Going All In
I’ve noticed a pattern and tendency in my life: there is a wedge between holding back and going all in. In some instances, I’m looking at the finish line and letting up. In other...
The Wounded Warrior
The wounded warrior goes at life alone, striving to overcome adversaries by himself. He is driven by the unconscious need to prove himself and to prove he deserves love. In that way, he is...
Driven by Being Liked
Throughout my childhood and adult years (until my early 40s), I was driven mostly by one thing: being liked. I noticed that I would always pick a person or three, and their opinion of me, of...
Fueled by Commitment
How often have you failed to attain something, and then blamed someone or certain circumstances for falling short? We all do it. Recently, I was hoping to be hired by a new client, but he...
Unapparent Thoughts
Thoughts and feelings flow through us from sources that are not always apparent. We all have very common core beliefs, many of which are not even conscious. Some of them create momentum in our...
Failure to Launch
I’ve been hearing a lot about these “failure to launch” kids: teens and young adults who are not stepping into the adult phase of life. It hit me that the term implies there’s something wrong...
The Source of Love
An elephant will stand still, believing it is trapped, when a rope tethers it loosely to a stake in the ground. It can easily pull the stake out and walk free, but its belief that it cannot will...
The Decision to Serve
Who I become in life has been primarily driven by one thing: my decision to serve someone or something. As a father, I fully took on a role to serve. I assumed that the people served by that...
Expectations of Ethics
Ever assume that those around you have the same ethical views you do, only to be disappointed and maybe even hurt when they don’t? Yeah. We all have! Here’s the thing that I keep learning: the...
Settling in to Numbness
The other day, I had lunch with an old buddy who shared with me how his life had been the past couple years—full of lots of disappointments and challenges. We all go through times like this. I...
Help Can Sometimes Hurt
I’m not a fan of team politics because it’s so clearly manipulative and divisive. There’s a clear line in the political battlefield that links compassion with people who don’t have enough, and...
Follow the Vision
Some people seem to be visionaries— they have been grabbed by a vision and are propelled by their passionate dedication to it. Whether it be a musician, entrepreneur or doctor, these people seem...
Judging vs. Accepting
I find there are two modes of experiencing someone: judging or accepting. When I’m judging, my mind goes to work comparing and contrasting, which is what the mind is for. The mind is a...
Do What Matters to You– No Matter What
How qualified do we need to be to do what matters to us? So many inspirational podcasts and postings involve billionaires with disruptive industry-changing solutions, or people who have done some...
The Core of Conflict
War has been one of the constants of human civilization. In times when violence has been unavoidable, it makes sense to me. The trouble is, we all define “unavoidable” differently. ...
The Gain of Pain
One of the biggest difficulties we face in life is seeing a loved one in pain. We insert ourselves into their situation to try to save them from this pain. Watching them suffer causes us so much...
Stories That Write Us
It seems that the stories we tell are embodiments of all our decisions, conscious or not. They express not only an event, but also who we are deciding to be in response to an event: our identity...
The Pain of Parenthood
I was having a conversation with a friend of mine last night about our kids. In the course of it, I realized that there is certain amount of heartache involved in being a parent. When my kid...
When the Mind Wanders
At times when my mind swirls with thoughts of “what’s going on?” or “what needs to be done?,” what bad things might happen or when my mind simply goes to work (instead of sleeping), these are my...
Sensory Communication
People say that as long as you’re coming from a place of love, you can convey just about anything. We can feel it! When a message is coming to us from someone in fear, judgment, or anything...
Solving the Problem of Problem Solving
Problem solving is a such an integral and fulfilling part of life. I love being confronted with a challenge, something to navigate. It gives me a problem to solve which always feels like a big...
Creating a New Outcome
When I identify a goal very specially, the gap between me and that goal always seems to close. I’m very good at wandering in life, reading signs and signals, and observing where energy is...
Recharging
One of the things I’ve come to learn that has changed the game for me is that we’re all sort of like batteries. We have to know what charges us and then do that…regularly! Otherwise, we run low...
Give the World What You’ve Got
I wrote The Wolf That Wins because I realized that there is no particular accomplishment or attainment that qualifies me to share my stories. I wrote it because I realized that, as a human being...
Beliefs that Block Connection
Everything we do and create in our lives, everything (not just some things) arise from the same source: beliefs. And those beliefs live in us unconsciously and also consciously. We see some of...
When a Dream Becomes a Calling
I recently wrote a book I titled The Wolf That Wins. Before this book, I had never been much of a writer. The inspiration to write this book seemed to come from thin air. However, this morning...
Accepting Others to Accept Yourself
People either process things slowly or quickly. Fast processors seem to sort through details quickly on the basis of instinct or intuition. They gather just enough information to get to a...
Navigating on Pure Feel
In business, I always had an initial vision and just drove towards that one specific goal. I’d encounter and obstacle, learn from it, adapt and keep moving towards the vision. When the vision...