Stay Grounded During the Holidays

The holiday season is now in full swing.  If you’re anything like me you probably have mixed feelings about the holidays. I love the excitement, parties, decorations, rituals, music, gifts, connections, and more. However, even these fun things can wear on me. And, the stress, drama, consumption, obligation, expense, and more that often come along … Read more

Step Out of Your Box

One of our greatest sources of authentic power in life comes from our willingness and ability to act – especially in the face of obstacles and fear.  To be truly successful and fulfilled, we must challenge ourselves to take bold and courageous actions and to go for what we want.  Legendary author Ray Bradbury said, … Read more

Lessons in Teamwork from the SF Giants

I have been so excited and inspired by this year’s baseball post-season and the big World Series victory by the San Francisco Giants.  As a Bay Area native, a lifelong baseball fan, and someone who has been fortunate enough to have the Giants as a client this year, of course I was rooting for them … Read more

What Baseball Can Teach Us About Life

With all the excitement of the playoffs and the World Series (which, thanks to the success of the San Francisco Giants, we get to experience directly here in the Bay Area), I’ve been thinking about, watching, and appreciating the great game baseball a lot these past few weeks.  As someone who spent eighteen years of … Read more

Don’t Believe Everything You Think

Do you believe your thoughts?  If you’re anything like me, you probably do – especially the ones you think and obsess about most (i.e. the negative, critical ones).  However, what if our thoughts aren’t true?  In many cases, they’re not – they’re just stories we’ve made up over time and continue to perpetuate with our … Read more

It’s Okay for Things to Be Easy

A friend of mine called me out on something important last week.  He said, “Mike, this ‘story’ you have about things being ‘hard’ for you isn’t really true.  It seems to me that things come pretty easy, you just make them hard by saying they are.  What if you started saying and owning that certain … Read more

The Importance of Unplugging

What percentage of your waking hours are you “plugged in” (i.e. checking things on the internet, doing email, texting, playing with your wireless device, watching TV, posting to Facebook or Twitter, and more)?  If you’re anything like me and most of the people I know and work with, probably more than you’d like to admit. … Read more

Are You Choosing Unhappy Over Uncertain?

I’ve been re-reading Tim Ferriss’ great book The Four Hour Workweek, which has been expanding my mind and giving me lots of great ideas.  In the book, Ferriss states that “most people choose to be unhappy rather than uncertain.” As I began to reflect on this bold and somewhat critical statement, I realized how true … Read more

The Power of Getting Real

A few weeks ago my wife Michelle and I found out, surprisingly, that we were expecting our third child. Since this wasn’t something we’d planned, we were shocked, excited and a bit freaked out, all at the same time. We began telling lots of people about this big news and starting to imagine our life … Read more