Redefine Perfection

On the surface, it seems like a good idea to try to be “perfect”—to get every answer correct on a test or to be a perfect spouse, parent, coach, or employee. However, I discovered that my definition of perfection was the single biggest source of stress in my life.

When I was growing up, if I got four A’s and a B on a report card, my father would ask, “Why did you get a B?” If I hit four great golf shots and then sliced one out of bounds, the only comment I heard was about the bad shot. My coping mechanism was to try to be perfect—to get five A’s and hit every shot perfectly. As I went through life, no matter where I was or what I was doing, my attention automatically went to what was not perfect and what needed improvement. I rarely noticed all the things that were already going well.

Striving for perfection led to many achievements. I earned good grades, excelled in sports, became a top salesperson at Hewlett-Packard, and eventually started and ran a successful software company. Yet I enjoyed very little of it because I always focused on what was still wrong. I criticized myself, my environment, and sometimes even the people around me.

Eventually, I realized the problem wasn’t perfection. The problem was how I had defined it. I didn’t need to give up on perfection—I needed to redefine it.

I wanted to write this book for many years, and I wanted it to be “perfect,” which seems like a good goal. The problem was that I had never clearly defined what a “perfect” book looked like. Without a clear definition, I kept reviewing and rewriting the material, making tiny changes. I also kept adding new topics because a perfect book would include every useful phrase I had ever used. As a result, the book was never perfect and never got released. So I redefined perfection: The book would be perfect if it included my most important phrases and explained them reasonably clearly. That was a definition of perfection I could actually achieve, and it finally made finishing the book possible.

I did the same thing with the software company I started. For years, my vague definition of perfection was fixing every problem, returning every email, and making sure every customer and employee was happy. Those are admirable goals, but they are impossible to achieve. As I pursued this definition of perfection, I worked more and more hours, took work home, stopped playing golf, and rarely saw my kids. No matter how many hours I worked, there was always another email to read or another problem to solve.

So I redefined perfection. My company was perfect if it stayed in business every year and provided a good living for my family. We could have unsolved problems, unanswered emails, angry customers, and unhappy employees and still meet that definition. I could achieve this new definition while working a 20-hour week, leaving plenty of time for golf, family, friends, and the many other things I wanted to do. The company flourished, and by my new definition, it was perfect.

I have continued to redefine perfection in many areas of my life. My children and grandchildren can make all kinds of mistakes and still be perfect. A picnic can be perfect even if it rains. A vacation with bad weather or lost reservations can still be perfect because of the time spent with my wife. My last youth hockey team won only four games and lost twenty-two, yet it was a perfect season because we had fun and built friendships that will last a lifetime.

I’m not saying I accept mediocrity. When I redefine perfection, I make sure the new definition is possible and still achieves the primary goal.

Suspend Disbelief

The phrase “suspend disbelief” has been around for a long time. For example, Star Trek has faster-than-light travel and a transporter that takes people apart and reassembles them somewhere else. I don’t believe either technology is possible, but I temporarily set that disbelief aside so I can enjoy the show.

Suspending disbelief does not mean that I suddenly believe something is true. It means that I stop rejecting it long enough to see where it leads.

One of my favorite authors, Jon Kabat-Zinn, introduced me to this use of the phrase “suspend disbelief.” He developed Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, or MBSR, to help people cope with chronic pain, stress, illness, and other problems. Some participants had conditions that conventional medical treatments had not resolved.

When I discovered MBSR, I was experiencing considerable back pain and other problems. I thought meditation sounded like goofy, voodoo-like bullshit. Despite that opinion, I purchased Kabat-Zinn’s four-tape program, Mindfulness Meditation Practice Tapes. At the beginning of the first tape, Kabat-Zinn acknowledged that some listeners might think the program was worthless. He asked them to “suspend disbelief” and give it a fair try. That seemed reasonable. I did not have to believe meditation would work. I only had to stop insisting that it could not work. I followed the program exactly as Kabat-Zinn suggested and judged it by the results. It turned out to be one of the best things I have ever done, but I had to suspend my initial judgment long enough to give it a fair try.

Suspending disbelief goes well beyond television and meditation. In my twenties, I had a great job with Hewlett-Packard, but part of me wanted to start my own company. At the time, I did not have much confidence that I could start and successfully operate a business. My belief that I would fail kept me from even trying. Eventually, I decided to suspend that belief. I was still worried I would fail, but I started the company anyway. A voice in my head kept saying, “Don’t do this. You are going to fail.” I responded, “You may be right, but I’m going to try it anyway.” The company became successful and remained in business for forty years. If I had waited until I believed completely in my ability to succeed, I might never have started it.

Suspending disbelief is not abandoning reason or convincing myself that every strange idea will work. It is giving an idea an honest test before rejecting it. If the idea fails, I can stop. If it works, I have discovered something useful that my original belief would have prevented me from experiencing.

Some readers may initially think that one or more of the phrases in this book are worthless. That’s fine. But if a phrase makes even a little sense to you, suspend disbelief and give it a fair try. You don’t have to believe it will work. Just stop insisting that it won’t work long enough to find out.

Reality Exists Independent of the Observer—A Is A

One of my foundational phrases is “Reality exists independent of the observer.” My favorite author, Ayn Rand, expressed the same idea more simply: “A is A.”

• Reality is objective.
• Facts are facts.
• Wishing does not make something true.
• Contradictions exist in our thinking, not in reality.

The classic example is a tree falling in the woods. If no one is there to observe it, did it make a sound? That question can turn into an endless philosophical debate, depending partly on how you define “sound.” But the physical event is not debatable. The tree fell, struck the ground, moved the surrounding air, and created sound waves. Whether anyone saw it, heard it, believed it, or cared about it did not change what happened. Reality did not need an observer’s permission. A is A.

A is A gives me confidence because it means reality is what it is. It is not being secretly altered by fate, magic, or supernatural forces. Events have causes, and those causes can be investigated and understood. The world may be complicated, and I may not immediately understand what is happening, but there is something real for me to understand.

A is A puts the ball back in my court. If my business is losing money, there are reasons for it, and I can investigate those reasons and decide what to do. If a relationship continually makes my life worse, there are causes I can examine and choices I can make. I do not have to wait for fate, supernatural intervention, or someone else to solve my problems.

Emotions Are Not Knowledge

Emotions are real, powerful, and important—but they are not knowledge. Feeling that something is true does not make it true. Fear does not prove that I am in danger. Confidence does not prove that I will succeed. Hopelessness does not prove that a situation is hopeless. Emotions tell me how I feel about reality, not necessarily what reality is.

That does not mean emotions should be ignored. They often contain useful information. If I am walking in the woods and suddenly feel afraid, my brain may have noticed a sound, movement, or shape before I consciously understood it. There might be a mountain lion nearby, or there might not be. My fear is a good reason to stop and look around, but it is not proof that a mountain lion is actually there. The emotion is a signal. I still need to check reality.

I don’t run into many mountain lions, so the way I use this phrase most often involves my confidence. I know that I am a smart and capable person. I have more than 70 years of experience and results supporting that conclusion. Yet how capable I feel can change dramatically from one day to the next—and sometimes from one moment to the next. At one extreme, I may feel that I can do anything. At the other, I may feel helpless and incapable of doing anything. My actual abilities did not suddenly appear or disappear. My emotions changed; my capabilities did not.

When I feel unusually confident, I do not assume I can literally do anything. I still check the facts and consider the risks. When I feel discouraged or incapable, I do not accept that feeling as a verdict. I remind myself that emotions are not knowledge, choose something useful to do, and take action even though I may feel that I will fail.

My emotions deserve my attention, but they do not automatically deserve control of my decisions. They are one source of information—not the final authority on what is true or what I do.

Ask What, Not Why

Questions beginning with “what” are usually easier to answer—and more likely to produce useful action—than questions beginning with “why.”

Suppose someone has a physically abusive spouse. Why is the spouse abusive? Maybe they had a terrible childhood. Perhaps they use drugs, have a mental illness, or simply enjoy controlling people. You could spend years debating the reason and never know the answer.

The “what” is much clearer: What is happening? The person is being beaten. What needs to happen next? Get the hell out of that relationship and as far away from the abuser as possible. Understanding why the abuse happens is far less important than stopping it.

Perhaps I have a friend and frequently feel worse after spending time with that person. Why does the friend affect me that way? Who knows? The more useful questions are: What happens when I spend time with this person, and what should I do about it? The answers may be obvious: I consistently feel worse, so I should spend less time with that person—or stop seeing them entirely.

I enjoy nature and wide-open spaces. I hate big cities. Why? There may be many reasons, but I don’t need to uncover them all. What matters is that, for whatever reasons, I am happier in open spaces, so I choose to live where open space surrounds me.

“Why” is not always a bad question. It can help identify the cause of a problem and prevent it from happening again. But “why” can also become a hiding place. We can analyze a situation endlessly when we already know what is happening and what we need to do.

Perhaps you hate your job. You and your friends can spend years discussing why your boss is a jerk, why the company has stupid policies, and why the work makes you miserable. That conversation may feel productive, but it changes nothing. The “what” is simple: You hate your job—get a new one.

Ask what, not why. “What” usually points toward the action needed. “Why” is open to endless debate.

Watch Your Own Thinking

I think of my mind as containing two different parts. One part constantly generates thoughts. The other can step back and watch those thoughts without automatically believing them or acting on them. It is almost like having two people in my head: one generating thoughts and the other reviewing and evaluating them. Many people go through life without realizing this second part exists. Their thoughts feel like reality itself, so they never stop to examine them.

My mind produces thoughts: “I should quit my job.” “I’m going to send that person an angry email.” “I don’t feel like exercising.” “I want to visit Sweden.” Some thoughts are negative, some are positive, and some may even be correct. But none of them automatically deserve to be treated as a fact, a decision, or an order.

Observing and evaluating thoughts is especially important when my thoughts turn dark. I may think, “The world is falling apart.” Such thoughts can feel completely true and become overwhelming. Observing those thoughts helps me in several ways:

1. I may be experiencing stress and anxiety without understanding why. Then when I observe my thoughts I might notice that one, which may be the root of the anxiety.
2. Once I clearly observe the thought, I can change the wording from “The world is falling apart” to “I am having the thought that the world is falling apart.” Those are two very different statements. The first implies a fact, while the second is just noticing a passing thought that may or may not be true.
3. After changing the wording, I can ask myself, “Is this thought really true?” In this example, the answer is no, I’m fully aware the world is not falling apart. That is the point. A thought can be completely untrue and still cause anxiety. Challenging it and saying plainly, “That is not true,” reduces the anxiety.
4. Some people might say that I should replace the negative thought with a positive thought such as “The world is perfect.” I believe that is the wrong approach. The purpose of observing and evaluating thoughts is to examine the thought honestly, not automatically replace every negative thought with a positive one.

The same principle applies to all thoughts, not just dark ones. Positive thoughts are not automatically accurate simply because they feel good. I may think, “This job I found online is perfect, much better than mine. I should quit and take it.” I can remind myself that this is still just a thought. No job is perfect, and I should consider the whole picture before making a major decision like quitting my job. The goal is not positive thinking or negative thinking, it is accurate thinking.

However, I cannot apply the full four-step process to every thought because there are simply too many. Thoughts are constantly arriving, changing, and leaving. Some are useful, some are ridiculous, and some are potentially harmful. When I learned mindfulness and meditation from Jon Kabat-Zinn, I began noticing how many thoughts passed through my mind in a single minute, and I was amazed. I might have fifteen different thoughts in sixty seconds. I use the four-step process when a thought keeps returning or when I am considering an action with serious, long-term consequences. If I think I should scratch my nose, I scratch it. No need for a lot of analysis!

Is That Really True?

Sometimes the same lesson appears in more than one phrase in this book. That is deliberate. I may forget one phrase but remember the same principle when it is expressed another way. For example, the phrase “Watch Your Own Thinking” reminds me to step back, observe my thoughts, and evaluate them. However, that phrase does not always come to mind. The phrase “Is that really true?” acts as a backup. Having both phrases gives me two different reminders to observe and evaluate my thoughts.

It is amazing how often a thought can feel completely true without actually being true. Feelings are not proof.

When I am in a bad mood, I sometimes think, “My life sucks.” When I was younger, I did not question that thought. I accepted it as true and moped around as though my entire life had suddenly become a disaster.

Lee Shulman, a therapist I worked with, taught me to notice thoughts like this and ask, “Is that really true? Does my life really suck?” The answer was obvious: Absolutely not. I had a great life. I was experiencing a terrible mood, not a terrible life. I had taken one temporary feeling and turned it into a sweeping conclusion about everything. I use the same question in many other situations:

• “I can’t handle this problem.” Is that really true? No. I have handled hundreds of difficult problems, and I will figure this one out as well.
• After an argument with my wife, I may think, “This relationship is a disaster.” Is that really true? No. We had an argument about one particular issue, which does not happen very often. The truth is that our relationship is great.
• When something goes wrong, I may think, “I always screw things up.” Is that really true? Of course not. One mistake does not erase years of good decisions.

The phrase could also be applied to positive thoughts, but I rarely use it that way. It usually shows up when I repeatedly have a negative thought that is discouraging me and is not true. For example, I often think, “I’m just not doing enough.” Because that thought returns frequently, I have to challenge it frequently: Is that really true? No. I have accomplished a great deal, and I continue to do a great deal.

This illustrates an important point about the phrases in this book: I do not necessarily use every phrase all the time or apply it to every possible situation. I do not need to. If a phrase pops into my consciousness when I need it and helps improve my life, it has done its job. I do not have to question every thought that enters my mind. I only need to question the ones that are making my life worse—and may not be true.

The World Is a Far Better Place Than You’ve Been Led to Believe

I have coached youth hockey for over thirty years and have had the pleasure of getting to know and interacting with many young people. Over the last decade, I have noticed a disturbing trend. Many of them have come to believe that the world is messed up and falling apart and that their future is bleak. I vehemently disagree with that assessment. In fact, I would like to give a college commencement speech titled “The World Is a Far Better Place Than You’ve Been Led to Believe.”

I understand where the negativity comes from. We live with a twenty-four-hour pipeline of bad news. Television, social media, websites, and ordinary conversations continually deliver stories about crime, war, disease, political conflict, disasters, and predictions of catastrophe. People then talk about the news and repeat this crap. You can’t get away from it. It is almost impossible to absorb this material hour after hour without becoming pessimistic about the present and frightened about the future. The constant onslaught of negativity can create the impression that the world is more screwed up now than at almost any point in history.

I am not immune to this twenty-four-hour negativity. I sometimes start thinking, “Damn, the world is going to hell.” If I leave that thought unchallenged, it can lead to a pretty bleak view of the future. I ask myself, “Is that really true?” The answer is “Absolutely not,” particularly for those of us fortunate enough to live in a safe, prosperous country. I remind myself of the following:

• During the Great Depression, my father sometimes did not know whether he would have food that night. Do we really have it worse than that?
• Imagine living in 1700, when childhood death was common, medicine was primitive, and an infection or minor injury could kill you.
• During World War II, millions of young Americans left home for years, and more than 400,000 never returned.
• Medical and technological advances continue to improve and extend our lives.
• We are surrounded by far more decent people than terrible ones.
• Acts of kindness, cooperation, competence, and ordinary happiness occur constantly, even though they rarely become news.

The proportion of bad news presented to us compared with all the good or uneventful outcomes is unimaginably out of balance. According to 2024 data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Americans drove approximately 84 million miles for every traffic death. Suppose a news program spends ten minutes reporting one traffic death and no time reporting all the uneventful driving. To give both outcomes the same share of time, it would have to spend the next 840 million minutes—approximately 1,600 years—reporting uneventful driving to balance the ten minutes devoted to the death.

That is not a typo: 1,600 years.

With reporting this unbalanced, it is no wonder people come to believe that the world is falling apart. The truth is that the world is a far better place than you’ve been led to believe.

Watch Out for the Words Should and Have To

Some people seem able to follow their wants and desires easily. Not me. I am the responsible one. I am going to get done all the things that need to be done for my company, my house, my wife, my employees, and even my dog. Being responsible is a good quality. Allowing responsibility to consume my entire life is not. I decided that I wanted a better balance between taking care of my responsibilities and doing the things I want to do for myself.

I noticed that my thoughts rarely contained the words “I want to,” but a great deal of “should” and “have to.” Words matter, even when they exist only in my thoughts. To me, “should” and “have to” usually mean that somebody or something expects me to do something. “I want to” indicates that I would enjoy doing something or that it supports a goal that is genuinely important to me.

My thoughts were flooded with shoulds: “You should exercise more. You should lose weight. You should fix the broken fence, the heater, and the window.” The list went on and on.

I have learned to watch for the words “should” and “have to” in my thoughts, particularly when many of them begin piling up at once. When I notice that happening, I pause and ask, “Yes, I should do all those things—but what do I want to do?”

Sometimes a thought containing a “should” is truly something I want to do. For example, on a powder day I may think, “I should go skiing.” I then stop myself from skiing by adding, “I should go skiing, but I have to finish that project.” The thing I want to do gets trapped between a “should” and a “have to”—and the “have to” usually wins.

I hate the words “should” and “have to” because they have run far too much of my life. I still want to be responsible, but I also want to do more of the things that make my life enjoyable. Now, when I notice a flood of “shoulds” and “have tos,” I treat it as a signal to stop and ask myself a simple question: “What do I want to do?”

The “Meaning of Life” Is What You Decide It Is

Philosophers have debated the question “What is the meaning of life?” for millennia. Countless books have been written on the subject, and many religions have been created as possible answers. The question can also be transformed into a very negative thought, “life has no meaning.”

Over the years I have been involved in philosophical discussions about “the meaning of life.” I have heard a wide range of views, including “I have no freaking idea.” I wanted to do better than that, so for a long time my answer was “to be happy.” This seemed reasonable. However, happiness is a temporary emotion, not a permanent state that can be achieved and maintained. So, if “being happy” wasn’t the answer, what was?

I came to the conclusion that there was no universal answer to the question, and that “the meaning of life is what you decide it is.” I used to think it was crazy to be a monk living in a monastery in stark conditions. While I would not want that life, and I might not understand it, it is not crazy. It is a choice.

The most important thing for me was to stop struggling to come up with a profound answer. Struggling with a question that has no answer is a waste of time, and it can end up at “life has no meaning.” It is good enough to just say, “live as a good human being,” and set about doing so, not trying to answer the cosmic question.

Ayn Rand: Brilliance Alone Does Not Guarantee a Good Life

I used to think that being smart was enough to guarantee a good life. I believed if I read enough self-help books, went to many seminars, and learned all there was to learn, that was all that was needed. That assumption was not correct.

When I was in my early twenties, I discovered Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Her dedication to logic and reality was enormously appealing to me. I was trying to understand how the world worked and use that knowledge to improve my life. Rand seemed to have all the answers. Her writings were instrumental in forming many of the core beliefs that appear in this book.

I wanted to learn how to apply Rand’s philosophy to daily life. I came across Nathaniel Branden, who had been closely associated with Rand for many years. He later became well known as a psychologist and author. His books appeared to explain how to apply Rand’s philosophy to the real world, which was exactly what I wanted to learn.

Both Rand and Branden were brilliant. I read everything I could find that they had written and tried to implement their principles. For several years, I believed they were right about everything. I drank the Kool-Aid.

As time passed, I began to notice that I was still not a happy person. I was often angry at the world and extremely negative. The ideas of Rand and Branden were not making things better. If anything, I was becoming angrier.

I met Nathaniel Branden in Los Angeles and attended several of his weekend seminars. I also saw Ayn Rand speak at the Ford Hall Forum in Boston. Despite their obviously exceptional minds, neither one struck me as particularly happy. They also appeared angry at the world. Here were two of the most brilliant people I had ever encountered, yet they did not appear to be enjoying their lives to the fullest. I learned an important lesson: Brilliance alone does not guarantee a good life.

I strongly believe in the phrase “ask what, not why.” What was happening was clear: I was becoming less happy and angrier despite spending a great deal of time trying to implement the philosophy of Rand and Branden. Explaining why it was not working would be difficult and open to debate. I could write an entire book about why and still not get it right. But the what was obvious.

I gradually stopped believing everything Rand and Branden believed. I kept the concepts that helped me and began looking elsewhere for other ideas and phrases that could improve my life. That search eventually led to many of the phrases in this book.

I included Ayn Rand’s name in the title because I believe there are many intelligent people who love her work but may not have recognized what took me years to understand: Her brilliance alone does not guarantee that following her philosophy will lead to a good life. I wanted to catch the attention of those people and perhaps help them avoid a trap that took me a long time to recognize.