Less than a week ago, BBC journalist Jihad Misharawi’s 11-month old son Omar was killed by an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip. A picture of Jihad and his son was featured last week on the cover of the Washington Post, bringing new attention to an old struggle that seems to only be getting worse.

Rockets have been going back and forth from Gaza into Israel and from Israel into Gaza now for several years. This is not a new situation but it is escalating to a level we’ve not seen in nearly four years.

Only last month a group of journalists and I visited Israel and stood on a hill overlooking the wall separating Israel from Gaza. From our viewpoint we could…

I’ve been taking people through the Storyline process for about four years now. The process helps people clarify their ambitions and take next steps. But a consistent question I get is…

Writing gets harder, not easier. It’s all battling demons, you know. The first book was such an easy one, then Blue was easy, too, looking back. I might have thrown away one chapter for every ten. Now it’s the opposite. I throw away five to ten chapters for every one that makes it into a book. The whole thing is melodrama from beginning to end.

It takes years now to write a single chapter worth publishing. It’s all because of…

For the last two years we’ve heard a host of candidates pitch their vision for America. They told us, over and over, what they’d do with the country if they were given executive power over the next four years. And while the Presidency is certainly a powerful position, the truth is there’s another executive whose vision will have a much greater impact over what happens in your life. That executive is YOU. You are the most…

Earlier today I spent an hour walking down a beach talking a friend down from his ledge. He was about to go through a frightening experience. He was going into a meeting in which a thousand things could go wrong. There was much at stake – His job, an important relationship, his dignity and his pride.

As I listened, I could tell he was…

Years ago I created a life plan and have rarely had a foggy day since. It happened when I discovered Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy and began planning my life like a story. The process brings me clarity and focus every day. I’d say I’m more healthy today than I’ve ever been, and I owe it all to thinking and planning in the form of narrative.

I plan all the big stories of my life using…

Next week I’ll leave Bainbridge Island for the mainland. I’ve been here a month, transitioning from the Storyline book to a new book that will come out next year. I came up to get away from the city and the temptations that keep me from writing.

If you’d have asked me when I…