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!

I was recently sitting in the dentist’s chair thinking about my mouth. I don’t usually spend much time doing that, but that day, I was. And it dawned on me that personal development is really a lot like going to the dentist. Sounds strange, but not so much as you might think.

Pledging to live up to a set of standards, to something higher and larger and more eternal than self-serving and immediately-gratifying impulses may be considered an insignificant step in the process of actually doing the work of building character. But it’s in the small steps that miles are covered and continents crossed … and a character is fashioned.

What do your kids most need from you? Here are 10 gifts you can give your children that will change their lives … and yours … forever. Come see why parenthood is such serious business. There’s no other business, in fact, more important you can spend your time and energy building. Average parenting requires average effort. Great parenting requires more of us. It requires us to work on the inside, on the person who is the parent. Offering these gifts will require that deep commitment to what’s best to raise happy, loving and decent men and women.

Pain is Life’s great master-teacher. It is the refiner’s fire, the heat that destroys the bacteria of life. It can burn off impurities, or it can consume and destroy. Our attitude, however, determines the outcome. But what do the trials and adversities of life teach us? What lessons are we to learn? What impurities does the heat of trial and tribulation burn off?

When nothing stands between you and the mirror of life, you will recognize the importance of four basic components of life: 1) Your thoughts, 2) Your beliefs, 3) Your relationships and experiences, and 4) Your character. Each is crucial to your happiness. Corrupt any one of the four components and your happiness will be compromised. Period. End of story. This post explores the importance of character to a happy life.

There is no role a man can play that is more important than fatherhood. It’s been said, as a matter of fact, that no success can compensate for failure in the home. Let’s, then, make Father’s Day a day of recommitment to being the best fathers we can be! Both children and fathers will be happier for it.