G Letter - FALL 2024 – Don’t Automatically Choose The Most Convenient Option

"People seldom do what they believe in. They do what is convenient, then repent." —-Bob Dylan”

Modern society is optimized for convenience and the hectic pace of modern life is one of the reasons convenience drives most of the daily decisions we make.  Although modern conveniences like cars and remote controls make life easier in many ways, they also encourage a more sedentary lifestyle that can negatively impact our health, longevity and well-being.  Also, seeking ease in life for its own sake can unintentionally lead to feeling unhealthy, complacent, isolated and unfulfilled.  We often default to the most convenient choice whether it’s how we spend our time, where or how we shop or what we choose to eat without considering alternatives that may be better for us in the long run---but, what are we giving up by automatically choosing the most convenient options?

When we’re hungry, we often choose the food that is most convenient (and probably less healthy) at that moment (i.e. grub hub delivery) instead of actually getting up and visiting a cafe’, restaurant or grocery store.  Eating healthier often requires planning and meal preparation time which forces us to trade some time and convenience for better nutrition, better health and better quality of life in return.   Convenience certainly makes life easier in many ways but it doesn’t necessarily make life better.

  Onward and upward.

G Letter - SUMMER 2024 – The Difference Between What Is Most Important & What People Pay Attention To Most

“Most people focus on the wrong thing; They focus on the result, not the process. The process is the sacrifice; it's all the hard parts - the sweat, the pain, the tears, the losses. You make the sacrifices anyway. You learn to enjoy them, or at least embrace them. In the end, it is the sacrifices that must fulfill you.” ― Ronda Rousey

There is a big difference between the things that are most important and the things that get the most attention.  In the news business, the saying, “if it bleeds it leads”  was coined by newspaper publisher, William Randolph Hearst in the 1890s after he noticed that stories involving horrific incidents caught the public's attention.  Media companies and social media platforms are incentivized to create and share sensational headlines, stories and other content they hope will become ‘viral’ and catch people’s fleeting attention.   

It’s much easier to get someone’s attention for a moment than it is to capture and maintain that attention for a longer period of time.  Attention grabbing headlines and events that garner online clicks are like produce you buy at the grocery store--they wilt and spoil quickly, while things that are truly important have real significance and staying power.   One way to know if a thing is really important is to ask yourself whether you'd care about it in a month or a year.  The things that are most important in life like family, friendships, good health, personal progress and peace of mind will be as important next month and next year as they are today.  Onward and upward.

G Letter - SPRING 2024 – When You Make A Bad Decision Don’t Follow It Up With Another Bad Decision

"Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time." - George Bernard Shaw

"Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error." - Marcus Tullius Cicero

Everyone makes mistakes.  Making mistakes is one of the main ways we all learn and grow.  We should expect to make mistakes because mistakes are an inescapable part of life.  Every new decision we make is independent of other decisions we’ve already made, which is key to helping us avoid making a bad situation or predicament worse by doubling down and making yet another bad decision.  This is easier said than done because people are emotional creatures and we often over react or act impulsively when we’re faced with negative events or situations.   

Our emotions are very predictable drivers of our decision making.  When faced with the negative emotions we often feel when we realize we’ve made a bad decision, people often shut down, give up and let apathy run our lives on autopilot by declaring “what difference will it make now?”  This kind of emotionally driven capitulation is the worst way to deal with a bad situation.  A better reaction is to learn from our bad decisions and mistakes rather than exacerbating them.  Nobody is perfect.  The best outcomes in the long run are not always initially obvious.  Learn to laugh at yourself and move on from a bad decision and try to avoid it the next time around  rather than following it up with another bad decision.  Onward and upward.

G Letter - WINTER 2023-24 – 3 Ways Failure Helps Us Achieve Success

“Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple, really.  Double your rate of failure.” Thomas J. Watson

"Every wrong attempt discarded is a step forward" Thomas Edison

Failure by definition is a lack of success in doing or achieving something.  Failure is the condition of not getting our desired outcome and is normally considered the opposite of success.   Ironically, there are many ways failure helps us achieve success.  

Failure keeps us humble, it keeps our ego in check and makes us grateful when we do achieve success later on.

Failure fosters grit, tenacity and resilience, which in many ways are the building blocks of success.  This is the reason why successful people usually fail more often than everyone else.   

Both Henry Ford and Walt Disney had multiple bankruptcies. Jack Canfield, the co-author of my 2nd book, "Dare To Succeed" was rejected by 143 publishers before finally convincing one to publish the first of his monumental Chicken Soup for the Soul book series books. Colonel Sanders submitted his now world-famous fried chicken recipe to 1,009 restaurants before finding a buyer. It took Thomas Edison 10,000 attempts to perfect the light bulb. 

Lastly, failure makes us nimble and flexible--it forces us to reflect and examine what went wrong and then innovate or adapt and try new approaches to overcome obstacles the next time around. Onward and upward.

G Letter - FALL 2023 – Don’t Just Change It, Make Sure It’s Better Than It Was Before

“We do not make changes for the sake of making them, but we never fail to make a change when once it is demonstrated that the new way is better than the old way.” Henry Ford

Change is the only constant in the universe, so it's generally good to get out of your comfort zone and make changes in different areas of your life in order to grow and be the best version of yourself. There is however something to be said about the stability you get by focusing your mind. If you change your routine all the time, you often end up spinning your wheels. Change for the sake of change does not equal progress.

When we’re unhappy or dissatisfied we often seek change for good reason. However, an indiscriminate or haphazard change without considering the consequences can stifle your preferred progress, prevent you from reaching a steady productive state and create a chaotic mess. Have an end goal in mind whenever you make a change to help ensure progress. Acting arbitrarily can accidentally make what you thought was an already bad situation even worse. Before you make a change, ask yourself exactly why you need to make this change. Make sure that when you make a change, you have a clear objective in mind and do your best to make sure things are better after the change than they were before--otherwise, you should consider reversing course. Onward and upward.

G Letter - SUMMER 2023 – Get Comfortable With Being Uncomfortable

"There are risks and costs to a plan of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction."-- John F. Kennedy

"Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new.”-- Brian Tracy

“How can we ever know what we’re truly capable of if we’re not trying to do what we don’t think we can, every single day? And that means being afraid, and doing it anyway.” – Siri Lindley

It is natural and normal to seek comfort and security.  Unfortunately, our collective desire for comfort often stands in the way of our personal growth, which is essential for our long term happiness.

Researchers Kaitlin Woolley and Ayelet Fishbach conducted five different experiments in which people were engaging in various personal growth activities where participants were told that their goal was to feel uncomfortable, awkward, nervous and anxious.  They were then told to push past their comfort zone because feeling uncomfortable is a sign that the activity is working.  Other participants weren’t told to embrace discomfort, instead to simply focus on learning and developing their skills.

Ultimately, the researchers found that people who aimed to be uncomfortable were more engaged in their activities, felt more motivated to keep doing them, and believed they made more progress toward their goals compared to those who weren’t seeking out this kind of vulnerability.

It starts with your mindset.  You must be willing to allow yourself to be and to feel uncomfortable.  Practice makes perfect.  As with most actions you repeat over time, eventually you can and will build up a tolerance for being and feeling uncomfortable.  As Nelson Mandela once said, “courage is not the absence of fear but the triumph over it.”  Onward and upward.

G Letter - SPRING 2023 – Don’t Let Your Fantasy Life Distort Your Real Life Decision-Making

"We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality." Iris Murdoch

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” – William Shakespeare

A fantasy is your imagination unrestricted by reality. Reality is the state of things as they exist-what we see, hear, and actually experience. Everyone fantasizes starting from the time we are young. Among other benefits, fantasy stimulates and sharpens creativity and helps us discover novel solutions to problems we encounter.

One limitation of fantasy is that when we fantasize about a particular thing (ie. a ‘dream’ job, home, or spouse/partner), we tend to cherry pick the best aspects that we can imagine. Although fantasies are powerful, they are incomplete. A real life experience is very different from a fantasy---when you actually experience something or someone, you get the whole enchilada--which hopefully includes all the pleasant things you imagined beforehand as well as the challenges and drawbacks you may not have been aware of or ever considered.

The problem occurs when our fantasies affect our expectations about very real things. The dream job that pays the income we always desired may require us to work in dangerous conditions or work much longer hours than we’d like to actually work….. The huge home we dreamt about living in may cost a lot more money to heat and cool than we ever envisioned or may be too far away from relatives & close friends….The very attractive partner we fantasized about being with may turn out to be dishonest or hard to get along with.

If you’re gonna stay in fantasy mode, there’s no need to change a thing, but if you are dreaming about something you really want to make happen, you need to adjust your expectations accordingly. Living the good life requires we remove the blind fold and find reality in all its glory--ups, downs, smiles & frowns. Onward and upward.

G Letter - WINTER 2022/23 – The Awesome Power of The Law of Unintended Consequences

“All history is the history of unintended consequences.” T. J. Jackson Lears

“There are downsides to everything; there are unintended consequences to everything.” Steve Jobs

The law of unintended consequences is the phenomenon in which actions always have effects that are unanticipated, unintended and clearly not part of the actor's purpose. In the best-case scenario, an action produces both the desired results and unplanned benefits; in the worst-case scenario, an action taken with the intention to make things better actually makes the original problem worse.

Whether positive, negative or neutral, the law of unintended consequences is one of the most powerful forces in the universe.

This is a photo of a tree that was planted in front of the building where my office is located. Trees help create healthier, safer, and more connected communities. Trees clean the air we breathe, filter the water we drink, and slow storm surge and flooding in our cities. Trees also provide shade and cool our cities by as much as 10 degrees, which can prevent heat-related deaths in urban areas. This particular tree and the ditch it’s planted in is a lawsuit-generating example of the law of unintended consequences despite the good intention behind it.

What can reduce the likelihood of unintended consequences?  1) planning 2) attention to detail and 3) a constant feedback loop that actually monitors the results of an action or change and then corrects it when and where necessary (translation: don’t plant trees near a busy building entrance or intersection and if you do then it’s time to re-evaluate the situation and remove it!)  Onward and upward.

G Letter - FALL 2022 – Don't Be A Bridge Burner--You May Need To Cross That River Again

“You can’t expect to achieve your goals without interacting with, and receiving help and/or cooperation of other people” Robert Ringer

Six degrees of separation is the idea that all people are six or fewer social connections away from each other.  We live in a very small, interconnected world.  We are all likely to encounter the same people more than once.  Life is challenging enough as it is.  Burning bridges is self sabotage-the equivalent of punching yourself in the face.  People who burn bridges unsurprisingly find themselves isolated, bitter and lonely.   

Your reputation is by far the most valuable asset you have, particularly in the Internet Age.  Your reputation not only follows you, it precedes you as well.  Repairing your reputation is much more difficult than maintaining it.  You will never know when you’ll find yourself in a situation where you need the kindness of someone else.  The person you dismissed or took for granted may be the person who can rescue you when you find yourself in a vulnerable position.  Don’t be a bridge burner, you may need to cross that river again.  Onward and upward.

G Letter - SUMMER 2022 – Doing Beats Knowing

“An ounce of doing things is worth a pound of theorizing” Wallace Wattles

“There is little you can learn from doing nothing” Zig Ziglar

Ben Franklin said that “an investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.”  Knowledge makes learning easier by sharpening our ability to solve problems and make well informed decisions.   Knowledge is unquestionably important, but learning about something is often easier than actually doing it.  While acquiring knowledge requires mental effort in gathering and organizing information, doing something is more challenging because it requires the active steps of 1. generating an idea, 2. making a plan and then actually 3. implementing the plan.  Knowledge without action is impotent, because results come from doing not from knowing.   

The physicist, Michio Kaku said “the yeoman work in any science is done by the experimentalist, who must keep the theoreticians honest.”  You have to implement the things you’ve learned for them to be useful to you and to others.  As Napoleon Hill said, “action is the real measure of intelligence.”

• Doing breathes life into knowledge

• Doing turns goals into reality

• Doing makes things happen

 Success is based on behavior.  Doing beats knowing because what you do is more important and has a bigger impact on the world than simply what you know.  Onward & upward.

G Letter - SPRING 2022 – Make Sure You Know Exactly What Your Actions Are Optimizing

“No one ever got rich paying too much for something” Warren Buffett

People buy five gallon drums of mayonnaise or ketchup at Costco or BJs because they want to ‘save’ money.  Unfortunately, saving is the opposite of spending.   The 5 gallon drum of ketchup costs a lot more than a 14 ounce bottle of ketchup even if the price per ounce may be lower.  If you’ve got a huge family, maybe you’ll use the entire 5 gallon drum of ketchup, but chances are you’ll end up throwing most of it away.  This is a classic sales volume discount trick that companies that sell stuff use to get consumers to spend more money--ultimately, in their effort to save more, consumers usually end up spending more.  Unless you’re a ketchup wholesaler, you don’t need to optimize the price per ounce you pay, you just need to buy enough ketchup to satisfy yourself and your family.  

Businesses often make a similar mistake when they accept any customer regardless of the price the customer pays or the specific terms the business is required to provide.  One of the biggest foreclosure law firms in NJ went bankrupt because they offered to process foreclosure lawsuits for $200 each--they attracted a lot of business from banks but if you think about it, the law firm’s overhead was likely much higher than $200 for each foreclosure action they were responsible for filing!  Instead of optimizing net profit per transaction, the law firm was optimizing the total amount of business they could bring in the door.  Losing money on every transaction is not a winning strategy.  Make sure you know exactly what your actions are optimizing.  Onward & upward.

G Letter - WINTER 2021/22 – The Difference Between Can, Should & Will

"Do not wait; the time will never be "just right." Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along." Napoleon Hill

The words can, should and will are called model auxiliary verbs—-grammatically they represent ability, permission and necessity. We often use the 3 words interchangeably. There is however a big difference between what you can do, what you should do and what you will do.

Students and mentees of mine often ask me if something or another can be done. The answer to the question: can I do something is normally yes because our potential is almost limitless given enough time, energy and focus. What can be done unfortunately doesn’t tell us much about the here and now.

Should is typically a response to other people’s priorities (i.e. a parent, spouse or teacher). Children are told what they should or should not do.

Self-actualized adults develop their own goals and objectives and determine exactly what they will and will not do. Will is therefore the most important of the 3 auxiliary verbs because the actions we will actually take are what create results and make an impact on our lives and the world around us. Onward and upward!

G Letter - FALL 2021 – Be The Master Of Your Calendar

“Lack of time is actually lack of priorities”-Tim Ferriss

“The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say no to almost everything.”-Warren Buffett

At the end of a busy day, have you ever wondered aloud, “what did I actually accomplish today?”  Many people’s preferred excuse for not doing the things they know they need to do is “I don’t have enough time.”  While it is certainly true that some people have more responsibilities, more money, more resources and more advantages than others, the undeniable fact is that time works the same way for everyone and therefore everyone has exactly the same amount of time: 24 hours per day, 168 hours per week, 8,760 hours per year etc.

The challenge most people face is deciding how to allocate and use their time. The key word here is decide, because if you don’t decide how to allocate your time, someone else normally will. If you keep and use a calendar to track your daily activities, it is a useful exercise to ask yourself why the items that appear on your calendar are there. As a habit whenever possible, make a point to fill your calendar yourself with activities that help you accomplish your biggest priorities because an empty calendar allows other people’s priorities to take precedence. Onward and upward!

G Letter - SUMMER 2021 – You Can Only Live One Moment At A Time And You Can Only Live It Once

“You need not focus on your mistakes any more than necessary to learn their lessons-apply them to the problems of today.  You can only live life forward.” Warren Buffett

“It’s not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.”-Lucius Annaeus Seneca

"You better live every day like your last because one day you're going to be right." Ray Charles

There are no do-overs in life, there is no reverse button, you can only live one moment at a time and you can only live it once.  Dwelling on the past is a waste of emotional and psychological energy and a waste of the precious life you have left to live.  

Always do your best and make every moment count, because nobody is promised tomorrow.  Always doing your best increases your confidence and protects you from the pain of regret.  Your best effort initially may not be that great but that’s not the point and should not be your focus.  Practice makes perfect because you get better via repetition and rehearsal by doing your best at each moment in time.

Doing your best increases your self-awareness of where you are in your quest or journey and where you need to make improvements before you do your best the next time round in the next moment.  Getting the results you want requires focusing your energy on how you can do better the next time rather than beating yourself up about perceived mistakes you may have made in the past. Always do your best in every moment---your life is the sum total of every individual moment in time you live.  Onward and upward!

G Letter - SPRING 2021 – You Have A 0% Chance Of Winning If You’re Not In The Game

"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." Wayne Gretzky

Many people let the irrational fear of temporary failure prevent them from taking the actions necessary to accomplish their goals.  Rational fear is a normal reaction to a real threat, whereas irrational fear is fear based on a perceived threat that really poses no actual danger.  Temporary failure is a predictable and unavoidable part of an active life that you should welcome not fear.

Nobody can accurately predict the likelihood of accomplishing a goal they set for themselves before they actually engage and begin working on it.  Regarding success, one thing is certain---your chances of success are 0% if you do nothing and your chances of success are greater than 0% if you do something.

Newton’s first law of motion states that every object will remain at rest unless compelled to change its state by the action of an external force.  You must create that initial force yourself in order to accomplish anything.  The spoils always go to those who actually engage and act rather than sit on the sidelines and do nothing, so get off the fence and get onto the field of play.  You have a 0% chance of achieving your goals if you choose not to participate.  The sooner you get started, the faster you will see results and reap rewards.  Onward & upward!

G Letter - WINTER 2020-21 – It Doesn’t Matter How Many Times You Get It Wrong Before You Get It Right

“It’s not where you start but where you finish that counts”― Zig Ziglar 

Developing any skill takes time and effort, whether it’s learning to walk as an infant, ride a bicycle as a child or drive a car as a teenager.  If you fail your first driver’s license road test, it doesn’t mean that you’re never going to be able to drive a car.  Your commitment to developing the skill you desire in the face of frustration and temporary setbacks is more important than the speed of your progress at any given point in the process.  The challenges you face along your journey are certainly meaningful to you, however most other people only care about what you can do right now.  After you have a successfully developed a skill that is valuable to others, nobody will care how bad you may have been at performing that skill in the past.

As a lifelong musician, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had friends pick up my violin or guitar then jokingly pretend to play it badly and then say, “see I don’t have any talent”.  The truth is that nobody is good at anything the first time they try to do it---this is true even for so-called prodigies!  Don’t let your desire for instant gratification or immediate results prevent you from putting in the time and effort required to achieve a goal or learn a skill.  The general formula for success is fairly simple--you need to do 3 things: 1) Decide where you want to go or what you want to do 2) Determine what it takes to get there 3) Do whatever is necessary to get there.  Onward & upward!

G Letter - Fall 2020 - It’s Ok If You Don’t Know, It’s Not OK If You’re Not Trying To Find Out

“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.”― Albert Einstein

Experience, knowledge and good judgment are not innate characteristics, they are pursuits that are derived over time via application.  It’s not where you are now but where you are going that’s important because the universe and everything in it is in constant motion.

The “Corridor Principle” gives us a useful metaphor with a concrete action we can all take to accelerate our learning.  Imagine you’re looking down a long, dark corridor.   Without knowing what’s in front of you, you walk down the corridor and as you move along the corridor new doors open up on both sides of you--doors that you would not have been able to see had you not started walking down the corridor in the first place.

By following the Corridor Principle and launching ourselves down each long corridor we come across, we expand our possibilities and transcend our preconceived limitations.  Movement in any direction at a minimum gives us a different vantage point and thus allows us to see previously unknown possibilities.

Every bit of knowledge and know-how each of us possesses right now was acquired at some point along our life’s journey.  We accelerate our learning when we make the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom deliberate and constant.  Most people stand still at the corridor’s front door waiting for something to magically happen--this is a recipe for failure and frustration.  To gain knowledge throughout your life, force yourself to walk down the corridor always keeping your eyes and ears open for new kernels of wisdom.

G Letter - Summer 2020 - Wherever You Want To Go, You Must Start From Where You Are Now

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Lao-tzu

Ed & Mark are grade school friends who decide to meet in Las Vegas to catch up and reminisce. Ed lives in Cleveland and Mark lives in LA.  Living in Los Angeles, Mark is already much closer than Ed and thus can drive to Vegas in 4 hours or jump on a one hour flight.  Ed has significantly more challenges in order to meet up with his friend--Cleveland is over 2,300 miles away from Vegas which is 35 hours by car and 55 hours by train not to mention the fact that Southwest airlines recently reduced direct flights from Cleveland to LA to once per week.

The inescapable truth is that if Ed wants to get to Vegas, he can’t change the fact that he now finds himself in Cleveland and it does him no good to complain about it or to fantasize about how much easier it would be to get to Vegas if he started in California, Nevada or Arizona--he must start from Cleveland because that’s his current location.  

Most of us wish we were closer to where we’d like to be right now, but rarely are we afforded the luxury of being able to decide exactly where we get to start our journey.  Nevertheless, being rooted in the present moment allows us to  recognize the gifts we already have (friendship in the case of Ed and Mark) as well as our purpose (rewarding time in Vegas).  Wherever we decide to go, we have to start from where we are right now.

G Letter - Spring 2020 – Expecting Certainty Is Delusional

"Without the element of uncertainty, the bringing off of even the greatest business triumph would be dull, routine and eminently unsatisfying."-- J. Paul Getty

Contrary to popular belief, weather forecasts are reliably accurate.  If there is a 30% chance of rain, it rains 30% of the time. The problem is that most people are looking for something that the weatherman and most health experts in the middle of the COV-19 crisis can’t provide: certainty.

Expecting certainty is unrealistic and potentially dangerous because it gives people a false sense of security as they wait for things to magically play out the way they expect.   People seem to naturally desire things they can’t have. The world we live in is a complex system with multiple variables that affect it that are constantly changing. The most leverage you have over the world around you lies in what you do with the things you control (i.e. social distancing, how often you follow up on prospect leads for your business etc.)  Con artists exploit people’s desire for certainty by making big promises they never intend to keep--Bernie Madoff did this by promising a high fixed annual return to his clients. The only thing we have complete control over is our thoughts and our actions--the good news is that this gives us plenty to work with! Onward & upward!

G Letter - WINTER 2019-20 – Embrace The Beauty Of Struggle

“The triumph can’t be had without the struggle” Wilma Rudolph

“If there is no struggle there is no progress” Frederick Douglass

Most people perceive struggle solely in a negative way.  Focusing on the inevitable pain and frustration that normally accompany struggle, we often lose sight of how much we grow when we struggle.  There is in fact an inextricable link between struggle and progress. 

When you exercise, you damage muscle fibers that your body repairs and replaces usually resulting in stronger muscles.  Learning to walk and ride a bicycle required struggle—falling down and then having to get up over and over again until the skill was mastered. These are examples of the long term benefits of short term struggle.

Jack Canfield, who I co-authored “Dare To Succeed” with told me that he was rejected by 143 different publishers before landing a publishing deal for his first Chicken Soup For The Soul Book—Jack has done very well since then!

There is a lesson to be learned in every setback—these lessons are stepping stones not dead ends. 

Struggle gives us perspective and helps us appreciate our growth and development.

It’s never what actually happens to us that matters, it’s the meaning we assign to what happens to us that makes the biggest impact on us in the long run.

Don’t fret over temporary struggles, embrace their beauty as unavoidable obstacles on your journey to your chosen destination.