the opportunity to achieve, affiliate, and influence,

differences, and pursue your passions, you can be confident that you are spending your time in the right places, doing the right things, no matter the short-term result. That thinking will keep you grounded through your successes and your failures.

Trying to maintain a commitment to yourself or someone else? Identify the times when you are most at risk of violating that commitment. Then, whatever you do, don’t give up in the moments when you’re most vulnerable.

Create an established time to second-guess yourself, a time when you know your commitment won’t be weakened by the temptations of the moment. If you’re going to break the diet, do it when your need for willpower is at its lowest. Decide to decide the next day, maybe after a healthy breakfast or a little exercise, when you know your inclination to

Who am I if you take away my work? That’s a question to which we’d better have a solid answer. And yet many of us don’t. Fortunately, once we realize this we can do something about it. We can diversify. I don’t mean diversifying your money, though that’s a good idea, too. I mean diversifying your self. So that when one identity fails, the other

That’s the secret of the successful underdog. Play the game you know you can win, even if it means inventing it yourself.

presented to me (event), my instinct is to solve it (reaction). On the other hand, what I want most with my wife, Eleanor, is a strong vibrant relationship (outcome). So when she comes to me with a problem, instead of immediately trying to solve it, I ask her what she wants me to do. Listen? Solve? Coach? I am surprised, disappointed even, by the

“There is grace,” a friend once wrote to me, “in being molded by your own gifts.”

Save a few minutes before leaving the office, before stopping work, or simply toward the end of your day to think about what just happened. Look at your calendar and compare what actually happened—the meetings you attended, the work you got done, the conversations you had, the people with whom you interacted, even the breaks you took—with your plan