Yet every sale has five basic obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust.

diagnosis. But his music lives on through his recordings and the memories of those who heard him. I encourage you to join that circle. A good starting place is The Jazz Channel Presents Kenny Rankin. And especially his heartrending version of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” (Watch the DVD once and you’ll have to own it.) This is what it means to

“It is a cold, lifeless business,” he wrote, “when you go to the shops to buy something which does not represent your life and talent, but a goldsmith’s.”

The local library offers all the world’s greatest books—with no waiting list. (If you’re unsure where to begin, pick up a guide like The New Lifetime Reading Plan.) Most enduring works can be downloaded for free. For a few dollars, you can own high-quality, digital recordings of the world’s greatest music performed by the finest symphony

As physicist Paul Davies writes in The Goldilocks Enigma (Allen Lane, 2006): Somehow the universe has engineered, not just its own awareness, but also its own comprehension. Mindless, blundering atoms have conspired to make not just life, but understanding. The evolving cosmos has spawned beings who are able not merely to watch the show, but to

As Woody Allen said, “I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality through not dying. I don’t want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen. I want to live on in my apartment.”

What caused the Big Bang? Why are the physical constants just right to allow galaxies, planets, and, ultimately, conscious life? Where do the physical laws come from? If they aren’t of divine providence, how can they be explained? Why is nature shadowed by a mathematical reality? In short, why do theoretical physics work?

Slowness is even part of successful money management. Some folks realize late in life that they haven’t saved enough for retirement. To make up for lost time, they often decide to roll the dice by trading risky derivatives (futures and options), penny stocks, or hot tips from friends and colleagues. Big mistake. When it comes to meeting long-term

Marianne Williamson writes: Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? . . . We are all meant to shine, as children do.