Today is the last day of school for my children. It’s a fairly significant milestone for all three of them: the last day of elementary school for my oldest; the last day of kindergarten for my middle, and the last day of preschool for my youngest. Due to how the schools in my town are structured, it’s also the last day all three of my kids will be in school in the same building.

Of course, things could change – I don’t have a crystal ball. Maybe they’ll restructure the schools again; wouldn’t be the first time. Maybe we’ll relocate or pick a different schooling option at some point. But even if none of that happens, this won’t be the last Last Day.

Things are always changing, and another way of saying that is “things are always beginning and ending.” So sure, as a father I’m going to get a little misty-eyed at the inexorable passage of time and the growth of my children. But there are plenty of last days left – and plenty of first days, too. And all the days in between. It’ll be many years before my last Last Day.

This is really just an in-between day. And like so many of those, on this one I am proud of my children. They are growing up brave and kind and clever, and I could not ask for more.

I am endlessly interested in what truly motivates people’s actions, especially when their actions don’t align with their stated motivations.

People are propelled by many things – tribal status, safety, ego, and a host of others – but since these motivations are so good at burrowing deep within our brains and disguising themselves as something else, we’re not nearly as attuned to them as would be helpful to us.

People will say “I’d do whatever it takes to get a job,” and then do maybe 5% of that, for example.

So, my first lesson: whenever someone says “I really want to do X,” remember that their true motivation was to say “I really want to do X,” not necessarily to actually do X.

Some level of motivation is also connected to what we want to believe about how the world works. People often seem to mean “I would do whatever it takes to do X, in a world where ‘whatever it takes’ is exactly the stuff I think should work.”

In other words, “whatever it takes” rarely seems to include “Change my worldview to better reflect the realities that I face.”

The broader lesson here for you, my friend, is that you actually can learn a lot about a person’s motivations by listening to what they say. But that doesn’t mean that they’re doing the same thing.

I am a very optimistic, silver-lining kind of person. I look for the good in events and circumstances, whether that’s a different interpretation, a potential upside, or a cheerful laugh at the experience. Sometimes, when all else fails, I’ll look at a negative with the view of “well, that’s just the price I pay for [some other good thing].”

I like being optimistic, but I’ve noticed a slight trap in that way of thinking. My optimism sometimes prevents me from looking for ways to improve!

If the seat of your car has a broken piece and it jabs you in the back as you drive, you could shrug and say “Well, that’s just the price I pay for the luxury of driving and all the convenience that brings. Given the choice, I wouldn’t get rid of all that just because of a little poke while I’m driving.” And look, great! That’s a good attitude in general. But also… you can fix the broken part.

You’re allowed to just fix the broken things, even if the total bargain is net positive. It’s not ungrateful, it’s not pessimistic. It’s just you making your world better.

If you have a job and there are things you don’t like about it, you can shrug and say “Well, that’s just the price I pay for having stable employment.” And some of that stuff probably is – you might not be able to fix everything. But you can make improvements, renegotiate, or do anything else you like.

Optimism is wonderful; I strongly encourage it. I still strive to improve.

There is an enormous difference between creation and ideation. Being able to create something and being able to decide what to create may be related in a sense, but they’re far from the same skill.

I’ll give you an example. I happen to know an incredibly talented illustrator who works in the comics industry. His art is superb; he can bring the wildest ideas of the imagination to vivid life. In every sense of the word, he’s creative – but he’s also never come up with an original drawing. He honed his craft re-drawing other people’s creations, and now he makes his living drawing art requests from writers. If you can imagine it, he can draw it – but when he just free-form sketches, he inevitably just draws Spider-man over and over.

Every pose different, every line perfect – but always Spider-man.

There’s the difference. We often look at creative people who nonetheless work best with solid direction and say “You’re so creative, why don’t you come up with something yourself?“

That’s a mistake that we’re making. We slip two different concepts under the umbrella term “creative” and then lament when someone isn’t both of them. Many brilliant painters through the ages painted only what they saw – that doesn’t mean they’re not creative. And many people have come up with incredible ideas that changed the world but needed other people to help execute and create the reality of what they’d imagined.

There is no requirement that any given person be both things – or even one, for that matter. Be careful what you assume about a person’s talents.

I’ve noticed a particular kind of communication gap, and perhaps you’ve noticed it too. It seems as though there are two kinds of people in the world: people for whom every statement is an expression of emotion, and people who sometimes just say stuff to transmit or obtain information.

The problem is that people in that first camp often think that there is no second camp. They believe that every statement that anyone makes is an expression of emotion, and that can lead to some serious misinterpretations of people’s moral character.

Not everything that someone says is an expression of a deeper emotion, feeling, or even opinion. But if you believe the opposite, then questions like “Why did you buy that book,” sound accusatory, and statements like “I think we should move in a different direction with this project” can seem downright threatening.

Of course, some people are accusatory or threatening or whatever else. But if you never think otherwise, chances are that you’re the one with the skewed worldview.

Let me tell you a truth: if you are a person of average athletic ability, you are not going to win a gold medal in the next Olympics, no matter how much you “believe in yourself.” Confidence does not replace ability.

But there is a deeper, more important truth: confidence creates ability. It’s just much farther upstream.

If you don’t believe you can do something, then you probably can’t. If you believe you can, that’s not magic. But if you believe you can learn, then you certainly can.

Belief is the seed of wisdom. You can’t learn anything without a belief in your fundamental ability to improve yourself. That’s what requires your faith. You can’t skip the learning step – you can’t go right from confidence to accomplishment. But confidence is what makes the learning step possible.

Hey there, folks! Today, I want to dive deep into the importance of finding positive outlets for those not-so-pleasant experiences that life throws our way. Bad experiences are inevitable. They have a knack for landing right in our laps when we least expect them. But fear not! There’s always a powerful way to turn things around. And I’m not just talking about the cliché “look on the bright side” mentality. No, no. We’re going beyond that today.

Sometimes, the event itself is simply bad. There’s no sugarcoating it, no silver lining to be found. But guess what? That doesn’t mean we’re left empty-handed. Even in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges, we can find a benefit, a lesson, or a chance for growth. It’s all about how we choose to navigate through the rough patches.

Take, for instance, a particularly awful experience that ends up being a powerful lesson for others. By sharing our own experiences, complete with the valuable insights we’ve gained, we have the potential to inspire, educate, and guide those who may encounter similar obstacles down the road. Our hardships become the fuel that propels others toward their own triumphs.

And then there are those times when life decides to dump a pile of undesirable tasks right in our laps. We might find ourselves thinking, “No way! I don’t want to deal with this!” But hold up—don’t throw in the towel just yet. See, even in those moments, we have an opportunity to leverage the situation to our advantage. We can turn the tables, using those tasks as bargaining chips to negotiate a title change, increased compensation, or some other form of recognition. It’s all about finding the output in the negotiation process itself.

Now, here’s a radical thought for you: what if we viewed life’s random events as mere clay—raw material from which we can mold the life we truly desire? Imagine the power in that perspective! Suddenly, those bad experiences don’t seem so daunting. Instead, they become the very building blocks we need to construct the life we want. It’s an empowering mindset, my friends.

By embracing this outlook, we regain a sense of control and agency over our own destinies. We no longer feel like helpless victims of circumstance. Instead, we become architects of our own success, using every experience—good or bad—as a stepping stone toward a brighter future.

So, my friends, let’s remember this: bad experiences are part and parcel of life. We can’t avoid them, but we can navigate through them with grace and determination. Even when there seems to be no immediate upside, we can find value in every situation. Whether it’s turning our trials into lessons for others or transforming unwanted tasks into stepping stones for personal growth, the choice is ours.

So, the next time life throws you a truly bad day, embrace it. Mold it into something beautiful. See it as an opportunity—a chance to shape your life, your way. Remember, you hold the power to turn any negative experience into a force for positive change.

Keep molding that clay.

Sometimes we can feel like we’re forced to choose between “the lesser of two evils,” when we’re faced with a choice between options we’d prefer to avoid altogether. We begrudgingly make our choice (or possibly we’re either clever enough or stubborn enough in that moment to find a way to choose neither) and we move on.

When confronted with the choice between multiple good options, the choice can be much harder!

At least with “evils,” we don’t want any of them. With “goods,” we want them all! So we overextend. There’s a reason there’s no such phrase as “bite off less than you can chew.” That’s nobody’s problem. Instead, people try to do all the fun things, or all the good things, or all the projects.

You need to pick the best one – and only the best one. Do the most good you can while leaving room to breathe. Without that, you won’t be able to sustain, and you’ll miss much more good in the long run.

Imagine if you had a magical device that would give you – just you – an extra hour every day. The rest of the world gets the standard 24, and you get 25. Think for a moment, and decide what you would do with that hour tomorrow.

Okay, did you decide?

Now, answer honestly: whatever you picked, did you do that today with any of the 24 hours you had? Was everything else you did more meaningful, more important to you, than whatever you picked would have been?

Enjoy your hour.

There’s a brick wall in your way, and you bump into it. Your nose hurts, and your path is blocked. You’ve got several options of varying levels of effectiveness now. Probably the least effective of your choices is “yell at the wall.”

You can be mad, and there’s nothing wrong with that – it’s a natural human reaction to pain and frustration. But taking it out on the wall is pretty silly. The wall won’t change in response to your scolding.

Imagine if it did, though? Imagine if every time you screamed at the wall, it got a little higher. Maybe longer, too – harder to go around. Each admonition, no matter how much it satisfied your wrathful impulse, just made your destination harder to reach.

That’s what it’s like when you try it on people.

Using anger as a tool for interacting with other people is the shortest-term solution. If you’re being attacked or you’re in a sporting competition, summoning up a few good shouts and drawing some extra strength from your rage can help, but that’s about the extent of the situations where it’s useful. In every other context, from managing employees to parenting children, a response drawn from anger is a poor choice.

At best, you get a short-term redirection of their action through your manipulation and do enormous damage to your long-term relationship with that person. At worst, you don’t even get that; you just get an equally angry response. In every case, you poison yourself along the way.

It’s tempting, I know. When someone makes you mad, even if you don’t want to “take it out on them,” you at least want them to know that you’re mad, right? That they’ve upset or disappointed you. But consider why you want that: you really want them to change their behavior.

Their new behavior, the actions you want – they’re on the other side of that brick wall. Yelling at the bricks won’t get you closer.