One Factor That Changes Everything

A single factor overwhelmingly determines your success in life. It maximizes your talent and intelligence and minimizes roadblocks and negative circumstances. It determines your physical health and financial security. It colors your personal and professional relationships. It affects your well-being and longevity. Without it, even people with exceptional genes, good luck, privileged backgrounds or superior…

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The Man Who Made Dreams Come True

Browsing the newsstand at the local airport, I picked up a copy of National Geographic Adventure. It wasn’t the splashy colors or the teasers on the cover that caught my attention. It was the magazine’s tagline: Dream it. Plan it. Do it. If life had an instruction manual, this might be the perfect six-word encapsulation.…

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How to Avoid This Fate

At a conference in Las Vegas a couple months ago, I had the opportunity to meet and chat with Dr. Joel Wade, a psychotherapist who has dedicated his career to discovering what it means to live well.  As a life coach, his practice is about helping people create and embody a truly extraordinary life. His…

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Why You Should Be Biased

Recently, some readers have written in to say I am too optimistic. Mea culpa. I am an optimist, always have been. Every project I undertake, I expect to see to a successful conclusion. When events take a turn for the worse, I imagine how they will get better. My general attitude is that things will…

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How to Change Your Life

Although the economy is on the mend and the stock market has taken a big bounce off the bottom, tough times remain for many Americans. Unemployment is high. Bankruptcies and foreclosures are near record levels. Repo lots are overflowing. Worry and stress are on the rise in many households. Some of these folks might want…

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The Lost Art of Conversation

My daughter Hannah has reached the age, 13, where being popular at school is only slightly less important than breathing. The problem is, like most of us at her age, she is more than a little shy, self-conscious and socially awkward. Despite being an A student, for instance, virtually everything she encounters is “cool” or…

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A Thorn With Every Rose

I recently attended an Oxford Club chapter meeting at the Grove Park Inn, a historic hotel on the western slope of Sunset Mountain near Asheville, NC. Passing the enormous stone hearth in the lobby one morning, I noticed an engraving on one of the stones. It was a quatrain by Frank L. Stanton, a columnist…

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