Jim Collins, author of the business classic Good to Great, talks about the 20-10 assignment: “Suppose you woke up tomorrow and received two phone calls. The first phone call tells you that you have inherited $20 million, no strings attached. The second tells you that you have an incurable and terminal disease, and you have no more than [ten] years to live. What would you do differently, and, in particular, what would you stop doing?”[i] Collins goes on to describe how that as

Higher personal performance means that we perform our chosen endeavors with a greater degree of skill, talent, knowledge, or acumen. For an Olympic sprinter or swimmer, that means faster times. For a schoolteacher high performance may mean the ability to help students master the subject matter at hand. The word telos (from the Greek τέλος for “end,” “purpose,” or “goal”) means an end or purpose, used by philosophers such as Aristotle. It is the root of the term “teleology,” r

"Control of consciousness determines the quality of life." ―Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience Close your eyes . . . Breathe deeply . . . Focus on your body as you breathe . . . Think about a calm, relaxing ocean wave coming over your body as you breathe in . . . Think about the wave receding down your body as you breathe out . . . Repeat . . . Does this sound familiar? Does it remind you of a meditation class? Mindfulness has recently become

It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about? —Henry David Thoreau Are you so busy that you don’t know if you’re coming or going? If I did not actively and consciously manage my schedule, it would fill up to the point that it would manage me. I came to the realization about a year ago that one of the largest sources of stress in my life was lack of control over my time, particularly my work time. The solution for me was to STOP overloa