You can decide whether or not you'll exercise when you wake up in the morning, or you can set out your clothes + shoes before you go to bed, making the commitment before you need to. Chances of success go up significantly when the choice is made before the brain has something more compelling (like s...

I started doing something regularly late last year that has dramatically improved the quality of my time in prayer: 

I pray on paper.

This will sound a lot like Julia Cameron's "morning pages" (as described in her book, The Artist's Way) -- and that's actually how it started. 

Morning pages help get th...

I grew up singing a children's song at church that has guided many of my decisions, but it wasn't until a couple of weeks ago that I found a new, even more powerful way to apply it. Here are the lyrics: 

When something comes to an end, especially when it's special to you, it feels like a massive loss. You feel a gaping hole in your life where it was, and life as you knew it is gone. In that moment, all you can see is that loss. It's one of the hardest parts of being human. We'll often go to great le...

There's a principle in design thinking that my career coach, David Warren, taught me last week, which I've been thinking about ever since. It's called the "Principle of Good Enough." The premise is simple. Instead of reaching the "ta-da!" final version before sharing or moving forward, you get to th...

I love the story in the New Testament of when Jesus was teaching a group of people from Simon's boat on the shore, and afterward told Simon to take his boat into deep water. Simon told Him that he and his friends had been fishing all night without catching any fish, but was willing to take the boat ...

I'm hearing a lot about AI these days, in many different circles. Some are embracing it with enthusiasm, and others are still very apprehensive about trying it out. I've been using it for many purposes in my business, and it's been a game changer. But I've found an even more powerful way to use it: ...

Being in a new place is a shock to your system. Everything is foreign, and everything around you seems to say, "you don't belong here."

If you choose courage, you walk forward anyway. You stay glued to your GPS to make sure you make the correct turns. You notice things that remind you of home or othe...

I was kind of a nerdy kid, and sometimes for fun I would read my dad's dictionary (you're learning a lot of fun facts about me here 😅). I still love to dig into definitions and think about how they connect with what I'm learning. 

Exploring the word meaning is an interesting exercise. It appears as t...

I don't know about where you live, but here in Virginia it's been a long winter. Some weeks, it's seemed like this season will never end. 

But driving to church today and seeing the trees whose bare branches have started to show little hints of something new, I realized that -- even with the coldest ...

There's nothing wrong with working in drafts. In fact, it's actually recommended! Make a solid attempt, step away, and come back to it with fresh eyes and new input. It'll get better and better with each pass. Progress is enough.

I was going to write about something else tonight, but I just had the most beautiful moment with my daughter. She came to get her hair braided (loves how it turns out wavy in the morning), and when I finished she leaned back and I put my arms around her. She curled her arms up around mine and let me...