Guilt is a tool or mechanism that a well-working conscience uses to communicate to the heart. When we don’t live up to our values, our hearts are pricked with guilt, shame and regret. But we’re not supposed to stay there, letting the guilt settle in and take up residency. It’s a warning signal in the dark of our choices that sends the message to course correct.

Does your moral compass point true north? Or is it a little askew? And how would you know? There are, of course, people now and through history who thought they were doing right when everyone else knew otherwise. So how do you know where your moral compass is pointing?

Has life been one unbearable trial after another? Have you been beaten up and chewed up and spit out by a history that has left you maimed, scarred and bloodied? Have you ever considered that the very pain of life has fertilized the soil of your heart to yield fruit it could have produced in no other way?

Life is really an accumulation of daily small stuff that adds up to one huge thing called living. It’s also called love … and kindness … and family.

Some people are preemptively dying more than actively living. Their minds don’t move much. They lay their dreams and aspirations on the bed and hide their opportunities in the closet and wait for life to do something.

Life is a journey, a challenge to be mastered, but more importantly, to be learned from. But lessons, and the growth they promote, don’t come to us by taking the easy path. Downhill is still downhill. It takes you to the bottom. Paths of least resistance have always been attractive … until you get to where such paths take us.

We are all different, doing different things, living different lives, coming to this point in time, right now as you read these words from different trajectories with different backgrounds and circumstances. So why do we think we all need to do the same things, look the same way, act like everyone else and live the same lives? The obvious answer is that we don’t!

Have you heard of the parable of the long spoons? It goes something like this: A man was once taken on a tour of hell and was surprised by what he saw …

For this Valentine’s Day, I offer you some of my most pithy thoughts on humanity’s favorite topic. Perhaps you’ll even find a nugget of wisdom buried amongst all the pith as well!

Today is a wholly new day unlike any previous set of 24 hours. This day will never reoccur. It will never return. It is unique unto itself. How are you going to live it?

Life has the tendency of stretching us, calling from us more than we thought we had inside. The miracle of this process is that when we stretch, we rarely return to the same dimension we were before the stretch.

Procrastination is an insidious habit that makes life more hectic, hurried and panicked. It robs us of peace, undermines excellence and degrades the joy that excellence produces. But does procrastination always undermine excellence, happiness and peace? Perhaps not.

Only 8% of goal-setters ever reach the goals they set. But the problem may be less an issue of will and more an issue of the kinds of goals you’re setting. Learn the best way to set the goals you will always enjoy pursuing and will more likely and easily reach.

Martin Luther King led a movement not merely by virtue of his character or charisma, but because he was able to get others to catch the vision he regularly articulated. He was thereby able to convince the nation that his dream was not only worth fighting for, but was the only dream worthy of having.

  The great thing about having children is that you get instant feedback on how Read More.

My favorite Life Coach, Zen Master and Guru of Happiness has never written a book, never meditated atop a snow capped mountain and has never spoken to an audience gathered at his feet to absorb the richness of his wisdom. His name is Jacob. And he’s my son. But the truths he’s taught me has made me a better (and happier) person.

For me, personal development is all about self-respect. It’s an expression of faith in one’s own potential. But it also reflects the sense of moral responsibility I feel to improve on the raw materials God and parents gave me. In a way, it’s an expression of the seriousness with which I believe in the inherent worth and value of humanity. In fact, personal development is to humanity what sharpening is to a knife.

Ideas are powerful things that can take on a life of their own, digging like roots deep into our hearts and souls and branching out into the circumstances of our lives as we nourish and tend to the germinating seed of thought. Come see my top 10 favorite ideas captured in picture quotes, ready for bite-sized consumption!

It’s been said that when we assume, we make an “ass” out of “u” and “me” (ass+u+me). But are we to assume nothing in life? I believe some assumptions are helpful, even essential to a happy life. Come see if you agree with these seven assumptions I make every single day.

When so many worry about the rising generation, inundated with sex and violence, self-indulgent, seemingly concerned too much with what doesn’t matter, impatient, disrespectful, vulgar and ungrateful, its heartening to get a glimpse into their hearts and see that our impressions of modern youth culture may not be so bad as we thought.