Ann Patchett

I have been friends with Ann Patchett for years. We have shared stages, talked books, and laughed about the state of the world. I’ve watched her hold rooms of hundreds of people completely still just by talking about reading. She is as extraordinary a speaker as she is a writer, and that is saying something.

“You are always someone’s favorite unfolding story.” — Ann Patchett

She also owns Parnassus Books in Nashville, one of the great independent bookstores in America, which she opened when everyone told her she was out of her mind. She proved them wrong so thoroughly that she became a national voice for independent bookstores, for libraries, for literacy, and for the physical book itself, the object you hold, the pages you turn, the thing you keep on your shelf and give to someone you love.

And through all of it, first and always, she is a novelist.

Her new book, Whistler, is a must-read this summer. It is the story of Daphne Fuller, who at fifty-three unexpectedly reunites with Eddie Triplett, her former stepfather from a brief but consequential chapter of her childhood. What unfolds is an examination of memory and love, of the small moments that shape us in ways we don’t understand until much later, and of what it means to be truly known by another person. Ann writes about time the way very few writers can. Her character development is something you need to experience in her novels.

Watch our conversation below. We talked about the book, about what fiction can do that nothing else can, about why bookstores matter, about the power of libraries and literacy and the fight to keep reading central in our lives.

A few things she said stayed with me long after we stopped talking.

I naturally love her passion for libraries. Libraries are not relics. They are one of the most democratic institutions we have, places where access is not determined by what you can afford, where a kid from any background can walk in and find a world waiting.

Whistler arrives at exactly the right moment, a novel about impermanence and connection, about how the people who know us, even briefly, leave something permanent behind. In a distracted world, Ann Patchett writes books that make you want to slow down and pay attention.

“It was never the right time or it was always the right time, depending on how you looked at it.” — Ann Patchett

That is no small thing. That is everything.

Get a signed copy of Whister here.

“Did you ever want to be a writer?” “No,” she said, and she would have told him. “I only wanted to be a reader.” — Ann Patchett

Image credit: susan q yin

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Summer Inspiration

Whatever you are doing this season, here are a few quotes about summer to inspire your best:

“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.” -F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” -William Shakespeare

“One must maintain a little bit of summer, even in the middle of winter.” -Henry David Thoreau

“In summer, the song sings itself.” -William Carlos Williams

“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.” -Audrey Hepburn

“The summer night is like a perfection of thought.” -Wallace Stevens

“It was June, and the world smelled of roses. The sunshine was like powdered gold over the grassy hillside.” -Maud Hart Lovelace

“Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.” -Henry James

“There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart.” -Celia Thaxter

“A life without love is like a year without summer.” -Swedish Proverb

“One benefit of summer was that each day we had more light to read by.” -Jeannette Walls

“I could never in a hundred summers get tired of this.” -Susan Branch

“Do what we can, summer will have its flies.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

“In early June the world of leaf and blade and flowers explodes, and every sunset is different.” -John Steinbeck

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time.” -John Lubbock

“Live in the sunshine. Swim in the sea. Drink in the wild air.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.” -John Steinbeck

“Summertime is always the best of what might be.” -Charles Bowden

“I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where it was always June.” -L.M. Montgomery

“The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last forever. Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year—the days when summer is changing into autumn—the crickets spread the rumor of sadness and change.” -E.B. White

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quotes to inspire your next bold move

Every entrepreneur who has ever signed a lease on an empty office, wired their last savings into a new venture, or pitched an idea that everyone else thought was crazy understands something profound about the relationship between courage and forward motion.

Risk is the admission price for anything worth building.

There is simply no way around it. The founder who mortgages the house, the executive who challenges a flawed strategy in a room full of people who outrank her, the young manager who speaks an uncomfortable truth to a powerful leader, all of them are drawing from the same deep well of courage.

What most people never realize is that courage is usually something that starts off slow. It builds, one small act at a time, one moment of choosing honesty over comfort at a time. It can be simple: the person who raises a hand in a meeting when everyone else stays silent. That’s practicing the same fundamental muscle as the entrepreneur betting everything on an untested idea. Both are choosing the discomfort of the arena over the false safety of the sideline, and both are becoming someone slightly braver in the process. The risks compound, the courage compounds, and eventually the person who kept showing up and kept speaking up becomes someone genuinely capable of the larger and more consequential leaps that life will eventually demand of them.

The voices gathered here span centuries and continents, boardrooms and battlefields, startups and stages, and what they share is a hard-won understanding that the life of greatest meaning and greatest impact has always belonged to those willing to step forward when stepping back would have been so much easier.

Courage and Risk Quotes

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” –Wayne Gretzky

“Leap and the net will appear.” –John Burroughs

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” –T.S. Eliot

“Scared is what you’re feeling. Brave is what you’re doing.” –Emma Donoghue

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.” –Nelson Mandela

“The biggest risk is not taking any risk. In a world that is changing quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.” –Mark Zuckerberg

“Do one thing every day that scares you.” –Eleanor Roosevelt

“You can choose courage or you can choose comfort, but you cannot choose both.” –Brene Brown

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” –E.E. Cummings

“Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage.” –Dale Carnegie

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.” –Mark Twain

“Fortune favors the bold.” –Virgil

“The men who have done big things are those who were not afraid to attempt big things, who were not afraid to risk failure in order to gain success.” –B.C. Forbes

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” –Winston Churchill

“I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.” –Stephen Covey

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” –Anais Nin

“The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.” –Vincent Van Gogh

“Security is mostly a superstition. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” –Helen Keller

“The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” –Nelson Mandela

“Entrepreneurs are the only people who will work 80 hours a week to avoid working 40 hours a week.” –Lori Greiner

“Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.” –Mark Zuckerberg

“The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.” –Peter Drucker

“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.” –Seneca

“Dare to begin. Genius, power, and magic all live in boldness.” –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are for.” –John A. Shedd

“Risk more than others think is safe. Dream more than others think is practical.” –Howard Schultz

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.” –Nelson Mandela

“The way to develop self-confidence is to do the thing you fear and get a record of successful experiences behind you.” –William Jennings Bryan

“Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.” –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Courage is grace under pressure.” –Ernest Hemingway

“With courage you will dare to take risks, have the strength to be compassionate, and the wisdom to be humble.” –Keshavan Nair

“He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.” –Muhammad Ali

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” –Mark Twain

“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” –Walt Disney

“Take risks. If you win, you will be happy. If you lose, you will be wise.” –Unknown

“Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change.” –Brene Brown

“I would rather die of passion than of boredom.” –Vincent Van Gogh

“You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.” –William Faulkner

“If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.” –Jim Rohn

Image credit: Maja Kochanowska

The post Courage and Risk Quotes for Bold Leaders first appeared on Skip Prichard | Leadership Insights.

Customer Loyalty

I travel around the world. It’s not as glamorous as most people think, but I enjoy the opportunity to learn about local culture and connect with people in the local area.

Recently, I had a rather amusing exchange with a large hotel chain.  If you travel as often as I do, you likely have a member number for every major hotel chain. I have been a customer of this chain for many years.

“Customer satisfaction is worthless. Customer loyalty is priceless.” -Jeffrey Gitomer

The other day I tried to make a reservation online. It would not allow me to log into the system. It forced me to call a toll-free number. When I did, I was told that my account had expired due to inactivity three days earlier. “That’s strange,” I thought, “I have never had this problem in decades with this number.”

The friendly representative told me that she would reactivate the account, but it would take ten days before I was able to make an online reservation.

I said something like, “You are telling me that I can make a reservation online without a number, but because I have a number, I am unable to make one.”

“You can only make a reservation with us on the phone” is my version of what she said.

After a back and forth exchange, I kept expressing my surprise that I could not just make a reservation online. Why would the fact that I am a loyal customer prevent me from making a reservation?

Finally, I asked for a supervisor. After waiting several minutes for someone to answer, the line went dead.  Has that ever happened to you?

The hotel chain I am referring to is a great brand. Their hotels are usually excellent. They have good staff, clean rooms, and generally good service. I am a fan, which is why I was trying to book a hotel room. They just lacked a customer-centric attitude.

“Complaints contain the seeds for growing any business.” -Skip Prichard

Policies that Harm the Most Loyal

But it did make me wonder how often organizations work against their very best customers. How often do our good intentions create policies that end up hurting the most loyal?

Ironically, after I lost my connection, we tried again and I was able to enter my number.  I tried again because I really do enjoy their hotels. Days later, with more email and calls behind me, I still am not able to log into my loyalty account, but at least I can make a reservation.

After my less than satisfactory interaction with this department, I thought about some best practices to create loyal customers.

“Do what you do so well that others will want to see it again and bring their friends.” -Walt Disney

7 Best Practices for Customer Loyalty

1. Review your policies regularly and change any that are suspect, questionable, or illogical.
2. Treat your loyal customers with, as my friend Shep Hyken would say, an amazing experience.  If you have a loyalty program, make sure that those people receive the best service.
3. Strive to make it easier to do business with your company, even more so with regular customers.
4. Do what you say you are going to do.
5. Commit to exceeding expectations.
6. Resolve problems quickly or at least communicate your intentions.
7. Work hard to resolve your loyal customers problems immediately, with little pain, and add an extra perk because of the hassle.

If you adopt the 7 best practices, chances are that you will end up not only keeping your loyal customer, but enhancing the relationship as well. Failing to do so gives your competition a window of opportunity that you want to avoid.

Why not follow the journey my friend Scott McKain teaches, the one that creates distinction? It begins with a customer-experience focus with your very best customers.

If you fail your best customers, you give your competition a window to steal your business.

The post 7 Best Practices for Customer Loyalty first appeared on Skip Prichard | Leadership Insights.

Oleg Konovalov has spent years watching brilliant leaders fail in ways that had nothing to do with their competitors, their markets, or their resources. The failure was happening inside their own heads. After thousands of conversations with executives across industries and continents, he landed on a number that should stop every leader: 76% of leaders operate in a state of chaotic thinking, and most of them have no idea it’s happening because they’ve learned to call it something else entirely. They call it busy. They call it responsive.

What Oleg has written in Beyond Chaos is a reckoning with an underexamined problem in leadership today. Chaos isn’t just the market conditions or the geopolitical noise or the relentless pace of technological change. It’s the fragmentation that happens in a leader’s mind when the speed of change finally outpaces the capacity to think clearly about it.

I found this conversation with him genuinely worth your time, because the questions he raises don’t stay theoretical. They become personal very quickly.

“76% of leaders operate in chaos. Only 0.1% sustain real vision.” — Oleg Konovalov

1. What pivotal moment led you to write Beyond Chaos, and why now?

The pivotal moment was realizing that leaders weren’t losing to competitors — they were losing to their own thinking. I kept seeing the same pattern: smart people, strong companies, massive opportunity — and internal confusion destroying it all.

Chaos takes one’s agency over life away and makes that person unable to deal with life.

That is not just personal. It’s organizational. Between 2017 and 2025, disruption didn’t rise — it exploded. AI, geopolitical shocks, economic volatility. The level of disruption increased dramatically. Leaders were drowning in noise.

And here is the truth: Chaos is not about events but about the way we think and act.

The world didn’t suddenly become unmanageable. Our thinking did. That’s why now.

2. In The Vision Code, you said only 0.1% of leaders have true vision. Now 76% have chaos in their thinking. Are these related?

Absolutely. If 76% of leaders operate in chaos, it explains why only 0.1% sustain real vision.

Vision requires structured thought. Chaos destroys structure. When you tell everyone that everything is a priority, you might as well say nothing is a priority.

Vision demands clarity of priority. Chaos multiplies priorities. If chaos is given to us, clarity is what we create ourselves. The few who create clarity are the few who sustain vision.

3. What shifted your focus from vision to chaos and clarity?

The pace of change became faster than the leaders’ cognitive processing capacity. The speed of change now outpaces the growth of leadership capacity.

We moved from VUCA to BANI. Attention spans collapsed. Reactivity replaced reflection. I saw leaders constantly responding to noise — every ping, every headline, every crisis.

The greater the chaos, the smaller the thoughts. When thinking shrinks, vision disappears.

Before leaders can build the future, they must regain control of their minds.

4. Must leaders master clarity before vision?

Vision without clarity is fantasy. Clarity without vision is maintenance. Clarity is the foundation.

Clarity is not a slogan or something vague. Clarity is a leadership resource. It defines solutions. It builds the bridge between the present and the future.

Clarity stands on simplicity. And simplicity is the religion of leaders. Without simplicity, there is no clarity. Without clarity, there is no vision.

5. How did you arrive at 76% and what was your reaction?

It took me more than three years — and thousands of interviews, executive conversations, board discussions, and leadership workshops across continents — to arrive at that number.

I didn’t start with a statistic. I started with a question:

Why do capable leaders keep underperforming in moments that demand clarity?

Over time, unmistakable patterns surfaced. Fragmented priorities. Emotional volatility.

Reactive decision-making. Constant urgency. An inability to sit in silence and think.

Roughly three out of four leaders demonstrated some form of chaotic thinking.

My reaction? Concern — not judgment. Not because leaders lack intelligence, but because chaos has become normalized.

That is how the 76% emerged — not from theory or abstraction, but from repeated patterns observed across industries, cultures, and levels of seniority.

Chaos has become the norm. Leaders call it “busy.” They call it “agile.” They call it “modern leadership.” But it is not agility — it is fragmentation.

We are facing a silently growing pandemic of chaos in thinking. The most dangerous problem is not the one we see. It’s the one we accept as normal.

6. Talk about your definition of chaos.

Chaos in thinking is the inability or difficulty in processing an increasing number of conflicting variables in life and business, which demands a frequent change of mental models.

Leaders today face broken scripts. Yesterday’s model doesn’t solve today’s problem. An unstructured world is not the problem. An unstructured mind is.

The challenge is this: How do you bring structure to an unstructured world?

Chaos is not disorder outside. It’s fragmentation inside.

“If chaos is given to us, clarity is what we create ourselves.” — Oleg Konovalov

7. Why call it chaos-addiction?

Because many leaders don’t just suffer chaos — they create it. Drama produces stimulation. Urgency feeds ego. Busyness feels important. Some leaders are uncomfortable in calm.

Chaos in thinking is contagious. Many people “don’t know what it is to be in stillness.” When chaos becomes your norm, peace feels unfamiliar. That is addiction.

8. Which interview changed your understanding most?

Lt. Colonel Daniel Bell. In combat, chaos is lethal. Panic costs lives. He learned that the leader must be the calmest person in the storm. Panic in chaos breeds more chaos.

Leadership is emotional regulation under pressure. Business is not a battlefield — but psychologically, the principle is identical.

9. Why connect ancient gods of chaos with VUCA and BANI?

Chaos is ancient. Civilizations gave it names — Apophis, Loki, Tiamat — because humanity has always needed to identify what it fears and struggles to control. Today, we call it VUCA and BANI.

But the fear is the same. We used to sacrifice to the gods of chaos. Today, we sacrifice our attention, peace, and clarity. Across generations, one truth remains: Chaos is a thief of the future. Different names. Same enemy.

“Vision without clarity is fantasy. Clarity without vision is maintenance.” — Oleg Konovalov

10. One specific technique that works everywhere?

Intentional silence. Chapter Seven is built around this principle. In silence, we think deeply, create boldly, innovate truthfully, and, most importantly, listen.

Silence interrupts reactivity. It shifts you from survival mode to strategic mode.

Without pause, you react.

With pause, you lead.

Pause is the shortest path to win.

11. How can leaders distinguish self-created chaos from external chaos?

Ask yourself: Is this complexity unavoidable — or self-inflicted?

External chaos:

• War
• Market crashes
• Global pandemics

Internal chaos:

• Constantly shifting priorities
• Emotional outbursts
• Undefined direction

Leadership success depends on owning the moment. If clarity reduces confusion, the chaos was internal. Most organizational chaos is amplified — not imposed.

“The greater the chaos, the smaller the thoughts. When thinking shrinks, vision disappears.” — Oleg Konovalov

12. “To lead in chaos, you must first lead yourself.” How do you balance that?

External events are triggers. Internal reactions multiply impact.

Self-leadership means managing emotions, protecting attention, and structuring thinking. Because when a mind is in chaos, we tend to switch to survival mode.

Survival mode cannot build a strategy. Organizations reflect leadership psychology.
Fragmented leader — fragmented culture.

13. How does clarity bridge chaos and structure?

Clarity filters noise, defines priorities, and aligns action.

Chaos is unstructured input. Structure is disciplined output. Clarity is the transformation process. Structured thinking is a feature of a productive mindset. Clarity is disciplined thinking under pressure.

14. Guidance for leaders navigating AI integration?

AI increases speed. It does not increase wisdom. Use AI to expand analysis — not replace judgment.

It is not AI itself that can ruin a person, but rather how we use it. Without clarity, AI accelerates chaos. With clarity, AI accelerates execution. Technology amplifies mindset. AI does not improve leadership. AI exposes leadership capacity.

“AI does not improve leadership. AI exposes leadership capacity.” — Oleg Konovalov

15. How can leaders protect themselves from intrusive noise?

There are three disciplines to follow:

1. Scheduled information intake.
2. Ruthless elimination of non-essential alerts.
3. Clear priority filters.

Remember that your mind is not a dustbin for collecting sick opinions. Protect cognitive bandwidth like capital. Because it is.

16. If readers take one action, what should it be?

Eliminate three distractions. Define one priority.

Don’t feed chaos. Create clarity and feed your aspirations for the future. If chaos is given to us, clarity is what we create ourselves.

Leadership today is not about avoiding chaos. It is about leading with clarity.

Clarity is the leader’s ability to reduce complexity into direction and hold that direction long enough for others to act.

Clarity is a system for finding a way out of present chaos. Clarity is not comfort. It is command.

Image Credit: brett jordan

The post Leading through chaos: how clarity becomes your edge first appeared on Skip Prichard | Leadership Insights.

(and what to do about it)

The hidden tax on your potential

Every dream you have ever had started with a moment of inspiration. Then life happened. You told yourself you would get to it later. Later turned into someday, and someday turned into never.

That is procrastination’s real cost. It does not just delay your to-do list. It robs you of the life you were meant to live.

We all do it. The question is why, and more importantly, what we can do about it.

Think about the last time you put something off. Maybe it was a difficult conversation with a team member. Maybe it was launching that project you have been sketching out for two years. Maybe it was simply starting.

Procrastination feels harmless in the moment. One more day…but those days stack up. And what you are really paying is not time. You are paying with opportunity, momentum, and eventually, with who you become.

Leaders who understand this have a serious advantage. Those who do not are forever playing catch-up, wondering why the gap between where they are and where they want to be never seems to close.

“Everything you’re waiting for has been waiting for you.” — Jon Acuff

What this means for teams and organizations

This is not just a personal struggle. It lives inside every organization.

Think about the meetings where decisions get deferred. It stalled something important. The feedback that never gets delivered because someone was waiting for just the right moment. It robbed someone of development. Procrastination at the individual level multiplies across a team. What starts as one person hesitating becomes a culture of delay.

Companies lose millions in productivity every year to this one habit. More than that, they lose trust. When leaders stall on decisions, teams lose confidence. When managers avoid hard conversations, problems grow. When organizations wait for perfect conditions before acting, competitors move.

The cost is real and it compounds daily.

“Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.” — William James

Why willpower is the wrong answer

Most people attack procrastination the same way. They try harder, make a list, say this time it will be different. They make lists.

And it works…for a few days.

Then the same patterns return because they were treating the symptom, not the cause. Procrastination is not a discipline problem. It is a fear problem. It is rooted in doubt, perfectionism, and the quiet belief that the timing is never quite right.

The antidote is not more pressure. It is permission.

“Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.” — Pablo Picasso

Permission as a strategy

Jon Acuff has spent years studying why smart, capable people get stuck. In his new book, Procrastination Proof he makes a case that reframes the entire conversation. The breakthrough is not about grinding harder. It is about giving yourself permission to move forward, even when conditions are imperfect.

He lays out a four-part framework built around dreaming, planning, doing, and reviewing. What makes it powerful is how practical it is. This is not a motivational pep talk. It is a system you can apply to the smallest task on your list or the biggest goal of your life.

Acuff writes from experience. He spent years drifting through jobs that did not fit, caught in a cycle most people never escape. What changed for him was a decision to stop waiting for someone else to give him the green light.

Remarkable is closer than you think

There is a version of your life where your actions actually match your intentions. It is a choice made daily, often in the small moments.

For leaders, the stakes are even higher. The people around you are watching how you handle uncertainty. They take their cues from you. When you move with conviction, it gives others permission to do the same.

Start the project. Have the conversation. You already have everything you need.

For more information, see Procrastination Proof.

Image Credit: Vincent van Zalinge

The post Why procrastination is killing your success first appeared on Skip Prichard | Leadership Insights.

Inspire Confidence

“Everyone takes in information they want to hear more than information that they don’t.” -Tali Sharot

You see, the most natural, biological reaction to fear is to freeze, not fight. And then we justify our reaction with reasons why we don’t need to change…until it’s too late. For example, when smokers are exposed to dire warnings, they are actually less likely to stop smoking.

“The brain is constantly trying to seek ways to control its environment… so giving people a sense of control is a really important motivator.” –Tali Sharot

What Drives Change

What works? According to Sharot, successful change is driven by social initiatives, immediate rewards, and progress monitoring.

Leaders need to be aware of the science behind what drives our teams’ behaviors. This research provides a compelling reason to motivate people towards a more desirable state, rather than trying to scare them away from the “bad thing.” So, to discourage smoking, don’t raise the specter of cancer, emphasize that people who don’t smoke do better at sports.

How can you work this into your leadership practice? Before going down the path of fear when initiating change, challenge yourself to imagine what success looks like, and paint that picture. Your people are more likely to actually do something about it.

“If we want to motivate change we might want to rethink how we do it. Because the fear of losing your health or the fear of losing money induces inaction while the thrill of a gain induces action.” -Tali Sharot

The post Motivational Leaders Inspire Confidence, Not Fear first appeared on Skip Prichard | Leadership Insights.

It’s The Small Stuff

Many success seminars will focus you on the big stuff. You know what I mean by the big stuff? The lifelong goals that you want to achieve. The person you want to become. That’s the big stuff, and it’s super important or we wouldn’t call it big.

Today I want to focus a bit more micro—on something that seems small, but when you do it every day, it compounds, and the results become big.

Have you given thought to how to start your day? How to start your day off the right way?

Many of us have routines. The question I want you to think about is, do your routines work for you? Are they taking you where you want to go? Or are you just doing what you’ve always done, hoping it all works out?

9 Practices You Can Start Today

Here are nine different practices that successful people employ to get the day started. Why not try a new one out this week and see what happens?

Praying and Meditating. Yes, you just woke up, so why the need to be still? Because taking even a few minutes to organize your thoughts, calm your spirit, and increase your focus will improve everything from your blood pressure to your creativity. Take 10 minutes in the morning and try it out.

“Our prayers may be awkward. Our attempts may be feeble. But since the power of prayer is in the one who hears it and not in the one who says it, our prayers do make a difference.” – Max Lucado

Massaging. Long ago, a yoga instructor taught me this one. When you first wake up, gently rub your feet, then legs, then hands and arms. Finally, rub your neck and face. Do this before you jump out of bed to increase the oxygen in your blood and boost your energy.

Reading something uplifting. Don’t jump up and start reading email and looking at your Facebook and Twitter feeds. Don’t jump right into the news cycle. Just a few minutes of reading something positive will orient your mindset. Read a positive blog or read scripture.

“Think before you speak. Read before you think.” -Fran Lebowitz

Exercising. This is not my practice, but many successful people automatically put on their running shoes and go immediately out the door with little thought. Physical activity will stimulate your system and flood your body with endorphins.

“Running is nothing more than a series of arguments between the part of your brain that wants to stop and the part that wants to keep going.” -Unknown

Savoring. Be mindful of the littlest things: the sounds that you hear, the birds chirping, the way food feels in your mouth. Especially first thing in the morning, increase your mindfulness to boost your awareness.

Visualizing and rehearsing. Spend five minutes visualizing your day. See yourself as successful, confident, and powerful.

“When you visualize, then you materialize.” -Denis Waitley

Breathing. Try deep breathing for five minutes, breathing in through your nose, allowing your lungs to completely fill and then exhaling out your mouth.

Journaling. Wake up and start writing. Whatever is in your head, whatever ideas your dreams brought you.

“Journaling is like whispering to one’s self and listening at the same time.” -Mina Murray

Singing. Or Jamming. Basically, put on some upbeat, uplifting music that speaks to you. Go for it in the car and belt it out and dance a bit. Who cares what the other drivers think? Watch your mood soar before you hit the office or start your day.

I am sure you could add to this list. That’s intentional. Start one of these practices and add and subtract until you have a formula that works for you. And then, every so often, review where you are and see if it’s still powering your success engine.

Have a great day TODAY!

Start Your Day Off Right Quotes

“This is a wonderful day, I have never seen this one before.” -Maya Angelou

“Either you run the day, or the day runs you.” –Jim Rohn

“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” –Benjamin Franklin

“With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.” –Eleanor Roosevelt

“What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while.” –Gretchen Rubin

“An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.” –Henry David Thoreau

“Lose an hour in the morning, and you will spend all day looking for it.” –Richard Whately

“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep.” –Rumi

“Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me.” –Henry David Thoreau

“Each morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most.” –Buddha

“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Opportunities are like sunrises. If you wait too long, you miss them.” –William Arthur Ward

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a privilege it is to be alive.” –Marcus Aurelius

“The sun is new each day.” –Heraclitus

“First thing every morning before you arise say out loud, ‘I believe,’ three times.” –Ovid

“The morning was full of sunlight and hope.” –Kate Chopin

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A Conversation with Eric Zimmer

Most of us are waiting for the moment everything changes, the big decision, the dramatic turning point, the day when we finally get serious.

Eric Zimmer stopped waiting for that moment because he learned the hard way that it doesn’t exist like we imagined.

What does exist is something far more powerful and far less glamorous, the small choice made consistently in the right direction, the tiny shift in language, the moment of stillness carved out of a chaotic day. These are the things that actually change a life. Eric knows this because these small choices are what pulled him out of heroin addiction and homelessness and built something he could be proud of. His new book, How a Little Becomes a Lot is a compelling read that will challenge you and change you.

“There’s always something we can do, some small step we can take to nudge our life in a better direction.” — Eric Zimmer

Small Choices Can Change Your Life

It would be easy to look at Eric Zimmer today, successful podcast host, author, coach, one of the more thoughtful voices in personal development, and assume the transformation was clean, that there was a moment of clarity so complete it simply rearranged everything.

That’s not what happened, and I think that distinction matters enormously for those who are still waiting for that moment.

What actually happened was a series of small decisions made in difficult circumstances that slowly moved him in a different direction. And that’s not the modest version of the story, it’s actually the more important one, because dramatic transformation narratives, while inspiring, have a way of leaving people feeling like they’re waiting for something that never quite arrives.

His book, How a Little Becomes a Lot, isn’t about reinvention in the dramatic sense. It’s about the compound effect of small meaningful choices repeated over time, and it arrives at exactly the moment most people need to hear that the lightning bolt isn’t coming and that’s actually good news.

Why Big Change Usually Fails

We are drawn to big change because it feels proportionate to how stuck we feel, and if the problem is enormous surely the solution must match it in scale, so we make sweeping declarations, overhaul our routines overnight, set goals so large they collapse, and then we wonder what is wrong with us when none of it works.

What Eric has found after hundreds of conversations with scientists, psychologists and people who have genuinely transformed their lives is that big change fails because it targets behavior without ever touching identity, and it ignores the subtle daily inputs that are quietly running the show beneath every conscious intention we hold.

“Rushing isn’t about speed. It’s about mindset. It’s a constant leaning forward, a relentless anticipation.” — Eric Zimmer

That constant leaning forward toward the big goal, the dramatic change, the future version of ourselves we’re convinced is waiting just around the next major decision, keeps us from doing the one thing that actually works, which is showing up fully and intentionally for the small choice that is directly in front of us right now.

The Power of the Still Point

One of the most compelling and quietly radical ideas in Eric’s work is what he calls the still point, and it’s worth sitting with because it cuts against almost everything modern productivity culture tells us we should be doing.

“A still point is a moment of reflection or practice that we intentionally build into our day.” — Eric Zimmer

Think about that: just a moment intentionally built in and consistently returned to where you check in with yourself and make a conscious choice instead of running on the autopilot that most of us mistake for living.

Over time those moments accumulate into something that looks like transformation from the outside but feels, from the inside, simply like a person learning to live with more awareness and intention than the day before, and that accumulation turns out to be the most durable kind of change there is.

The Language We Use Changes Everything

One of the most immediately useful and practically powerful ideas in the book involves something we do dozens of times a day without ever noticing, which is the words we choose to describe our own experience.

“Catch yourself using an extreme word today, always, never, horrible, disaster. Replace it with something more accurate: sometimes, often, unpleasant, challenging. Notice how this small shift changes how the situation feels.” — Eric Zimmer

This isn’t positive thinking dressed up in new language. It’s really precision thinking, which is something altogether different and far more useful, because when we habitually reach for extreme words we train our nervous systems to experience our circumstances in extreme ways, turning setbacks into catastrophes and difficult seasons into evidence that something is fundamentally and permanently broken in us.

The language shift Eric is pointing toward doesn’t minimize real difficulty or ask us to pretend that hard things aren’t hard. It simply asks us to see our circumstances more accurately, and accurate seeing turns out to be the foundation upon which every effective response is built.

Identity Is the Deepest Lever

Beneath the habits and the language and the still points, what Eric is really talking about is something that operates at a deeper level than most self-improvement frameworks ever reach, which is the story we tell ourselves about who we are.

“We are what we can imagine.” — Robert Hass

Eric returns to this idea throughout his work because behavior follows identity with a kind of inevitability that bypasses willpower entirely. When you genuinely begin to see yourself as someone who makes thoughtful choices and who shows up consistently even when it’s inconvenient, then your behavior begins to align with that image. You start to show up as yourself.

This is why his approach feels different from most habit and productivity frameworks, because it doesn’t just ask what you do. It asks who you are becoming through what you do, and it treats every small choice as either reinforcing or quietly eroding the identity you are in the process of building, whether you are paying attention to that process or not.

What This Means For You

Eric is asking you to look at today, and specifically at the small choice that is sitting right in front of you that you’ve been treating as too insignificant to matter.

What word are you using to describe a situation that deserves something more accurate and more honest? Where could you build one still point into the next twenty four hours that might change the quality of every hour that follows it? What small commitment could you make to yourself today that, repeated over weeks and months, would begin to tell you a different story about who you are?

The distance between where you are and where you want to be is not waiting to be closed by a dramatic leap. It’s waiting to be closed by the accumulation of small steps taken with intention and repeated with consistency, which is both more ordinary and more profound than we have been led to believe.

I sat down with Eric recently to go deeper on all of this, talking about why intelligent people know exactly what to do and still don’t do it, what separates people who recover from setbacks from those who spiral further, how self-compassion functions as a performance tool rather than an excuse, and what he is still working on in his own life with the same honesty and rigor he brings to everyone he coaches.

Watch the full interview below.

Image Credit: tomoki ozawa

The post Eric Zimmer on How Small Choices Change Your Life first appeared on Skip Prichard | Leadership Insights.

Yes … Everyone

Steve Spangler does not turn it off.

I have watched him engage a server at a restaurant, someone walking by on the street, an audience member in the back row. He does not save his energy for the stage. He brings the same curiosity, the same attention, the same genuine interest to every interaction. That is not performance but probably more internal wiring.

We are both members of the Speakers Roundtable, and I recently sat down with my friend Steve to talk about his new book, The Engagement Effect: Cultivating Experiences that Ignite Connection, Build Trust, and Inspire Action. You can listen to that conversation. But what the recording cannot capture is what I have observed over years of knowing him. Steve lives what he teaches. Engagement is not something he does when the camera is on or when he is getting paid. It is how he moves through the world.

That matters for leaders because most of us compartmentalize. We engage when it counts and we save our best energy for important meetings. We show up differently for executives than we do for staff. Steve does not operate that way.

1. Curiosity is the engine of connection

Steve’s engagement always starts with genuine curiosity. He asks questions that are not scripted or strategic. He wants to know. When he meets someone, he is not waiting for his turn to talk. He is discovering who they are, what they care about, what makes them light up.

I watched him spend fifteen minutes with a waiter asking about the restaurant’s most unusual customer request. The waiter started the conversation transactionally and ended it energized, telling Steve things he probably had not shared with anyone in months. That shift happened because Steve asked questions that assumed the person in front of him had something interesting to offer.

Most leaders ask questions to extract information they need. Steve asks questions because people fascinate him. The difference is subtle but profound. One treats people as resources. The other treats them as whole human beings worth knowing.

Curiosity that serves your agenda extracts. Curiosity that serves discovery connects.

2. Attention is the gift you give

Before Steve says anything, he gives attention. Full attention. Not the kind where you are present physically but scanning the room mentally.

I have seen him stop mid-stride when someone approaches him on the street. He does not glance at his phone or over their shoulder at what is next. He stops. That creates a moment where the other person feels seen, not processed.

He and his wife both did the same when he met my wife and the four of us had dinner. Laser-focus. No doubt he was engaged (and you can’t teach engagement if you aren’t first engaged!)

In leadership, we underestimate how much people notice where our attention goes. We think we hide our distraction better than we do. Employees know when you are half-present in a conversation. They know when the one-on-one is something you are enduring rather than valuing. Steve’s presence is a reminder that attention is one of the most powerful tools a leader has.

3. Engagement requires lowering your status

Steve is famous. He has been on television more times than most people will ever speak in public. He has a Wikipedia page. He has billions of YouTube views. None of that shows up in how he engages people. He does not lead with credentials or accomplishments. He leads with curiosity and humor that lowers his status intentionally, creating space for others to rise.

I watched him ask a hotel employee for advice on where to eat, treating the recommendation like insider intelligence. That investment happened because Steve made the interaction feel important, and he did that by positioning himself as someone who needed help rather than someone important.

Leaders who carry their status into every interaction create distance. Leaders who temporarily set it aside create connection. Steve understands that engagement requires making yourself accessible, not impressive.

Status creates distance. Curiosity creates connection. Choose which matters more.

4. Partnership multiplies what you can do alone

I have watched Steve interact with his wife Renee, his high school sweetheart who serves as CEO of their company. They are inseparable. They finish each other’s sentences. They know each other’s strengths so well that collaboration looks effortless though I know it is anything but.

What strikes me is how they engage as a team. Where Steve brings creative energy and public presence, Renee brings operational excellence and strategic clarity. Neither diminishes the other. That partnership extends beyond their marriage into how they lead their organization, modeling what engagement looks like when two people truly see and value what the other brings.

Most leadership partnerships struggle because ego gets in the way or because people compete rather than complement. Steve and Renee have built something rare…a relationship where engagement is not just outward-facing toward customers and audiences, but inward-facing toward each other.

Leaders who want to build cultures of engagement must start with their own partnerships. If you cannot engage well with the people closest to you, the rest is performance.

5. Small moments compound into culture

Steve does not wait for big stages to engage. He does it constantly, in moments that seem insignificant. A quick conversation in a hallway. A comment to a stranger who looks lost.

The moments compound. Over time, those small engagements build a reputation, a culture, a way of being that others notice and often emulate. Leaders shape culture not primarily through vision statements or town halls but through the thousand small interactions that reveal what they actually value.

If you engage only when stakes are high or audiences are large, you teach your organization that engagement is transactional. If you engage consistently regardless of context, you teach them that people matter regardless of their role or utility to you. Steve’s consistency is the lesson. Engagement cannot be selective if you want it to become cultural.

6. Engagement transforms the person giving it

I have noticed something about Steve that I did not expect. He seems energized by engagement, not drained by it. Let me redo that: he is definitely engaged by it. Most leaders talk about people interactions as expenditures. They budget their energy carefully, preserving it for what matters most. Steve seems to gain energy from the very interactions that would exhaust others.

That aligns with what he writes about in “The Engagement Effect.” Engagement is not a finite resource you deplete. It is a practice that refills you even as it serves others. The leader who dreads one-on-ones or avoids hallway conversations is probably engaging transactionally, treating people as tasks to complete. The leader who finds energy in those moments is engaging relationally, seeing people as sources of discovery rather than drains on capacity.

This reframe matters. If engagement depletes you, you will ration it. If it energizes you, you will seek it. Steve has figured out how to make engagement generative rather than extractive, and that makes him sustainable in ways most high-performers are not.

Engagement drains you when it’s transactional. It fills you when it’s relational.

7. Surprise breaks patterns that create disengagement

Steve’s background in science demonstrations (and in magic!) taught him something most leaders miss. Surprise resets attention. When people expect one thing and experience another, they wake up. Their brains reengage. Surprise interrupts the autopilot that most of us operate on most of the time.

I have watched him do this in conversations. He will say something unexpected, ask a question from an unusual angle, or introduce an idea that does not fit the script people assumed the conversation would follow. That surprise signals that this interaction will not be predictable.

Leaders often prioritize predictability because it feels professional. Meetings follow agendas. Conversations follow scripts. How uttery boring! That predictability makes things efficient, but it also makes them forgettable. Steve’s willingness to surprise people makes his engagements memorable. People walk away changed and not just informed.

8. Engagement is a practice, not a personality trait

The most important lesson from watching Steve is this: engagement is not something you either have or lack. It is something you practice. Steve has practiced it for decades, through thousands of interactions, until it looks effortless. But it started as a choice.

That means the rest of us can learn it. You do not need to be naturally extroverted or charismatic. You need to decide that people matter enough to give them your full attention. You need to practice curiosity even when you are tired. You need to lower your status intentionally even when ego resists. You need to look for opportunities to surprise.

And here’s a bonus: Steve engages well because he is a genuinely nice guy. That comes through fast. People are drawn in because he’s warm and personable and that creates engagement. People want to be part of what he’s doing.

Steve Spangler‘s genius is not that he is different from other leaders. It’s just that he has practiced engagement so consistently that it has become who he is. The gap between who he is on stage and who he is in a hallway has disappeared because he refuses to let context determine whether someone deserves his full presence.

That is the standard. Not perfection. Consistency.

Get the book: The Engagement Effect: Cultivating Experiences that Ignite Connection, Build Trust, and Inspire Action.

Engagement is not a personality trait. It’s a practice that becomes who you are.

The gap between your best self and your everyday self reveals your real values.

“Leadership is not about being in charge. It is about taking care of those in your charge.” — Simon Sinek

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” — Maya Angelou

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.” — Dale Carnegie

“People do not buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories, and magic.” — Seth Godin

“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” — Theodore Roosevelt

The post 8 lessons watching steve spangler engage everyone first appeared on Skip Prichard | Leadership Insights.