People often tell me stories. In my job, I listen to many of my clients’ stories about their professional and even personal life. And in my own personal life, I love stories – so I’ve developed many skills to make sure I get to hear more of them. I’m genuinely interested, I’m an active listener, and I’m an encouraging audience. (Seriously, even if we don’t know each other, tell me a story! I want to hear it!)

Often people tell me these stories and I’ll ask: “If you didn’t tell me that directly, is there any way I could have discovered it?” I’m asking if the story exists anywhere else but in the brain of the storyteller. Most of the time, the answer is “no.”

Every story you tell has wisdom and inspiration in it. In fact, they are your wisdom, they are your inspiration. There what make you who you are, and they’re the intricate jigsaw-puzzle-piece-pattern around you that puts you into the world.

Someday, the body that carries around all of those stories will expire. But the stories don’t have to. Do everything you can to make sure that your stories outlive you, that they survive the expiration of the bag of bones holding them up right now.

When I’m with my clan, we often share and re-share stories of our departed members. We tell them to those younger in order to fill them with wonder, those that never met these legends in person. In the same way, I’ve been told stories of the legends before me. I never met my paternal grandfather – he passed a few years before I was born. But I’ve been told so many stories about him – stories that, in turn, I’ve shared with many others – that I feel like I do know him, that I have met him. Certainly, I “grew up” with him as a presence in my life.

This makes him immortal. We are the combination of the stories we’ve lived – the blood and bones carrying those things around is so, so unimportant in comparison. Live for stories. And then, in time, let them live for you.

We do not, in general, have a stable relationship with resistance as a teacher.

A man looks at a bear. The bear is climbing a tree, trying to swat down a nest full of stinging insects. They swarm around the bear in a frenzy, but the bear persists. Eventually the bear gets the nest down and even while the insects wage (what to them must be) the war of their lives against him, he opens the nest and licks at the golden substance within.

The man thinks to himself, “that must be amazing, to be worth all of that! I’ll do the same!”

The man has committed a grave error. He’s judged the outcome – about which, in reality, he knows nothing – simply by how hard it is to achieve.

Some people do the opposite, of course. They look at even the slightest bit of hard work or challenge and run the other way, and so miss out on many of life’s rewards. And some of us look at those people and disdain them, and in our efforts to distance ourselves from them philosophically, we go too hard in the other direction. We declare to ourselves, and others, that the harder something is to do, the more worthwhile it must be to do it.

Challenge is good. Resistance makes us stronger. But for what? We need to have a goal. If someone wants to summit Everest because it will be a tremendous personal accomplishment, make them proud of themselves, inspire others, join an elite group – wonderful! In preparing for such a feat, they also will probably do great things for their physical health and mental discipline. All fantastic.

But now imagine another person who looks at Mount Everest and says, “wow, it would be really, really hard to climb that – so something amazing must be at the top!” They will be very disappointed, to say the least, when they arrive at the peak.

The goal was the thing. We need a purpose to align with the challenge, even if we’re seeking the challenge for its own sake and not for any reward.

The man looking at the bear could say instead, “the bear was willing to do a lot to get at what was in that nest. But the bear has traits that I don’t have, like thick fur and great endurance. And I have skills that the bear doesn’t have, like money and access to grocery stores. So let me begin by figuring out what the bear’s goal actually was, and then figure out if I would even like that goal. After all, I’m not a bear, and I won’t necessarily even want to eat everything a bear wants to eat. But if I do decide that I want it, let me then decide if there’s a way to get it that doesn’t involve getting stung to death by a thousand angry bees.”

Now apply this to everything you do. Seek challenge and resistance when doing so benefits you. Avoid it when it’s simply in the way of your true goal, or when you’re tricking yourself into believing there’s some great treasure at the top of Mount Everest just because it’s hard to climb.

Someone has done something to upset you, so you express your frustration. Later, they do something kind for you. The temptation is strong to connect the two events, to offer less gratitude or praise than the kind gesture deserves because you’re still frustrated from before.

Don’t.

Don’t punish people for bridging gaps, and don’t cross your concepts. Reward that which is deserving, and correct where correction is needed, but don’t cross the two.

The same goes in reverse. My kids are all really fantastic 99% of the time. That doesn’t mean they earn the right not to be punished when a behavior needs correcting. It does mean they’ve earned my trust and we can work together to address bad behavior without it having to be a battle. But sometimes a kid still gets grounded, no matter how good they’ve been overall.

But when they are grounded, I still tell them how much I appreciate it when they spontaneously take out the trash or do some dishes. I don’t default to a mean-spirited “yeah, you’d better do that,” or anything similar.

This is a hard thing to do. We are emotional creatures, and emotions spill over easily from one event, one moment, to the next. That’s fine by itself – but be aware of it. Talk about it. But don’t let it rule you. Just handle one thing at a time, in the right way for each thing. You’ll do fine.

They say “ignorance is bliss,” but in my experience there seems to be a pretty strong correlation between how happy someone is and how seriously they can – and do – think about their life and the sources of that happiness.

There is a lot of natural happiness in the world, but there’s a lot of other natural resources too – that doesn’t mean it doesn’t take labor to convert the natural resource into something usable by humans. Children might be one of the purest and most bountiful sources of happiness in existence, but if you just have a bunch of kids with zero effort or thought put into preparing for and raising them, you’re not likely to be happier on net than if you had none at all.

Happiness, joy, contentment – these things take work. And to be effective, I think that work has to be pretty regularly examined and re-examined for flaws or potential improvements.

The challenge is in overthinking. Happiness isn’t binary. You don’t cross a threshold and wake up content one day. These things happen by inches and fractions of inches. So no matter what you do, you could always, perhaps, be a little more happy. It is up to each individual to decide when additional effort towards that goal won’t actually be a marginal improvement anymore. Call it the “Pursuit of Pareto-Optimal Happiness.” You won’t get it perfect. But I think time spent in contemplation is, on net, an asset.

There’s a brilliant scene in Pirates of the Caribbean (one of the all-time most perfect movies ever made, by the way) where Elizabeth Swan and Jack Sparrow are stranded on an island. With no means of escape, Elizabeth Swan uses the island’s cache of rum to create an enormous bonfire with a pillar of smoke so high that every ship for hundreds of miles – most of which are looking for her – can see it. They are rescued within hours.

In life, we spend a lot of time searching for stuff. A great romantic partner, the perfect job, a problem-solving product or service. Very rarely, however, do we take the time to realize that the humans behind those things are also searching for us. Sometimes a far more effective method than searching is to be searchable.

Elizabeth Swan knew that there were people who wanted to rescue her. So instead of focusing on escape attempts, she focused on being rescue–able. It worked.

If you’re looking for a great job, they’re looking for a great employee. If you’re looking for a wonderful romance, so is someone else. If you’re looking to buy a solution to a problem, they’re looking for customers with the problem they can solve. Take some time to think about those people – where might they be looking? How are they identifying their targets? How can you build a bonfire to let them know “I’m right here?”

On a very regular basis during any prolonged search, you should just be running things up the flagpole to see who looks. You should be willing to talk about your search in public, whatever “in public” means to you these days. People want to help you, and will – if they know where you are.

I’m about 6’1″. Once you’re an adult, height doesn’t vary much, so any time I’m measured it ends up within a half an inch or so of that number.

So imagine my surprise one day when I was in for a routine physical checkup and the nurse recorded my height at 5’6″.

I pointed out that I was pretty sure that my height hadn’t changed, and she laughed when she realized what had happened – the ruler chart thing had been hung on the wall incorrectly and was about six inches higher than it should have been, resulting in a half-foot inaccuracy. I was the first to use the newly-hung ruler and so the mistake was swiftly corrected, and we had a good chuckle.

Here’s the lesson: your height doesn’t change because someone else’s ruler is broken.

Your value doesn’t change because someone else can’t measure it correctly.

What you have, what you can do, what you bring to the table – some people need it, some people don’t. And some people do need it, but their measuring tools are inaccurate because we’re imperfect people and so they make a mistake.

That mistake doesn’t take so much as a millimeter off you, and don’t you forget it.

There are few qualities I admire in others more than a strong student mentality. Someone who continually seeks to learn and absorb. It’s a vital component of growth, happiness, and success. Far too many people just let the “learning” part of their brain atrophy, and that’s a shame.

There is a potential pitfall, however, that people with strong student instincts can encounter. Sometimes if you’ve committed to being a lifelong student, you can also mentally trick yourself into creating a false “student/teacher” hierarchy in your world, and devalue yourself.

After all, much of your early life is spent both learning by default and in a position of relatively low authority. So if you choose to continue being a “student,” you may accidentally feel like you’re continually also a “novice.”

But those aren’t the same!

If you’re a dedicated learner (and if you’re not… why are you reading this of all blogs?), make sure you’re taking time to teach. Pick things that you know or are good at, and share them with others.

This does two things: one, it helps the world. Always a noble endeavor! But two, it creates confidence in yourself. If you teach others, then you begin to appreciate your own knowledge.

The flow of knowledge should be in all directions, after all. Gain and give.

You go out in your back yard and turn on the hose. After a while, you realize that your yard is soaked, but most of the actual water is either disappearing into the ground or running off. You’re certainly not getting anything you can swim in.

“I know,” you say. “I just need more water.” You turn the hose up, but strangely, the problem persists.

“Amount of water” wasn’t your problem. You lacked something to give it structure. By itself, water doesn’t have a shape. You need a container – like a pool – to do that. Water is essential to the process (a pool without water is just a hole), but it’s symbiotic.

That’s like ideas. If you have plenty of ideas but they haven’t become action, reward, or change – the thing you need isn’t more ideas.

It’s a structure. A format. Somewhere to put the ideas so they can take shape. The marginal return of each new idea rapidly approaches zero, just like water in a pool; to a certain point it’s great and even necessary, but after that point it’s just flowing over the sides and being wasted.

So if you find yourself having idea after idea but nothing actually happening, stop thinking. Start gathering resources instead, and then using them to obtain something to put it all in.

I am, obviously, a junkie for personal development and improvement.

That doesn’t mean I’m always great at it, but it certainly means I’m always working towards it. The dark side is that I’m bad at feeling satisfied. My father was much better at this than me – despite his lifelong love of learning and improvement, he is also good at looking at the lawn when it’s appropriate.

Over the past week or so, my daughter and I built an art studio for her in the basement. She’s tremendously talented and has been painting for some time. She’s taken it more than seriously enough to warrant additional parental investment, and a studio was a reasonable ask – especially since she wanted to help with the labor. So we cleaned, and built, and shopped, and unpacked, and built her a really awesome little corner art studio and workshop.

And as soon as it was finished, the very second, I looked around the basement and started mapping the next projects. Creating her art studio had necessitated this thing be moved here, which means I could do this, and so now I want to make this out of this section, and then after that I’ll be able to…

Over and over and over. This is my pattern.

So today, I’m trying to stop a little. I’m applying my drive for self-improvement to this flaw, and trying to improve it. Instead of immediately looking at the next thing, I am saying “this is cool.”

I’m declaring victory. That art studio is great, and my daughter couldn’t be happier with it. I’m not sure I’ll be able to convince her to leave it ever, in fact.

Of course I’ll do more projects. Of course I’m not finished. Maybe I never will be. But even if I can’t finish, I can pause. I can look upon my works, and be proud. I can let that sink in for a bit.

I will always have tomorrow for ambition, but I can reserve today for joy.

Whenever people are asked to do something, in any context, here is how they usually process the request (whether consciously or not):

Step 1: Ask why.

Step 2: Process that reason as good or bad, and based on that information…

Step 3: …decide if they can/will do it (possibly with the addition of an excuse if not).

That’s a terrible way to evaluate task requests. The better order is:

Step 1: Decide whether you can perform the task (and if so, whether or not you want to). The reasons for this are all internal – your current workload, your ability, etc. External reasons don’t matter yet, because you either can or you can’t.

Step 2: If you decide that you can, do it. If you decide that you can’t, inform the person making the request of this fact politely but directly (possibly offering alternative suggestions, if helpful). After all of that:

Step 3: Ask why.

Now, this is a general rule. There are exceptions, usually in the form of tasks that might have huge gaps between the most ethical and most unethical reasons to do so. (For instance, this advice is great for “spot me five bucks,” but might not work for “help me dig a hole in the woods at night.”)

Why is this advice good, though? First off, you don’t usually need to ask why in order to agree to a task and then do it, because people will offer you that information in the request. Most people aren’t deliberately cryptic – your friend doesn’t usually say “do me a favor and show up at my house Saturday.” They usually say that they’re moving some furniture and could you help? So if you ask for any additional information, you’re only going to get one of two things – pleading or lies.

So if you want honest information (and you should, for future reference!), you should ask why after the fact. People who you’ve just done something for are more likely to feel like they “owe you one,” and combined with the fact that they know they aren’t risking the favor itself by being honest with you, this creates the conditions most likely to result in you getting the truth.

A few months ago, a friend of mine called me and asked me if I could pick up his car from the mechanic that is only a few blocks from my house. I didn’t need to ask for any clarification or expanded information – I knew that no matter the circumstance I’d say yes, because a.) I could do this task easily and b.) this is a good friend of many years. After I dropped the car off, I asked him about the circumstances, just because I was curious; but no part of the story would have affected that favor – only potential future ones.

In another instance, a casual acquaintance asked me to lend him a very substantial amount of money – an amount that would have been inconvenient to even get together (i.e. more than was just sitting in my checking account) and would have represented significant hardship for me had I not gotten it back promptly. So I said no. He seemed shocked because I hadn’t asked him why he needed it. But I had no reason to ask – my answer of “no” was based on my conditions, not his. Any additional information he had to give me would have been pleading or lies, so I didn’t need to waste either of our time further by indulging. His need could have been very genuine, but that wouldn’t change my ability to meet his request.

It all comes down to this: you are the captain of your life. You don’t need to surrender decision-making authority to a constant stream of carefully-tailored information from others. You can – and should – just decide for yourself what you can and want to do.