This book is about perseverance, and quitting. Everything worth doing goes through a “dip” of being difficult, during which perseverance is required. But, some things not worth doing also go through a dip, and some things not worth doing aren’t even difficult at all. So this book is about the virtue of perseverance when it’s worth it, and the virtue of quitting when it’s not. It takes a stab at the question of how to tell the difference. It’s really all about the long term.

It’s a quick read and it will probably make you think about what you should quit and what you might gain by starting something difficult. I recommend it.

P.S. Seth Godin is taking a speaking road trip this summer. I’ll be attending his Chicago stop on September 16th. If you’re going let me know so we can hang out.

I’ve been thinking over Jesus’ story of the shrewd manager in Luke chapter 16, and talking to friends about it. I think that story means something worth sharing:

The most basic resources we have are time and energy. These are the cards we hold in our hand at the beginning of the game. Life is a constant barrage of opportunities and choices about what we will trade our time and energy for. We can work an hourly job, trading for money. We can spend our time and energy talking to someone, trading for relationship. Very often we trade money for many other things we need and want.

Most of us will have over 600,000 hours of time and energy in our lives. We will choose to trade every one of them for something. And what we receive for those trades, (money, possessions, knowledge, etc.) we can go on to trade again for something else. We are all constant traders on the giant eBay of life.

One of life’s great, redemptive realities is the universal opportunity and freedom to trade what we have for what we value more. We are not confined to merely trading money for money, or stuff for stuff. We have the opportunity to trade up. We can trade for smiles, for learning, for friendship, for love, for worship, for things of greater and longer-lasting value than the time or money it cost us. Given the compounding effect of day after day of trading up, what an incredible and powerful opportunity a lifetime of trades is.

Last night my wife and I had a wonderful dinner at a great restaurant with new friends. We traded time and money for the treasures of conversation and relationship.

Each month I spend three days, tuition, and travel to attend a leadership coaching program, trading for the treasure of personal character growth.

Too often I trade my time and money for things of little to no value at all.

So what do you value more than the time, energy, and money you currently have available to trade? What will you trade for today? At the end of your life, after all your trades are done, what will you have transformed your lifetime of time and energy into? What do you want to be holding in your hand at the end?

In my role as CEO, I often ask myself “What’s really important right now?”. I try to think long-term, and about what’s really vital, not just urgent.

I’ve noticed that my instinctive response to “what’s important” usually has to do with the biggest potential problems I see facing us. And there are always plenty of problems. But if I spend most of my strategic energy on what is not going well, and leave what is going well on cruise control, what happens? I may turn potential strikeouts into base hits, but what about my potential home runs?

I think there’s a gut-level reason for my tendency to emphasize problem-solving over opportunity-seeking. Strikeouts don’t feel good, so I want to avoid them. They feel like failure and they just aren’t fun. Problems threaten to undermine the success we already have, and that’s scary. Home runs are fun, but on an emotional level I’m fine with going home knowing I made nice steady base hits every day. I don’t feel so good on the days I strike out.

Of course reality is that opportunity-seeking is vital to the long-term success of any business. A proactive rather than defensive posture is key to success. Staying optimistic and proactive in frightening economic times is easier said than done, for sure.

So I’m trying to deliberately ask myself not only “What are our worst problems?” but also “What are our best opportunities?”. Doing that I’ve been surprised at how many great opportunities we really do have in front of us, and I’m feeling more optimistic and energized about what’s possible.

What questions do you ask yourself when you’re working on the big picture?

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been getting more sleep because I quit carpooling to work and slept longer instead. I figured I was just being lazy. But it seemed like the extra sleep gave me a much more positive mental outlook and sharper thinking. I wondered if it was just my imagination, so I read about it. Here are some key points from the research:

• Extra sleep does significantly impact both mood and mental performance. Sleep is also important for learning and problem solving.
• When you don’t get enough sleep, you accumulate a “sleep debt” which adds up in a roughly linear fashion. In other words, if you are short 1 hour of sleep 3 nights in a row, your performance will suffer as much as missing 3 hours of sleep in one night.
• “Normal performance” is actually “sleep deprived performance” in America. Research subjects with average scores on reaction time and mood tests scored well above average after receiving extra sleep for a few nights in a row. Performance and mood continued to increase for at least 7 to 10 nights of extra sleep.
• There’s a big difference in sleep requirement from one person to the next, but 9 hours of sleep per night seems to be about average for maximum mood and performance benefits.

So I’m wondering… What would I have to change to consistently sleep enough to perform at my best? Is it worth it? Maybe this is just another wishful should-do like eating better and exercising more? Since I often choose less-than-the-best, what do I really value more than health and top performance?

I love this video by Dr. Henry Cloud. It’s about how to accomplish big things (or any goal that seems out of reach). In my experience, he is 100% right about this. Brilliant.

Here’s a link to Dr. Cloud’s other videos on Facebook.