I wrote on an island. Under a tree. In the middle of a parking lot.

I arrived at the dentist office at 1:40 PM for a 2:00 PM appointment. With a book due in less than a week, I was anxious to return to the manuscript. 

The dentist has a television in the waiting room, so rather than trying to write with a talking head yammering in the background, I took a seat beneath a small tree on an island in the center of the parking lot and worked for 15 minutes.

I finished a chapter and revised the end of another. 

I mention this for two reasons:

1. I meet a lot of people who claim that they can only write under certain conditions:

• Only in Starbucks 
• Only in two hour increments
• Only with a cappuccino
• Only in the morning
• Only with ink and paper
• Only while listening to jazz

I have yet to meet a published writer who suffers from any of these limitations. I also like to remind these tragically limited writers that soldiers wrote poetry, letters, and novels in the trenches of World War I while wearing gas masks. 

John McCrae wrote "In Flanders Field" after presiding over the funeral of friend and fellow soldier Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, who died in the Second Battle of Ypres.

Thank goodness he didn't need a cappuccino to write one of the great poems of the twentieth century.  

2. I mention this because the question I am asked most often is "How do you manage to get so much done?" While I have many, many answers to this question, yesterday's writing session on the island of a parking lot is a good example of one of those answers:

I don't waste a minute. Rather than being precious about my time, I believe my time to be precious. Instead of waiting for ideal conditions to complete tasks and accomplish goals, I take what I can get, when I can get it. Time is our greatest commodity, so I don't wait a minute of it.  

Change happens slowly, methodically, and daily. Most people refuse to accept this.

This is a perfect metaphor for change. Watch this video.

When I work with people on affecting change in their lives - whether it's my fifth grade students or the adults who hire me to help them achieve a goal - the struggle is often to make them understand how small, incremental changes over time produce huge results.

The struggle is two-fold:

1. People lack the patience to allow change to happen. When I lost almost 60 pounds, people were desperate to learn how I managed to do it. When I told them that I ate a little less, exercised a little more, land lost about a pound a week for a year, they were far less enthusiastic. People want a quick fix. A magical diet. Not a plodding, methodical, common sense approach to weight loss. But it's the slow, habit-changing method of change that often produces the best results. 

 2. People lack the faith in incrementalism. They believe that things must be done in large bites instead of tiny nibbles. If your closet is a disorganized disaster, for example, pick up just one item every day, and before long, your closet will be clean with minimal effort and time spent. Instead, people would rather spend a rainy Saturday cleaning out their entire closet, which turns a tiny, simple daily chore into an onerous, time consuming, and loathsome job. 

Small, consistent, focused efforts at change over a long period of time can produce enormous results, and like the video, these results can snowball into something enormous. 

People either don't believe it or won't put forth the effort to ensure the consistency required to make it happen.  

For example:

After writing every single of my life - without exception - for 17 years, I wrote the first sentence of my first novel in 2005.

One sentence.

Martin opened the refrigerator and saw exactly what he had expected. 

Then I wrote another sentence. Then another.

Three years later I had finished writing my first a novel. That same day I started writing my second novel. 

A year later, I had sold that first novel. Then I sold the second and the third and so one. 

Today I've published four novels. My fifth will publish next year. I have contracts for three other books, including my first book of nonfiction and my first children's book. Three of my novels are optioned for film. I'm writing columns regularly for two magazines. 

This is the year that my enormous Domino block has fallen. Twelve years after I wrote that first sentence, and thirty years after I committed myself to writing every day, I am on the verge of being able to make a living as a writer.

But I'm still working one sentence at a time.

Small, consistent, focused change over a long period of time. It results in enormous changes. It turns the blank page into a book and a writing career.

Be patient. Consistent. Focused. Tiny steps forward every single day can bring to you amazing places.  

The Two-Day Rule: A means by which I have become more productive and trusted.

When I'm upset - angry or enraged or disappointed or annoyed - the rule I try to live by is this: 

Stop.

It turns out that the words or actions that upset me today are often meaningless and irrelevant tomorrow. Almost nothing seems as bad the next day. So I try to say nothing whenever possible, particularly when I'm upset with someone whose relationship I value or depend upon.

I wait. Two days if possible. Two days of inaction often makes everything better. 

This was not always the case. There was a time when my response to anger was immediate and direct. I was known for my biting, caustic, unwavering retaliation. And I was good at it. As one friend said, "You always know the worst thing to say at the best moment."

There are times when I still put this skill to use, but whenever possible, I hold back and wait. Some have said that I have "mellowed out" over the years. "Calmed down." "Chilled out."

Not true. The fires of retaliation still burn brightly in my soul. Those worst things at the best moment still leap to my mind. The two day rule was put into place for the sake of productivity. It turns out that a reduction in conflict and drama in my life yields more time for accomplish my goals. I get more done when I'm not trying to verbally assault my offenders. My mind is clear. My thoughts are directed toward more productive matters.

Unexpectedly, this shift has also caused people to seek my counsel on a regular basis. I spend much of my week offering advice on personal and professional matters, primarily (I think) because I am seen as someone who is thoughtful, trustworthy, and grounded. Stable. No longer as reactionary or unpredictable.  

This is not as good for my productivity, but a reputation that has served me well.

The two-day rule doesn't apply, of course, to my children or my students. It is critical that inappropriate behavior be dealt with as soon as possible if you have any hope of affecting a meaningful change in a young person, so even if I'm annoyed or angry with the child for their behavior, I address the problem directly. 

It also doesn't apply to situations like my podcast, Boy vs. Girl, where verbal repartee is expected and demanded. My co-host, Rachel, and I often disagree, but that is part of the show. There are times when verbal sparring is expected, invited, and even desired. There are moments when people demand my instantaneous reaction. In these cases, I don't hold back.  

This rule also doesn't apply to encounters with strangers, since any delay in response will result in the loss of an opportunity at retribution. If I'm never going to see the person again, I may need to express my outrage or disappointment immediately before that person exits my life forever. 

Yes, it's true that a day or two later, their perceived crime against humanity might seem decidedly less egregious, but I'm not willing to take that chance. I fire away.  

But when it comes to family, friends, colleagues, and anyone else whose relationship I value, I try to exercise patience whenever possible. Wait a day or two before you open your mouth in anger or to complain and you'll find yourself almost never opening it in anger and almost never complaining.

Shorter is almost always better

I am and will always be an admirer for anyone who understands that the shorter sermon, the shorter meeting, the shorter training session, and the shorter story are almost always the best versions of those things. 

Time is our most precious commodity. In truth, it's our only precious commodity. Honor it as such. When standing before a group of people, I have an obligation - a duty - to be relevant, engaging, entertaining, and concise.

Every single time. 

If my meeting is scheduled to last an hour, and it lasts exactly one hour, I have failed. The goal should not to fill the hour but to accomplish my goals in less than the allotted time.

This is what is known as being efficient. The definition of this word is one of the most beautiful collection of words in the English language:

Efficient: achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort or expense.

Strive to be efficient in all things, including meetings. These ministers get it.

New policy: Transform a meeting into an actual meeting.

As a teacher, I often find myself in meetings with teachers and staff from other schools in various buildings throughout the district. Up until this year, my habit has been to sit amongst my friends and colleagues in these meetings whenever possible, as most people tend to do.

It makes sense. Sit amongst your friends. Surround yourself with your people.  

This year I've adopted a new policy:

Whenever possible, I sit beside someone I don't know. Typically it's a teacher or staff member from another school, but anyone will do. Principal. Administrator. Custodian. At the risk of denying my friends and colleagues my scintillating company and acerbic wit, I choose to forgo the comfort and ease of friends for the opportunity to meet someone new. 

It's a good policy, I think. Even though it would be easier and perhaps more entertaining to sit amongst my friends, I have learned (in large part thanks to my wife) the value of broadening one's network. Making new friends and professional contacts. Getting to know people.

People often ask me how Elysha and I managed to make Speak Up - our storytelling organization - so successful so quickly. By our second show, we had an audience of more than 200 people, and we have been selling out venues ever since. I tell people that we're successful because we produce a high quality, entertaining, and diverse show each and every time, and I believe that. People know that a Speak Up show is a great way to spend a night out.  

But those initial audiences? The hundreds of people who came before we has established our reputation and our brand?

We also know a lot of people. We have many friends and acquaintances. And those early audiences consisted primarily of friends, colleagues, neighbors, and acquaintances who came out to support our endeavor.

Today I don't recognize most of the audience members at a Speak Up show. Though there are friends mixed in here and there, every Speak Up show brings new people to the fold, and we've met dozens, if not hundreds, of new people thanks to Speak Up. Many have become dear friends. But that early success was in part thanks to the many people I know and the extraordinary number of people who Elysha knows.

It's good to get to know people. It's beneficial to broaden your horizons. It's important to meet folks who are unlike yourself. I've watched Elysha establish deep and meaningful friendships with people after meeting them in doctor's offices, coffee shops, playgrounds, museums, and the Nordstrom's restroom. She seeks to say hello. Introduce herself. Ask questions. Get to know new people.

Our lives are richer because of it.

So I sit beside new people in meetings now. I introduce myself. Ask lots of questions. Try to get to know new people amidst the agonizing PowerPoint presentations and slowly moving second hand of the clock.

It's a good policy, I think. Transforming a meeting into an actual meeting.

Not always easy, but the difficult thing and the right thing are so often the same thing.     

Sleeping less is not the secret to my productivity. Television is.

As a person who teaches elementary school, publishes novels, writes for magazines, owns and operates a wedding DJ company, runs a storytelling organization, and performs onstage regularly, I am often asked how I manage to get so much done.

This question is almost always followed with this assumption: "You don't sleep much. Do you?"

Yes, it's true. I don't sleep as much as the average person. Five or six hours at the most each night, but it's a mistake to think that this is how I accomplish so much. My productivity is the result of a multitude of systems and strategies that allow me to get a lot done in a given day, including this often forgotten, preferably ignored, but enormous one:

I don't watch much television. While the average American watches more than five hours of television a day, I watch an average about five hours of television a week, and that's in a good week.

Last month I went eleven days straight without watching television.   

So yes, by sleeping less, I gain two or three or maybe four hours a day of productivity that most people spend in bed.

But I also gain four or five hours a day of productivity that most people spend watching TV.

To think that my productivity is primarily the result of my ability to sleep less would be a mistake.  

As Teal Burrell recently wrote in the Washington Post: 

"Americans are obsessed with television, spending an average of five hours a day pointing ourselves at it even as we complain we’re busier than ever."

And here's the thing: I like television. I enjoy sitting beside my wife and watching TV. I believe that we are in a golden age of television. Never before has television produced such high quality programming. I like Game of Thrones and Homeland and Veep and Last Week Tonight.  

But here's the other thing: I like life more. I like playing with my children and writing books and meeting new people and reading and talking with my wife over dinner and performing onstage and striving for the the next thing. I like filling my life with real stuff rather than the fictional lives of TV people.

Watching television is not only a terrible way to achieve my goals, but too much television is destructive in so many ways. From Burrell's Washington Times piece:

People who watch more television are generally unhappier, heavier and worse sleepers, and have a higher risk of death over a defined length of time.

Avoiding television is not hard. Simply don't turn the damn thing on. Don't allow it to become the background noise of your life. Don't make it the default means of spending time because you have no other way to fill the hours.

Find something else to fill the hours. The list of possibilities are endless.

Read a book. Play a board game. Learn to play guitar. Knit. Write letters to friends. Learn to bake. Take a walk. Garden. Paint. Sculpt. Reupholster your couch. Call your grandmother. Start a side hustle. Exercise. Volunteer on a suicide prevention hotline. Meditate. Breed rabbits. Have more sex. Memorize poetry. Dance naked in your living room.  

Become the person who somehow manages to knit lambswool cardigans, teach a weekly cooking classes, and restore antique rocking chairs in your spare time.      

Live life.

When you're old and decrepit and staring death in the face, I promise you that the evenings spent dancing naked in your living room and hours you spent on the phone counseling suicidal teenagers will be more important to you than finishing The Wire or finding out if Bad Guy #625 will be sent to jail at the end of Law & Order.

Live a life more rich and real than the people you watch on television. 

I've spoken about this very subject before, if you're interested:

If your schedule your meeting for one hour, and then your meeting lasts exactly one hour, you have failed.

If you schedule an hour for a meeting, and your meeting lasts for an hour, you have failed, for three reasons:

1. The efficient person attempts to complete tasks in less than the allotted time. If you've given yourself 60 minutes to complete a task and require all 60 minutes to do so, you have not been efficient.  
    
2. Meetings that end early are always perceived more positively than those that end on time or later. Ending your meeting on time eliminates this simple means of improving the perception of every meeting that you conduct.  
    
3. What are the odds that you have precisely 60 minutes of content to cover in your meeting?Not likely.

This means that you are either filling time because you are a rule-following completist who oddly believes that an hour scheduled must equal an hour filled, or you have scheduled too much content for your meeting and have either failed to complete your agenda (which is always frustrating to attendees) or are rushing through items that deserve greater attention. 

Not good either way. 

Here is the correct mindset for every meeting that you plan:

“I have scheduled 60 minutes for this meeting. I will be thorough but efficient. Every minute under the 60 minutes that I have allotted brings me closer to superhero status. 

I want to be a superhero. 

Now...  which of the items on my agenda could be sent as an email to save everyone some time?”

Be happy for the good fortune of others. It's a happier and more productive way to live.

One of the saddest and most inexplicable things that I see in this world is the inability to be happy for the good fortune of others.  

Sometimes it's a large bit of good fortune. A friend's early retirement. A sister-in-law's pregnancy. A colleague's promotion. A friend's wedding proposal. 

But more often, it's the small things that I fail to understand. 

• You're trapped in an endless meeting that a colleague has managed to avoid through accident or subterfuge.  
• A teacher or professor has failed to notice that a fellow classmate didn't turn in an assignment and has inadvertently given her credit for completing it.
• A golf ball is launched into the trees but somehow ricochets out onto the fairway.
• You are pulled over and ticketed for speeding by the police while the friend who you were following manages to drive by undetected. 
• A coworker at the same level as you and being paid commensurately is not required to complete an assignment that you consider onerous.

In situations like these, the instinct is often to become angry at the injustice and unfairness of the world. I've actually seen people attempt to mitigate the good fortune of others in order to achieve greater equity.

But why not simply be happy for the person's good luck or clever maneuver or strategic bit of thinking? It's so much easier. Such a better and happier way to live. 

In the spirit of being happy for the good fortune and strategic thinking of others, I offer you this:

At a recent concert in Chicago, Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong noticed a kid in the audience holding a sign saying “I can play every song on Dookie” and pulled him up on stage to prove it.  

I am so happy for this guy. I couldn't stop smiling as I watched.

Collaboration is great. Right?

I teach my students to collaborate. I believe that collaboration is a good and useful and a productive means of getting things done. It's good for people and the world and all of humankind.

And yet... doesn't this also seem ABSOLUTELY TRUE? 

I run through grocery stores often enough that strangers have begun to notice. This does not make me crazy, even though some might believe otherwise.

I was in the bread aisle of the local Stop & Shop last week when a woman stopped me and asked, "Why are you always running through this grocery store?"

"Excuse me?" I said.

"I always see you running through this store like you're on fire."

It's true. When I shop, I move fast, I wouldn't say that I run, but I am definitely moving faster than anyone around me.

The fact that this stranger was aware of my tendency was disconcerting. I am always telling people to stop worrying so much about their physical appearance because no one is ever looking at you as much as you think.

This woman's awareness of me and my shopping tendencies violated this belief.

"Well," I said. "I have a wife and two kids and blue sky and sun to get back to. The last place I want to be is inside this store. I'm in this store all the time. I've already seen this place. There are so many places I'd rather be. I'm just trying to get back to one of those places as quickly as possible."

The woman stared at me for a moment, as if considering my answer. Then she nodded and said, "Makes sense."

"So you're going to start running through the grocery store, too?" I was thrilled that I had found my first convert. 

"No," she said. "You're a nut."

She said this affectionately, but I could tell that she also meant it. She was willing to acknowledge that I had good reason to be moving quickly enough, consistently enough through the Stop & Shop to be noticed by a stranger, but she also thought that I was at least a little crazy.

I don't think so.

The question I am most frequently asked is, "How do you find the time to get so much done?" I am asked this question at least five times as often as any other question that I am asked, and I have a multitude of answers.

But one of them would be this:

When forced to do something that takes me away from the things I love most, I try to do that thing as quickly as possible.

So I run through grocery stores.

I run through grocery stores because I have a wife and two kids and sunshine and blue sky waiting for me. Also books to write. Stories to tell. Students to teach. Weddings to DJ. Books to read. Treadmills and golf courses to traverse.

I have a multitude of things to do that are better than buying bread, so I buy that bread as quickly as possible.

This seems like the most sane decision anyone could make.  

The Peter Principle: Understand it.

I know many people who are unhappy in their jobs. There was a time when they were happy, but then they ascended to a position that is both joyless and without satisfaction. 

I also know many people who are ineffective in their jobs. There was a time when they were effective, but they have now risen to a position where their skill set or aptitude no longer matches the demands of their daily work. 

In many of these situations, I believe that the problem relates directly to something called The Peter Principle, and if the employee had only been more cognizant of this principle, he or she would be happier and more effective in the workplace today. 

Three important things to understand about The Peter Principle:

1. The definition:
The Peter Principle states that employees will invariably be promoted to their level of incompetence. This occurs because selection of a candidate for a position is based on the candidate's performance in their current role rather than on abilities relevant to the intended role. Thus, employees only stop being promoted once they can no longer perform effectively, and therefore they will ultimately find themselves in a position in which they cannot succeed. 

2. The responsibility of your employer:
None. If you are excellent at your job, you will eventually be promoted to the level of incompetence unless you are one of the less than 1% of people who are capable of ascended to the highest rank in an organization and occupying the corner office (and you're not).

3. Your responsibility:
Constantly reflect upon your skill set, current position, and possible future positions. Be honest about your strengths and especially your weaknesses. Don't accept a promotion simply because it's offered. Don't pursue a promotion simply because it's the next step on the ladder. Ruthlessly compare your current level of happiness against future earnings.

It is always better to be earn less money and be happy and effective in your position. You may not believe this today, but your future self will despise you for trading happiness and effectiveness for money. Your future self will rue the day you surrendered respect, appreciation, admiration, and joy for a bump in pay, no matter how large that bump may be.

People who understand The Peter Principle - in name or in theory - are happy, productive employees. They settle into positions in which they excel. As a result, they remain happy, respected, and appreciated throughout their careers. They are the difference makers. The high achievers. The role models for future employees in similar positions.

Find the thing you you do best and embrace it. Hold onto it with all of your might. Know thyself, and you will be a happier, more effective employee with enormous job security and the respect we all deserve.

This simple bit of grocery store advice will spare you a lifetime of regret. Give you back hours in your week. Bring sanity back to your everyday life.

I met a woman from Denmark last week. She’s been living in the United States for about a year. I asked her what she liked best about our country.

Her response (paraphrased as best as I remember) was immediate:

You're not going to believe it, but it's Stop & Shop. And all the grocery stores like it. In Denmark, we spend half of our weekend shopping for food. Bread from the baker. Meat from the butcher. Produce from the grocer. It's ridiculous. You Americans put it all under one roof. I can finish my shopping in less than an hour. It's an amazing innovation, but I still watch my American friends drive everywhere for their food. This at Whole Foods. That at Trader Joes. Stew Leonard’s. Stop & Shop. Farmer's Markets. It's ridiculous. 

I couldn't believe it. I finally found someone who agreed with me on this grocery store shopping insanity happening all around me.  

I watch my friends and family members drive all over town – seemingly everyday – for their groceries. 

Meat from Whole Foods
Produce from Stop & Shop
Coffee from the artisanal coffee roaster
Paper goods and cleaning supplies from Costco
Prepared foods from Trader Joes
Pet supplies from Petco

This is not an exaggeration. At a dinner party recently, a friend lamented that more than half of her marriage has been spent with she or her husband shopping for food.

Why?

People tell me that it's outstanding quality and low prices that they seek. This place has the best meat. That place has the best fruit. This place has the best prices on paper towels.

It's insanity. And it’s a mistake. A terrible, nonsensical mistake, for two reasons:

1. If I conducted a double-blind taste test of food quality between these stores, no person could reliably tell the difference. If I prepared a dinner of roasted chicken, asparagus sprouts, wild rice, and an apple pie for dessert using food purchased from Whole Foods, Stop & Shop, and Stew Leonard’s and asked you to tell me which one came from which store, there is no way you or anyone else could consistently tell me the difference.

It feels good to think that you are improving the quality of your family's food, but it's an improvement that exists almost entirely in your mind. 

2. More importantly, even if there was a discernible difference in quality or taste between stores, this marginal difference is not worth the time spent shuffling off to each of the stores for what my friend described as half of her married life.

This is what the woman from Denmark understands but Americans have forgotten:

Time is our most precious commodity. It should be guarded at all costs. Valued above all else. Spent with enormous care. 

There was a time when America was dotted with bakers and butchers and fishmongers and green grocers. Like Denmark, there was a time when the bulk of Saturday was spent going from shop to shop, purchasing food for the next week.

Then we built massive grocery stores and put everything under one roof, and for a time, we were happy. My mother would do all the grocery shopping in an hour at Shop-Rite while we clung to the cart and begged for sugary cereals. 

Then something changed. Americans decided that this was no longer good. We decided that the marginal improvement in the quality of our green beans was worth the hour spent driving across town in order to purchase them. We decided that even though all of the stores have organic produce, this store's organic produce must be more organic because it costs more. We decided that it's better to buy olive oil from a store that only sells olive oil (a real thing) and pickles from an artisanal pickle maker even though we never cared about pickles very much before. We decided that the more time we spent gathering the food for our meals, the better we could feel about ourselves.  

We constantly lament the lack of time that we have with our families. We bemoan our lack of sleep. We yearn for the time to read a book or watch a movie. We dream of the day when we can write a novel, learn to skateboard, take a nap, paint the living room, or simply lie down in the grass and stare at clouds.

You have that time. You spent it driving to Trader Joes because you like their crackers.

You spent it driving to Whole Foods for their salmon.

You spent it driving to Costco to save $2.86 on paper towels.

When you're lying on your deathbed, you won’t be wishing that you had eaten more flavorful green beans. You won’t be lamenting the lack of quality quinoa in your life. You won’t be regretting a lifetime bereft of farm fresh eggs.

You’ll regret the hours spent every week driving all over town in order to marginally (and probably indiscernibly) improve the quality of food in your home at the expense of time spent on better things.  

Stop the insanity.

Place time spent with friends and loved ones ahead of the desire to optimize every food item in your cupboard, refrigerator, and freezer. 

Prioritize the things you truly care about - hobbies, exercise, books, films, those project you never seem to have enough time to start - ahead of crunchier celery, more flavorful barbecue sauce,  or cheaper toilet paper. 

Accept the fact that a large amount of the difference between these products are marginal at best and likely only exist in your mind.

Time is the only real commodity in this world. It's the only real thing of value. The sooner you embrace this reality, the happier you will be.

The Portland 54: Embrace uncertainty

On Friday I had the honor of playing in The Portland 54, an annual golf tournament that has been played for the last 17 years. It was started by a group of guys at ESPN who wondered if it was possible to play all three 18 hole golf courses in Portland, CT in a single day. 

Turns out it is. All three courses are less than three minutes apart.

Play the first 18 holes at Portland West at 5:00 AM.

Play the next 18 at Portland Golf at 9:30.

Play the final 18 at Quarry Ridge at 3:30. 

The scores from the first two rounds of golf determine the teams for the final 18 holes, which are played as a scramble. The winning team in the scramble is declared champion and takes possession of the trophy for a year. The trophy was purchased from eBay and dates back to the early 1900's. It was originally a trophy for a women's contest of some kind. It is old and a little ugly and glorious.

Winners traditionally drink Rolling Rock from the cup at the end of the tournament. 

I was able to play because every year, one rookie is added to the roster of 16, and this year I was the lucky one chosen. I didn't know anyone in the tournament, but the commissioner is a Speak Up fan and regularly attends our shows. He found out - maybe through this blog - that I was a golfer.

When I received the invitation, some of my friends advised against playing in the tournament, for several reasons.

• 54 holes of golf in a single day is insane.
• I didn't know a single person playing, which meant I'd be spending at least 15 hours in the company of strangers. 
• This could be a scam. I might end up dead.

In the end, I took the advice of a friend who said that I had to play, for several reasons:

1. It's golf. As bad as it can get, it's still better than most things.
2. It's an opportunity to meet new people and make new friends. 
3. Guys who are able to get together like this for almost two decades can't be that bad.

All of this turned out to be true.

The golf was great. I started to lose my mind (and my swing) during holes 13-16 of the second round of 18, but I powered through and finished strong.  

I met some fantastic people. The commissioner of the league might be the best golfer I've ever played with. I also played with his son, his son-in-law, and a cast of other characters.

I met a guy who is a ball hawk, diving into the woods whenever possible to find lost balls. He probably found three or four dozen balls over the course of the day.  

I met a guy who holds his club with a reverse grip, which looks incredibly painful but is surprisingly effective. 

I watched two guys putt by looking at the hole instead of the ball.

I played with funny guys, serious golfers, quiet guys, and everything in between. 

My day was not without incident. Over the course of the three rounds, I managed to bounce my ball off a rock outcropping and land it on the green for a birdie. I hit two rakes - both which sent my ball back into the trap. I hit several cart paths. Many trees. One golf cart. I ate a bug and had a bug land directly in my eye. I lost a ball on a fairway.    

Of the 16 players, my score ranked 13th. I shot an 87 on a par 60 and a 109 on a par 72.  

Not good scores, but this is the summer that I change my swing. I am hitting the ball better but also decidedly less consistent. 

Sadly, lightning interrupted our final round, so The Portland 54 ended up as The Portland 47 for me. Happily, we will be returning to the course later this summer to complete the final 18, so I'll have a chance to see the guys again and play some more golf.

I know people who would have passed on an opportunity like this.

• 54 holes of golf might have seemed like too much.
• Surrendering an entire day to a golf tournament might have been hard.
• Playing with 15 strangers might have been unnerving for some, especially if they play like me.

Mostly, it's uncertainty that prevents us from trying new things. The unknown is scary. Taking risks is frightening. Daring to do what seems a little crazy is something people tend to avoid. The inability to perceive the future and accept the consequences of uncertainty traps so many of us in the present. We fail to move forward. Our lives remain static. 

I have learned to embrace uncertainly. Accept possible failure. Say yes when opportunities arise. I'm not entirely sure why, but I suspect that two near-death experiences, a violent armed robbery, and near imprisonment have taught me to do everything I can while I still have breath. 

As a result, I end up standing on stages around the world. Launching seemingly nonsensical businesses with my friends. Meeting new, remarkable people. Trying new things.

Playing 47 holes of golf with 15 great guys. 

I am a happier person for it.   

Cold, hard truth from a middle school boy that explains why many people want to succeed but few do.

A middle school student reading a poem onstage at a TEDx Talk said this:

"You are who you want to be."

This is some cold, hard truth.
That is a truth that many people don't understand.
That is the truth that holds many, many people back from achieving their goals.    

What does it mean?

I am often contacted by people (more often than you might think) who want my advice on becoming more productive. More efficient. A better writer. A published writer. A better storyteller. A better teacher. They want to be more organized. More goal oriented. Happier. Healthier. More successful.

Sometimes I am able to help. I'll coach them. Point them in the right direction. Offer some advice. But what I have learned over the years is this:

You are who you want to be.

Many people want to improve their life. 
Few people want to change in order to do so.

People assume that I have some magic bullet to offer that will instantly make them more successful. They think that all they are missing is a bit of unfound wisdom. A simple strategy or two that will change everything. A mindset that will transform them into the person they've always wanted to be. 

They want the results, but they don't want to do the work required to achieve those results. 

When my doctor told me that my cholesterol was borderline and suggested that I start eating high fiber foods like oatmeal, I began eating oatmeal every single day for lunch, almost without exception.

When I returned for my annual physical a year later, my cholesterol was down almost 40 points. My doctor was shocked. She was sure that I was going to have to begin taking medication. When she asked me what I had done to lower my cholesterol, I told her:

"Oatmeal. I eat it every day. Just like you told me to do."  

Most people want to lower their cholesterol naturally and avoid a lifetime of medication, but few are willing to take the steps to make it happen, so they end up taking pills for the rest of their life. 

You are who you want to be.

I wanted to be someone who didn't have to take medication to control his cholesterol. 

Most people don't want to take medication to control their cholesterol, but they want to maintain their current diet and exercise regime more.

In the end, they are people who eat the foods they like most and wish their cholesterol was lower.

They are the people they want to be.   

This doesn't mean that change isn't possible. It simply means that you need to want to change more than you want to remain the same, and for many people, this is not the case.

I don't know if that kid onstage understood all this when he spoke those seven words, but he was right. 

You are who you want to be. 

People I don't understand: Motionless telephone talkers

I don't understand anyone who sits still while talking on the phone.

I don't speak to people on the phone often, but when I do, you can bet that while I'm talking, I'm also emptying a dishwasher, sweeping the kitchen floor, folding laundry, or doing any number of mindless chores in need of completion.  

I can't imagine why anyone would just sit there and talk. It's like they're trying to be unproductive. 

This is exactly what you need to accomplish your goals. Nothing more.

Want some advice on how to create? On how to get things done? How to accomplish your goals? 

There's nothing better than this from writer and storyteller Dan Kennedy:

“You have to encourage yourself. I woke up with this weird urgent need to tell everyone that. We have to travel with our own fuel onboard.”

— Dan Kennedy

This is not the first time that I've quoted Dan on this blog. He says a lot of smart things. 

In case you missed my previous posts, they include:

"When people tell me they don't have enough time to write, I tell them to throw a trashcan through the window of a bank or airport."

"There are people who write every now and then. And there are writers who are people every now and then."

"Most movies about life depend on giant change, chapters ending, chapters beginning. Real life depends on sticking with things."

"When it comes to work, you're gonna end up doing what you want to do. Period. Spend 10 minutes or 30 years fighting it if you insist."

"Buy books for yourself and for other people."

7 more ways that saboteurs attempt to destroy workplace productivity

Last week I wrote about the myriad of ways that productivity is destroyed at the workplace - both intentionally via an OSS manual from World War II as well as my own observations.

Reader Anne McGrath - who used to consult with non profit groups and now does organizational assessments, offered these additions to the list that I thought were well worth sharing. 

• Assume no one has ever attempted to do what you’re trying to do, and start from scratch.
• Hide mistakes along the way and don’t bother collecting or sharing ideas for your best-practices or lessons-learned folder.  
• Spend no time identifying & recruiting effective partners or participants for your project, just invite anyone and everyone, regardless of what they’d bring to the table.
• Have murky or never discussed vision, goals, purpose and values. Assume everyone has the same identical end goal in mind.
• Don’t evaluate leadership capacity. Just use the leader you’ve always used for every project.
• Don’t engage the people you are trying to help.  For example, If in a school, leave students out of the equation re: all decisions that will directly impact their lives.  
• End meetings with no clear action plan for things to accomplish and bring back for next meeting. This helps create meetings that go on forever with nothing changing.

There are saboteurs in your organization, purposefully damaging productivity and morale. Here are 16 ways to spot them.

In their new book, Simple Sabotage: A Modern Field Manual for Detecting and Rooting Out Everyday Behaviors That Undermine Your Workplace, Robert M. Galford and Cary Greene, examine the "Simple Sabotage Field Manual,” a guide published by the OSS (the predecessor of the CIA) in 1944 to assist European spies undermine the Axis powers from within.

Galford and Greene examine eight techniques outlined in the field manual that are eerily similar to what often goes on in workplaces today.

Here are the eight tactics the OSS recommended for tripping up an Axis agency from the inside:

1. Insist on doing everything through channels. Never permit short-cuts to be taken to expedite decisions.
2. Make speeches. Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your ‘points’ by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences.
3. When possible, refer all matters to committees, for ‘further study and consideration.’ Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five.
4. Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
5. Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, and resolutions.
6. Refer back to a matter decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.
7. Advocate ‘caution.’ Be ‘reasonable’ and urge your fellow conferees to be ‘reasonable’ and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.
8. Be worried about the propriety of any decision. Raise the question of whether [it] lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.

In my nearly three decades of work in a variety of fields, I have seen these strategies deployed with frightening regularity. 

My own additions to the list would include:

1. Run meetings and training sessions with PowerPoint decks consisting of dozens of text-filled slides. If possible, read directly from your slides.  
2. Assemble meeting agendas in reverse order of importance, thus placing the most important item last and ensuring that if the meeting is running late, the agenda cannot be cut short.
3. At the beginning of every meeting, require grown adults to review (and if possible read aloud) a set of norms - a list of ways that reasonable adults behave decently - thus treating your meeting attendees like poorly behaved children.  
4. Assign seats in meetings and training sessions, thus reinforcing the idea that you view your meeting attendees like poorly behaved children. Infantilizing your subordinates is a highly effective means of generating discord. Do so whenever possible. 
5. Open meetings with meaningless "get to know you" activities. Activities that include sticking post-it notes onto colleagues' backs, tossing playground balls to one another, and scavenger hunts are especially destructive to both productivity and morale.   
6. When responding to email, use "reply all" whenever possible. Add unnecessary people to email distribution lists whenever possible. 
7. Before sending an email to subordinates, ask yourself: Could I include this relatively simple piece of information on the agenda of my next meeting, thus prolonging that meeting? If the answer is yes - and it almost always is - delete the email and add the information as an agenda item.
8. Never allow a string of emails to end. Always reply - regardless of the finality of the last email, with anodyne phrases like "Thank you" and "Sounds good" and "I understand." Every additional email sent amounts to productivity lost. 

Have any items that you would like to recommend be added to the list? Please let me know.

Productivity tip: Back up your phone, damn it.

It is unconscionable for parents to be walking around with phones that have 10,000 photos of their children saved only on the phone's hard drive, yet in an anecdotal survey of the last ten parents I spoke to, six of them have not backed up their photos for more than a month, and two have never backed up their phone EVER.

Do your own survey. These lunatics are all over the place.   

I personally know of three people who lost months of photographs when their phones were accidentally destroyed and there was no backup.

This is not hard, people. Either set your phone to automatically back up data to a cloud service, or connect your phone to a computer every night.

And if your computer does not have an automatic backup service running in the background, there's no hope for you. Honestly. You're insane.  

Almost as insane as the people walking around with six months of photos on their phones.

I am not talented. I am only tenacious.

Every month for the last five years, I have been posting my yearly goals and the progress (or lack thereof) that I have made. It's been an outstanding way of holding myself accountable to the goals set at the beginning of each year and has served as an excellent source of motivation for me as well.

Oddly enough, these posts - which were originally written with only myself in mind - have become some of the most popular things that I write on this blog. Readers follow my progress religiously, and I receive more emails and comments from regarding these posts than almost any other.

Readers offer my encouragement. Sometimes offer to assist in the completion of a goal. They express disbelief in the amount of things I manage to accomplish in a month or a year. They claim to find great inspiration in my progress.

I cherish these unexpected words of support and encouragement from people who I've never met. 

But I want to be exceptionally clear:

Any of the success that I've had has come through hard work and intense focus. If I am talented, my talent is marginal at best. I work hard. My mind is active at all times. I remain focused on the things I want to accomplish. 

In reading the emails that I receive, I sometimes worry that people think that I'm different or special or gifted or am blessed with greater energy than most. None of this is the case. The only gifts that I possess are tenacity and drive, and these are available to anyone who wants them. Anyone willing to work hard. Anyone willing to relentlessly pursue their goals. 

There are many ways that I manage to achieve my goals. None of them are especially insightful or even original. But when applied with rigor and consistency, they work. You can read about some of my productivity tips on this blog, but a few big ones:

• I watch very little television.
• I create routines, habits, and systems in my life that allow me to maximize my time. 
• I'm hyper organized, which increases my productivity substantially. 
• I'm a non-materialistic minimalist, and as such, things (or the need for things) do not get in my way.
• I exercise daily, which increases my energy level and allows me to work better and longer.
• I love what I do. I have chosen work that I am deeply passionate about. 
• I enjoy the support of a remarkable wife and a group of incredibly accomplished friends. 

With the exception of the last bullet, we are all capable of making these things happen in our lives today. None of them are exactly groundbreaking. None of them haven't been said before. 

I say all this because I don't want anyone to read these posts on my yearly progress and think that I am special or talented or gifted. I am none of these things. I am simply determined as hell to achieve my goals. 

Anyone could realize the same level of success as me. A great many people accomplish goals much greater than mine.

Please don't ever think that success is beyond your capability. My belief in the capacity of human beings is immense. If I can do it, anyone can do it, and it can probably be done better.