Miscellaneous Essays

Giving Thanks

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I woke up this morning in pain again. I injured my shoulder wrestling a few weeks ago, and it doesn’t seem to be healing. Certainly not as fast as it would have healed when I was in my 30s.

This is one of the many execrable things that happen to you when you reach 60. But it’s hardly the worst. The worst is that you can’t avoid thinking about death. People you know — colleagues, friends, and family members — are seriously sick or dying.

Right now, I see death as a hateful thief — ready to rob me of the time I need to accomplish the goals I have yet to accomplish.

There is so much still to do: books to write, movies to make, business to conduct, and places to see. But most of all there are relationships I owe time to.

A reader recently wrote asking me why, when discussing how I spend my day, I don’t talk about the time I spend with my family and friends. The main reason is that I don’t feel I should be dragging them into public view without their permission. But another reason is that I write mostly about what I’ve learned… and I haven’t learned how to do a very good job of spending time with them.

When I think about making good use of the time I have left, it’s clear to me that working on my personal relationships should be my top priority.

So why don’t I do that now?

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Miscellaneous Briefs

Balancing Act

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Last week I gave you my formula for making a ton of money without compromising your values. But that doesn’t mean everything will be smooth and easy. You will still have lots of trouble giving time to your other priorities — to your health, to your family and friends, and to your hobbies.

My business life got much better in 1993 when I started to focus on long-term profitability and quality. But I wasn’t able to master my time and get all my other personal goals accomplished until I started writing about personal achievement. That forced me to rethink everything I was doing. And after several years of trying different time-management programs, I finally arrived at a system that allowed me to get everything done that I had neglected for the previous 30 years.

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Miscellaneous Essays

The Unexpected Side Effects of Making Money (and How to Avoid Them)

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My life changed dramatically and immediately when, in 1982, I decided to make “getting rich” my number one goal.

Within a few weeks of that decision, I convinced my boss to raise my compensation from $35,000 to $75,000. A year later, I was a bona-fide millionaire.

My status changed too — from just another good employee to a junior partner and employer of hundreds. This made me more confident. And that confidence had a noticeable effect on everyone I dealt with. They took my opinions more seriously. They gave me more respect. Most memorably, my lifestyle changed. Instead of eking out a modest living, paycheck to paycheck, I was able to buy a car without asking how much it cost.

But making this change happen had two negative consequences:

1. I gave up thousands of hours of good times with friends and family.

2. I did a few things I wish I hadn’t.

When I set that goal, I knew there were more important things in life than money. But I suspected that I would be more likely to achieve it if I made it my number one priority. That turned out to be terribly true. There is enormous power that comes from saying “I will put this goal above all others.” It is impossible to understand that power until you have experienced it.

Most people won’t even dare to try. And maybe that is because most people have more sense than I had back then.

I didn’t recognize how monomaniacal I would become. I didn’t anticipate how willing I would be to put my family second. Most of all, I didn’t realize that I would be making some ethical concessions along the way. When my partner and I were accused of misleading advertising, I was actually shocked. All of our copy had been run by lawyers. It was accurate to the letter of the law. How could they call it misleading?

Because some of it was.

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Miscellaneous Essays

How to Enjoy the Writer’s Life — Even If You Can’t Write Like a Professional

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The most productive and, next to JK Rowling, richest writer in the world is James Patterson.

If you don’t recognize the name, he is the author of Don’t Blink and The Postcard Killers, as well as 48 other books that have been bestsellers in the past 10 years.

By almost any measure, Patterson is a hugely successful writer. But he doesn’t have the attributes that one would typically expect: a brilliant mind, a passion for his work, etc.

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Miscellaneous Briefs

A Dandy’s Guide to a Good Life

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Oscar Wilde once said: “I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.”

When I first read that, I presumed he was simply being clever, making a witty statement just for the fun of it. But since then I have wondered if he wasn’t actually giving away one of his secrets for a successful life. 

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Miscellaneous Essays

The Ten Commandments of Charity

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Down the road going north from my vacation home in Nicaragua, you pass two hamlets, both bearing the same name: Limon.

Most of the families that live there have at least one member who works for Rancho Santana, the residential real estate development my partners and I started 13 years ago. Some work as guards, some as groundskeepers. Others work as housekeepers or gardeners. Still others have found employment as bartenders, waitresses, lifeguards, plumbers, carpenters, mechanics, electricians, or laborers.

The homes they live in are two- or three-bedroom wood-framed or clay-block structures. They travel to and from work by bus or bicycle. They get their water from community wells. Their children go to local schools. When they get sick, they get medical treatment at the clinic, which is financially supported by Rancho Santana.

It is a simple life but not without its pleasures. There are baseball games and soccer matches on Saturdays, church-sponsored events on Sundays, and many birthday parties and weddings and baptisms.

And ever since Rancho Santana erected a tower three years ago, everyone has a cell phone.

When I first came to Rancho Santana, these same families were living in abject poverty. Their houses were shacks put up on dirt floors. Their diet was rice and beans. And there was no medical care available less than an hour’s bus ride away.

The reason things are better now has nothing to do with international development agencies, government initiatives, or non-profit organizations.

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Miscellaneous Briefs

Soothsayers

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Writers like Charles Bukowsky and comedians like Lenny Bruce and Howard Stern presaged the end of privacy.

They sensed how difficult it was becoming to lead private lives and rather than hide from it they protected themselves by exposing their weaknesses. It’s not a coincidence that Stern’s book is called Private Lives. These comedians were like prophets who taught us how to be comfortable about exposing ourselves. By exposing their sins and shortcomings, these prophets tested the public. And the public embraced them. First they exposed their drinking and gambling and adultery. Then they exposed their cowardliness. And the more they exposed themselves, the better their audiences liked them. In 1997, Ellen DeGeneres admitted she was gay. And America – even Middle America – still embrace her. This has to be good for society. It can’t be good to have a culture that is based on so much hypocrisy.

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