I’ve a terrible habit and it’s this: Every few nights, right before I go to bed, I eat one or two chocolate chip cookies and a whole glass of milk.

I know it’s not as bad as smoking or anything, but still, it’s a habit I’d like to change. And I’ve tried, to no avail until recently when I realized habits are incredibly powerful in determining our health, happiness and success, and that habits could be changed.

I had dinner with a guy recently who serves as an executive coach for several high powered figures in DC. Curious about how the world’s highly productive operate, I asked him what characteristics they had most in common [...]

Ever wanted to get somebody back? You may have disguised it as seeking justice, or revealing a wrong or whatever, but the truth may be more complicated. We want to hurt those who hurt us.

And it’s a killer.

I had a pastor lie about me a few years ago – a public guy I hardly know. He threw me under the bus to cover something he did that lacked character.

From that point on, I wanted vengeance. But I found it did me little good [...]

Whatever culture you involve yourself in, there will be unforgivable sins. An unforgivable sin, in cultural speak, is that thing that makes everybody in the room want to run from you if you so much as speak it or identify with it. It’s that thing everybody in the room hates. And the thing everybody in the room hates changes by the room.

Unforgivable sins are not only reserved for religious people [...]

Have you ever tried to quit a bad habit but went right back after the first relapse? Let’s say you’re quitting caffeine, then a bleary day hits and you have that one cup of coffee, only to go right back to the old habit. It’s almost as though that first slip up lets go the flood.

I used to be all or nothing about stuff like this but I recently had a conversation with Bill Lokey who helped me understand that relapses are actually part of the process of changing a behavior [...]

I got acquainted with Jesus just out of high school. I’d grown up attending church and loved going to church but it’s hard to say I really knew Jesus till much later. I’ll never forget it, actually. I was reading the Bible late one night and happened across a passage in the book of James. The text said faith without works was no faith at all. Very suddenly, that passage made complete sense to me. I knew very clearly, and quite mysteriously the way to know Jesus was to take action, was to follow Him and do things. I’d spent my entire childhood learning about Jesus, learning about right theology and even more about wrong theology but I’d never once taken action in following Him.

So, I did. I went outside and started walking down the street. I needed to physically take action, I’m not sure why. It didn’t make any sense, I just needed to move. I felt like God didn’t really care [...]

There’s been some backlash, lately, to Anne Hathaway. I am mostly neutral on the pop-culture phenom. I don’t mind her as an actress. And nobody can fault her work ethic or her choice of roles. She is insanely ambitious and delivers. I think she deserved the Oscar a couple weeks back. Truly.

I also think people are a little mean, and some of that meanness comes from jealousy.

That said, the frustration isn’t without warrant. People get frustrated with her seemingly perfect exterior, her smiling responses and acceptance speeches. You get the sense she [...]