-products are not the same thing.

“A profound distinction is concealed among those prosaic terms,” Panera Bread Company founder Ron Shaich writes in his powerful book Know What Matters: Lessons from a Lifetime of Transformations, “one that unlocks the code to designing a business and a life of enduring value.”

Exhibit one: Ron’s friend who has type 1 diabetes.

“He wants … continue reading