June 06, 2025 | Read Online “A healthy loyalty is not passive and complacent, but active and critical.” — Harold Laski The Dog Who Waited 9 Years (and Why You Shouldn't) Every morning at 6 a.m., Hachikō would walk his owner, Professor Hidesaburō Ueno, to Shibuya Station in Tokyo. And every evening at 3 p.m., the faithful Akita would return to wait for the professor's train. This routine continued for over a year until May 21, 1925, when Professor Ueno suffered a cerebral hemorrhage at work...
8 days ago • 2 min read
May 30, 2025 | Read Online “We suffer more in imagination than in reality.” – Seneca The Nocebo Effect – The Side Effects of Negative Thinking I remember taking Gus to get his first round of shots at eight weeks. He was just starting to smile. Anxious, sleep-deprived parents always remember those first smiles–the first rewards of parenting. A vote of approval from the tiny being you’re clumsily caring for. Gus was grinning up at me, cooing and slobbering like a drunk pirate on shore leave...
15 days ago • 2 min read
May 23, 2025 | Read Online “This feels hard because it is hard, not because you're failing.” – Dr. Becky Kennedy Reframing Leadership One of the best leadership books I read last year was Good Inside by Dr. Becky Kennedy. Here’s the thing. It’s not a leadership manifesto or a management how-to. It’s a parenting guide. One of her core ideas is that two things can be true. You can have a good kid who is having a hard time. And you can be a good parent who is having a hard time. How is that...
22 days ago • 2 min read
May 16, 2025 | Read Online “Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” — William Penn Are You Living on “Clock Time” or “Event Time?” I lived in Paris for a few years after college. Every month or so, a friend (or friend of a friend) would visit and want to be shown around. I noticed two distinct approaches to travel. “Schedulers” planned their itinerary from hour to hour, seeing how many sites they could see. “Savorers” moved from experience to experience, savoring the big stuff and...
29 days ago • 2 min read
May 09, 2025 | Read Online “A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.” ― Alfred Korzybski The Map is Not the Territory This week marks the 150th edition of TheTwentyPercenter. To commemorate the milestone, I recorded a The ONE Thing podcast on the “16 ½ Lessons Learned” creating this weekly newsletter over almost three years. Spoiler alert, the last half lesson may be the most important – just get...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
May 02, 2025 | Read Online “In an effort to go faster and outsmart the process, we turn to shortcuts, cut corners, and engage in short-term behavior. While it might seem like we’re going faster, these tiny debts accumulate into an anchor.” – Shane Parrish Is Your Check Engine Light On? In 1971, a popular ad campaign from the FRAM oil filter company perfectly illustrated a universal truth: “You can pay me now or pay me later.” The commercials featured a mechanic pointing out how a $4 oil...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
April 25, 2025 | Read Online “No two minds ever come together without, thereby, creating a third, invisible, intangible force which may be likened to a third mind.” – Napoleon Hill How to Host a High-Impact Hot Seat Mastermind In May of 1968, the nuclear submarine USS Scorpion disappeared. It was declared lost at sea about two weeks after last contact. This was the height of the Cold War, and the race was on to find the lost sub before the Soviet Union. When the search operation began, the...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
April 18, 2025 | Read Online “Today, just over a decade since smartphones entered our lives, we’re beginning to suspect that their impact on our lives might not be entirely good. We feel busy but ineffective. Connected but lonely. The same technology that gives us freedom can also act like a leash—and the more tethered we become, the more it raises the question of who’s actually in control.” ― Catherine Price Shore Up Your Digital Bunker When Thetis dipped her son Achilles in the River Styx...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
PSA: The First Domino is open. It’s a 9-week coaching experience to help you get clarity, protect your time, and build momentum that lasts. Join the ONE Thing coaches, a small group of high performers and me, all dedicated to helping you achieve what matters most. Click here to learn more. April 11, 2025 | Read Online “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” — Dr. Seuss Read for What You Need Last week I wrote about “quality...
2 months ago • 1 min read