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Having clear intentions is the ENTIRE game.

We can spend endless amounts of time and energy flapping about when our intentions aren't clear.

We can spend so much effort trying to work towards a goal, pretending to be working towards a goal. But if we're not 100% clear on what we want, if we're split, torn, if we have hesitations, concerns, doubt, worry, fear, guilt, or anything pulling is away from our goal, we're not going to get there.

In that case, it's much better to stop what we're...

One of the top one or two biggest issues we have in politics and public life in general right now is the limits to free speech, BAMN being a prime example ("no free speech for fascists"!), though it's much much bigger than them.

What pains me is that it's mostly the left that wants to enforce this taboo on what can be said and what can't be said.

The only limits on free speech should be direct threats of violence. Anything beyond that inevitably leads to authoritarianism, which is where...

Around the year 2000 I had a conversation with a friend about Bjørn Lomborg, who'd been thrown in the global spotlight thanks to his book, The Skeptical Environmentalist.

I haven't read the book, but I got his main points: Climate change is real, but a lot of the science out there is overstated, and the way we're trying to approach it is costly and ineffective. Let's apply a cost/benefit analysis to how we approach it. Let's invest in innovation, not subsidies or taxes. And let's spend...

A while back my friend Nick Gray sent out a link to this cartoon. It's fantastic. Click on it now.

Here's one:

If you want to say "Thank you for your patience", don't say "Sorry I'm always late".

I've really taken this to heart. I rarely say sorry anymore.

Apologizing always felt weird to me. My dad would sometimes make me do it. Would make me apologize to my brother, for example. I never quite understood it. How does the apology make things better? I did what I did in the moment because it...

Dear James

I know that on the surface, this is a petty sob story. I bought one of your vacuums. After about two and a half years, it stopped working. I had a bad experience with customer service. They said to buy a new battery. I did, and it still doesn't work, and I'm reluctant to invest even more into this machine.

"Wah, wah, wah. Throw it out, buy a new one, get over it." says the voice in my head.

Yes, but ... there's more to this story.

Here's why this bothers me, and why I'm writing...

A draft from July 2011. Publishing now.

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There’s a struggle between our inner Self and our outer learned, adapted sense of self.

Deconstructing our personality structure is a necessary part of the process of discovering our true inner Self.

Compare that historic sense of the larger meaning of our natural deaths and rebirths with how today, when a person’s personality structure deconstructs, he or she may be shamed, ridiculed, or pitied, and nearly always distanced by...

This has been sitting as a draft since November 2010. Figured I'd post it now ...

Steven Pressfield:

Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.

It's so easy to get consumed by heroes and advice and things you read in books or on the internet, and to get caught up in the game that is self-improvement, working harder, learning more, trying to become more like some of your heroes.

But the real...

If we're having a political conversation, and you’re visibly upset and aggravated, that's okay. It just means that we cannot take your words at face value right now. We have to figure out what's underneath the anger or the defensiveness or the posturing, so we can continue the conversation.

When we're triggered (upset, angry, sad, hurt), we get tunnel vision. We cannot see or think straight. Let’s talk that through, so we can get you back to your full resources.

It's okay to...

A reader was kind enough to engage me in conversation. I love when that happens, and I'm super grateful. Here's the conversation. I'm not revealing the name of the other person, just wanted to share the content.

This was in response to my blog post What if everything that's wrong with politics is wrong with all of us?

He writes:

Why is there a problem with "all" of us ? 

This notion seems awfully politically correct to me. There's a problem with racists and nazis. 

I mean,...

I want to organize a series of conversations. Dialogs, even. Two opposing viewpoints, me in the middle.

The idea is to let one party speak, while the other two listen and genuinely try to understand where the other person is coming from, what their fears are, their desires, their values, and their thinking. The goal is not to figure out where they're right or wrong, but only to fully understand their point of view, with an open and curious mind and an open, caring heart. Then we turn to the...