G Letter - SUMMER 2025 – Don’t Waste Time Or Energy Reinventing The Wheel

"Don't try to reinvent the wheel. Just learn from the guys who have already done it well" - George Foreman

"You don't have to reinvent the wheel, just attach it to a new wagon" - Mark McCormack

The wheel is believed to have originated in Mesopotamia in modern-day Iraq initially as a potter's wheel around 3500-3350 BC. The wheel then evolved to be used for transportation.  The wheel is one of the most impactful inventions in human history, transforming transportation, agriculture, as well many other different industries and it remains a cornerstone and foundation of modern technology.

Some problems have already been solved--it's therefore more effective and efficient to leverage previous innovations like the wheel  than to try to recreate or reinvent them yourself.   To reinvent the wheel is to attempt to duplicate, often with inferior results, a basic method that has already been created and optimized by others.  Collective human progress over the ages required improving upon previous breakthroughs.  Building on established knowledge and techniques and using existing solutions and resources rather than starting from scratch saves time and effort. In terms of getting things done, originality is often overrated--what matters is what actually works.  

It’s ok to focus on innovation, however learning from others is a key to getting ahead faster and making the biggest impact.  Repeating work that has already been done is a waste of time and resources.   Using existing methods, rather than starting from scratch, helps avoid making the same mistake twice. 

Look at what others have successfully accomplished in the past, learn from their experiences, build on their successes and whenever possible avoid their previous failures.  Focus your energy on new and innovative ideas, rather than spending time on tasks that have already been completed.  Onward and upward.

G Letter - SPRING 2025 – Never Let Anyone Else Get Into Your Head-Your Mind Belongs Only To You

"I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet."-Mahatma Gandhi

"Your mind is your temple, keep it beautiful and free." Bob Dylan

We are conditioned from early childhood to seek the approval of others—teachers, family, peers etc.  Social media amplifies approval-seeking behavior which often leads people to crave external validation and distrust their own judgment.  To become a fully functioning adult, we have to unbrainwash ourselves and liberate our minds from these mental albatrosses.  Liberating the mind starts with improving our awareness of our thoughts and emotions.  The more aware we are of our thoughts and emotions, the better we can manage our thoughts and emotions.  

One of the keys to managing our thoughts is preventing others from dominating them.  To prevent others from controlling our thoughts and emotions, we have to recognize and acknowledge our own mental autonomy.  Happiness and peace of mind come from within.  Ultimately, we must control our own thoughts and never let other people’s words or actions dictate how we think or feel.  Never let anyone get into your head.  Your mind belongs to you and only you.  Onward and upward.

G Letter - WINTER 2024-25 – Focus On Facts More Than Narratives

“Falsehoods, spin and legends can be tweaked and tested and changed to exactly match the dreams and desires of the people they’re aimed at.  This is why manipulative stories are so much stickier than what really happened. What reality has in its favor is that it’s generally resilient. Gravity doesn’t care who believes in it. It’s still here.” Seth Godin

"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." John Adams

Stories are powerful and often easier to remember than facts, which is why narratives tend to persuade other people more so than facts.  Despite their power to persuade, stories, narratives and myths are often inaccurate, incomplete and misleading.  Social media is rife with misinformation and false narratives that prey on people’s fears, misunderstandings and emotions while contradicting basic observable facts. 

A fact is something that is concrete and objective---observable using one or all of our five senses.  Facts can be checked, verified or disproven and therefore can act as a counterweight to propaganda and help us make better decisions.   It’s wiser to start with facts as a foundation and then build stories and narratives that illuminate those facts rather than trying to reverse engineer facts to fit the narrative you’d prefer to see or hear.  Onward and upward.

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.