BLOG POSTS
Can I Have a Reset?
Six minutes into an episode about resetting, I derailed it, and Jana made me reset on the air. The five words that end an argument, and how to come back from a flat no.
Getting a Puppy: The Pros and Cons
Jana found a puppy named Faith with the exact birthday of our first dog. I wrote a whole article about not believing in signs. Here's our actual pros and cons list.
"It's So Easy" Is a Red Flag
I keep my tools in a tissue box, so I was the wrong guy to hear "oh, it's so easy" about our boat engine. Why "easy" is a red flag, and the one question that fixes it.
What's Real? Rose-Colored Glasses, a Theranos Movie, and a Chicken Avocado BLT
A Thursday lunch-and-movie date, 174 minutes of Elizabeth Holmes, and a hard look at my own rose-colored glasses. What's real, and how to dream big without lying to yourself.
"I Would Have Figured It Out On My Own"
People assume I've always been comfortable on a microphone. I failed my ninth-grade declaration project. Why success erases the struggle, and the 1-to-10 page that keeps it honest.
Five Years or Four Minutes
We bought a farm in Kansas so our money would work for us. Mostly it worked for the fertilizer company. What I did with the years I almost called wasted.
How to Stop a Bad Day From Turning Into a Bad Life
The dishwasher repair took three days, the beeping never stopped, and the most positive guy in our house spent all of it in a funk. Here's the one question that got us out.
I Don't Think the Universe Broke Our Dishwasher
Five things broke in four weeks and every one of them involved water. My wife says it was a message. I don't think a dishwasher knows anything. I took the prompt anyway, and it got me to admit three true things I had been avoiding since summer.
We Keep Putting More Logs on the Fire
You build a fire. A couple of small logs, and it settles into the place where everybody can feel it and nobody has to move their chair. So you think: this is good. Let’s put another log on. Twenty minutes later it’s a scorcher and everyone has pushed their chair to the edge of the yard.
Six Months After He Broke His Neck, He's Running a Costume Contest
Somebody you know is going through something terrible right now, and you haven't called. Not because you don't care. Because you opened the message four times, typed something, read it back, and deleted it. We did the same thing this year, and we have spent two decades inside adaptive sport.
Somebody's Having a Party and I Wasn't Invited
Our neighbor Tim said it to me in the street, joking, with a hockey stick in his hand. Somebody's having a party and I wasn't invited. He knew he was welcome at our house any time. He said it anyway, because saying it was the only way he had to open the door. Adults do not invite themselves.
I Was the Guy Taking Meetings From the Car
Jana says she can tell within fifteen seconds of a first call whether somebody is going to hit their goal. I spent years proving her right. I took meetings from the highway on purpose, because I wanted my boss to hear the road noise. I thought it sounded like commitment.
I Had a Checklist and My Wife Wasn't On It
A letter came in from a 34-year-old mother of two in Arizona. I don't know what I want. I pick something today and change my mind tomorrow, and time is running out. Nothing is wrong with her. She is running a broken query. I ran the same one for years, with a checklist and a Rolex on a vision board.
I Wrote Down a Hundred Million Dollars and My Wife Called Me Dude
Coach Berta had us write letters from age 100, looking back. One of my lines was that I was proud we gave away $100 million. Jana read it, her mouth dropped open, and she said: dude, you are living in dreamland. She was right. We had none of it. Here's what that sentence did anyway.
Comparison Isn't the Thief of Joy
Theodore Roosevelt never said it, and the research says comparison was never the problem. The belief that shows up right after it is. What kindergarteners at show-and-tell know that adults forget, and the one word that changes what the comparison means.
Are You Putting the FU in Fun?
Put the F. U. in Fun.
Say it slowly. ChatGPT watched our blooper reel and told us I try too hard to sound like a professor and Jana tries too hard to be inspirational. It wasn't wrong. On kindergarten, the judgment that comes with putting yourself out there, the rule we stole from Jana's dad, and the moment we definitely should have stopped recording.
It All Starts With a Question
"Tell me what to do." "Why are you telling me what to do?" Why a good life can quietly go gray, why the people who love us are the last ones we'll take advice from, and the question running in the background of your mind that decides what you notice all day.
The Proximity Effect: How Your Circle Directly Dictates Your Luck
A neighbor kid knocked on our door, and my first feeling was interrupted. That's the problem. How grocery delivery, self-checkout and a mailbox at the clubhouse quietly removed the accidental conversations where most luck used to happen, and how to get a few of them back this week.
What Is a Living Lucky® Salon? And Why?
We handed out nearly forty invitations to a salon, and people asked if they were getting their nails done. What a salon actually is, why Gertrude Stein's Saturday nights still matter, and the one question that replaces "what do you do."
The Pointless Peak
Nobody took the piano. She just can't find the reason to sit down at it anymore, because the reason used to be that it was fun and now there's a better product available in thirty seconds.