1. The 15-Second Principle

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What this all mounts to is your developing the ability to take corrective actions and to steer your ship
toward your destination, regardless of the weather conditions, your emotional state, or the addictive sirens
singing onshore. Once your dreams and goals develop into nonnegotiable agreements, your debilitating
feelings, low-energy states, internal conversations, feelings of insanity, and addictive throbbings will have
less control over your destiny. Ultimately, nurturing our bodies and souls must become more important
than feeding our addictions.
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than
unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not; the world is full of
educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
—Calvin Coolidge
Renegotiating Your New Year's Resolutions
This piece will be very helpful to read anytime during the year. However, it can be especially timely in late
January, February, and March, if and when you are feeling shame, anger, and self-loathing because you
have already dropped the ball regarding your New Year's resolutions.
The first thing to know about most New Year's resolutions is that most of them are doomed to fail, even
before the clock strikes 12 on New Year's Eve. This is because most resolutions have many powerful selfsabotaging
elements already built into them.
First, our resolutions are usually too grandiose in scale and depth and, more often than not, encompass too
large a canvass. They are usually built on wishful fantasies rather than realistic and doable goals.
Second, our resolutions are usually created to make up for past failures and lost time—healthier lifestyles
that were abandoned, stifling jobs that were never left or renegotiated, addictions that were never handled,
novels that were never written, and musical instruments that were rarely touched are now our priorities for
the new year.