The Little Words Mean the Most

How to write direct mail

On the floor is very conducive to that all-important conversational tone:

Wearing Simone's tights as a hat

Tights bought from the guy we call "Stockingman," in Pézenas, France. Visit our house...

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What's your quote for life?

I'll make this short.

I am a big believer in quotes.

I post them around my desk, like souvenirs.

I change them often. And I will go to my grave, I know absolutely, guided by them. (Grave? Cremation, actually; of the stuff left over after the organ donations.)

Quotes help reduce the fuzzy-headed complications of the ad hoc, uncontrollable, messy business we call "living in the modern world" ... to something like a formula.

My FQF -- favorite quote forever -- is from Dale Carnegie.

(Full disclosure: well, I think it's from him. I first read it cited by a third-party and have never yet been able to track that verbatim quote to its Dale Carnegie source.)

Mr. Carnegie advised, "You'll have more fun and success when you stop trying to get what you want ... and start helping other people get what they want."

I was a few years into my business as a consultant when I ran into that quote. It was like running into an elk herd made of down pillows: (1) you stopped instantly, but (2) it felt wonderful.

I imagine Dale Carnegie saw this principle at work in his own life ... a life which had advanced (truth be told) without much note until Carnegie began synthesizing the insights of primal psychologist Carl Jung and Harvard philosopher Williams James (brother to novelist, Henry) and began speaking before Great Depression-battered audiences in the 1930s.

Carnegie helped those poor, assailed New Yorkers of that awful decade see beyond themselves and their dilemma.

In the process, he helped himself; remarkably, so. Just as his advice promised, Dale Carnegie himself became rich and famous by helping others succeed.

Whether he really wrote it or not, I have Dale Carnegie's advice posted on my cork board. In big type. Cork board rings my architect-designed office. I've pinned ideas and memos everywhere, like a drunken porcupine. I reread Dale Carnegie's advice every day. Several times a day, often. That quote is my magnetic north.

Takeaway >>>>

Dale Carnegie changed my life. Not because I read his book (didn't). Not because I attended a lecture (before my time). BUT because his simple slogan filled in a blank in my life. I've always suspected I was a born Buddhist: I care about karma; I release house flies to the out of doors. And I think Dale Carnegie saw how karma could nicely intersect with Western capitalism. We can't be perfect. We can be better.

Your quote will be your quote. It will fill in a blank in your life.

Simone speaks, Tom eats

Cacti calling: Walking the Sonoran Desert, in awe

Tucson, hike 3

Tucson, hike 2

Tucson, hike 1

Tucson. We go for the cactus.

And the invitations from the So. AZ AFP to speak, and eating breakfast at the Azure Gate B&B, and atmospherics, and a special dinner at Barb and Marty's incredibly, impeccably welcoming, gracious, visually artful, comfortable and uniquely stylish house. Barb and Marty, in addition to their own contributions to a better planet, brought not-one-but-two distinguished chefs into the world. We ate at Feast the night before, owned by Doug. This is our last night, for Simone and me. On the broad boulevards of Tucson, surrounded by mountains we'd hiked that day.