I used to really, really love rain. Now it raises my blood pressure. The difference is that now I’m a homeowner who has had more than one rain-related disaster in my home.

The ability to run around in the rain, enjoying the chaos, is an ability borne from invincibility. And there is only one true form of invincibility – having nothing to lose.

As long as you have something, you have something to fear. I’m not saying it’s automatically preferable to have nothing, but maybe just understand that every last thing you get in life you buy with a little bit of vulnerability. The more you have, the higher your tower? The farther you have to look down.

My oldest likes her marshmallows burnt – totally charred on the outside, practically liquid in the center. My middle child likes them mostly fresh out of the bag, maybe just barely warmed up, if that. My youngest likes them like I do – patiently toasted to a golden brown, soft on the inside and with that slight crunch on the outside.

You cannot possibly do this wrong. If you build a fire with your children and sit around it with sticks and a bag of marshmallows, everyone will be happy.

This is true of so many things. Details don’t matter – gather your loved ones and put some joyous thing in the middle that everyone can experience in their own way. Let those ways take shape. Let the fellowship surround it all.

This is life, joyously lived.

One of my “social flaws” is that I always want to invite everyone to everything. If I’m doing something with one or two friends, my natural instinct is to call every person I know and see if they also want in. I hate the thought of sharing a story later about a fun thing I did and having that person go “Oh, you should have called me!”

Realistically, as adults, most of the time people can’t spontaneously join those kinds of adventures anymore. My friends all have careers, families, and their own hobbies.

But still, every once in a while… once in a blue moon, you can get that whole crowd together for something fun. And when you get that chance, do it. Those are some of the best times, and they come more and more rarely as the years pass.

So if you’re doing something fun, call me. I’ll do my best.

May you be thankful for much, and have much to be thankful for. Spread it around a little, too.

“This is the best boat ever,” says boat enthusiast.

There are often two broad categories of products: things designed for “the masses” and things designed for someone who is really, really into that core thing to begin with. Many times, you’re getting advice about category A from someone in category B, and that can throw you.

Imagine you want to get a grill. You don’t have one and don’t do much grilling, but you’d like to have a barbecue over the summer, maybe cook a few burgers here and there. So you ask your friend for advice because that friend is a huge barbecue person and grilling enthusiast who is very involved in that hobby.

As far as information density is concerned, that’s a great choice! But soon you find yourself overwhelmed as your friend tries to give you a decade’s worth of hobbyist advice and steer you towards the sorts of grilling setups that make people like that drool. But you just wanted a grill, not a forty-thousand-dollar barbecue restaurant in your backyard.

“Mass market” stuff exists for a reason. Maybe you’ll really enjoy it and you’ll become one of those hobbyists for whatever it is, but maybe you won’t. So don’t feel like you have to over-indulge on the first day. It’s fine to just cook a burger.

Many times in your life you’ve been nervous about something you had to do. You were anxious about an upcoming test, deadline, or date. You were worried that you weren’t going to be able to pull it off, whatever it was. And you tried telling yourself that it would be okay, that you’d overcome – but the affirmations didn’t make you less nervous.

And then the moment came, and you were fine. Better than fine. You rocked it, and it felt like it was barely a challenge.

Until the next time. Until the next time, when the anxiety returned and your affirmations fell on your own deaf ears. But you kept telling yourself it was going to be fine, until one day.

Until one day, it worked. You’d finally been fine enough times that your brain believed itself when you said you were going to be totally okay.

If your affirmations don’t work yet, it just means you haven’t reached that point – yet. But you will. Keep telling yourself.

Sometimes you tell someone something not to inform or convince them, but rather to demonstrate how they can inform or convince someone else.

A wonderful mentor I had back in my sales days explained it like this: sometimes you’re selling something to someone who really, really wants it – imagine selling a sports car to a guy who is very much in favor of getting one. Selling to him is easy – but his wife, who is not with him, is very much opposed to him buying a sports car. You can sell to him all you want, but he’s not going to make the final decision without talking to her. So the real sale is going to be made that night, in that couple’s living room, and you won’t be there.

So you spend the next 15 minutes talking to the guy anyway, going through all the great features of the car – and if you’re smart, you tell him about all the great features that his wife might like. You’re doing this not because he needs to be closed, but to give him the tools to convince his wife when he gets home.

Like any attempt at convincing or transferring information, this doesn’t always work, of course. But it will never work if you’re not aware that’s what you’re doing. Explaining to someone how to work a machine they’re unfamiliar with is a very different task than explaining to someone how to explain to someone how to work said machine. You need to anticipate a different set of difficulties and prepare for different mistakes. You need to do more than deliver your message; you need to grant that message to the other person in a way that will transfer.

A lot of what people think of you won’t just be based on the information they get, but on how they get that information.

If you’ve ever been advised to “get ahead of it,” you know what I mean. Sometimes something bad happens, and sometimes it’s your fault. It happens; we’re not perfect. When the error is yours, it’s always better to get ahead of it. Someone always finds out, and the best way for them to find out is from you.

If they find out from you, then you not only get to control the narrative itself, making sure that no one is misstating the events or that the rumor mill isn’t grinding you to dust, but you also get to show people that you own it. Transparency matters in people’s reactions.

It’s a rough band-aid to rip off, but you just have to. The longer it takes, the worse it gets. Get ahead of it.

How much you strive to impress someone should be directly proportional to how much you admire them and their importance in your life. Your close friends, your family, your valued mentors – you absolutely should try to impress them! That’s part of their role in your life. If they’re noble people, then they’ll be impressed by nobility, and that will cause you to strive for good qualities and noble deeds.

That means don’t waste time trying to impress people you don’t admire, even if it feels like in the short term you’ll get something. The cost will be high as you pursue foul works to impress foul people. And certainly don’t waste time trying to impress people who can’t even observe you – don’t think “oh, my favorite celebrity would love this!” They won’t.

Want a good compass for life? Do good deeds, and watch who becomes impressed. Grow closer with them. And then impress them more. The virtuous cycle will carry you far.

I never worry about people not taking my advice. I worry about it when they do.

People ignoring you is the default state. Eight billion people spend their whole lives not listening to me, and only a handful of people might. But to those handful, I owe a great debt of responsibility. On the off chance that someone might take my advice, I do my best to give it carefully and thoughtfully.

There are certain phrases and conversations that have stuck with me across decades. I don’t think their speakers necessarily intended that when they spoke those words to me, but here they are. You never know which moment will have just the right shape and just the right trajectory to stick in someone’s mind forever.

Speak less, speak more carefully. Think more, and think more carefully, too. You never know who depends on it.