If you would like to make your journey to the Zone of Genius smooth and rapid, please take a moment now to answer four questions. Start with this fundamental one:

Am I willing to increase the amount of time every day that I feel good inside?

When I use the phrase “feel good,” I’m talking about a natural, inner sense of well-being that’s not dependent on outside factors such as what you’ve eaten or what you might be doing. It’s important to begin with a willingness to feel good inside, because there’s no sense enhancing other parts of your life at the expense of your inner well-being.

There are plenty of learning curves to choose from. Traditionally, many of us have used pain and suffering and sacrifice and failure as our chief learning curves. If this is true for you, you have probably attended the school of hard knocks, and you have employed grief and heartache as your teachers.

It is well to remember, however, that you can also choose from a range of more pleasant learning curves, such as love as a learning curve, authenticity as a learning curve, and success as a learning curve.

You choose your learning curve. No one or nothing else makes this choice for you.

“How can I be happy when the economy is tanking?” It’s a question I hear a lot lately. It seems that as the financial picture becomes more depressed, so do we. That’s why now, more than ever, we need to learn to be happy from the inside out – no matter what’s going on in our lives.

What would it take to make you happy ? A fulfilling career, a big bank account or the perfect mate?  What if it didn’t take anything to make you happy? Well, it’s possible.

A bumper sticker on a car in front of me reads: In a world of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

Truth heals. But how? And why? And what good does it do anyway? Plenty.

Telling the truth is about freedom. It is about joy and peace and health and living a life that is meaningful, powerful, connected, and loving. Ultimately, telling the truth is about feeling good in your own skin, unencumbered, free, and having the life that you want to live.

So why do lies so often seem nicer, tidier, easier? The truth is often uncomfortable – because so much shame and guilt are attached to it, because it has been suppressed and left unspoken for years.