What’s your definition of the word “failure”? For some people, failure is a mistake of any kind. For others, failure is missing a set goal. For still others, failure is a constant state of being, a way of thinking about themselves and the world. For leaders, failure is different. J. Wallace Hamilton wrote, “The increase…

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If you’re a grandparent, what do your grandkids call you? It seems like that’s one of the first decisions that people make when expecting their first grandchild: What do we want to be called? In our case, Margaret knew right away that she wanted to be called Mimi. But I wasn’t sure about what I…

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My friend Robert Schuller once asked, “What would you attempt to do if you knew you wouldn’t fail?” That’s a great question, an inspiring question. When most people hear it, they start dreaming. They are motivated to reach for their goals and to risk more. I have a question that I think is just as…

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“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas A. Edison Nobody likes to fail. But if we’re honest, we understand that failure is a part of life. There is no success without some amount of failure. Great inventors like Thomas Edison experience a lot of failures on the way…

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When I decided to adapt my 2013 book Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Learn for a teen audience, I was excited about adding ideas and illustrations that teens would relate to. And it was a fun and insightful process. In the book, which releases this week, you can find stories about people like championship surfer…

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When I adapted Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Learn for Teens (February 24), I wanted to make it conversational in a way that would appeal to a teen or preteen. And I decided to make it more interactive, with sections for journaling and even Q and A with me. Here is another excerpt from the…

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What an exciting project I got to do last year! For the first time ever, I got to adapt and rewrite one of my books for a new audience: Teens. The book is Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Learn for Teens, and it comes out this month – on February 24. Created just for teen…

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Leaders who transform their neighborhoods, businesses, and communities have an unshakable sense of purpose. They are motivated by a bold and compelling vision that consumes their thoughts and fills them with passion. Such a vision demands sacrifices, unconventional choices, and tradeoffs that won’t always make sense to the leaders’ biggest fans: their friends and family.…

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When you think of the word pride, does it strike you as positive or negative? There are certainly many positive types of pride. It’s good to “take pride in our work.” We like it when someone tells us, “I’m proud of you.” And nearly everyone wants to live in a neighborhood where people display “pride…

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“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”- Thomas A. Edison Nobody likes to fail. But if we’re honest, we understand that failure is a part of life. There is no success without some amount of failure. Great inventors like Thomas Edison experience a lot of failures on the way to…

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