This issue is made up of the following sections:

1. Personal Effectiveness Tips
2. Books for Growth
3. Reality Check - Starting with "The End" in Mind

1. Personal Effectiveness Tips
1. In all your communications (conversations, emails, letters, memos, etc) make certain that you take responsibility for transmission of the intended message to your recipients. It is not enough to assume that they know what you are talking about, or that they will understand the implications of what you mean. Check for understanding. For example:

   Bob: Brian, I need you to send out this memo prior to Friday, as it contains important information about our Tuesday meeting next week.

   Brian: Ok.

   Bob: So you can and will do that?

   Brian: Yep.

   Bob: Great, and I'll assume if I don't hear from you that you sent it out as planned

   Brian: Yep, no need to worry.

   Bob: Thanks for taking care of that, Brian.

2. Stop setting arbitrary guidelines for your own progress. I've seen too many clients set guidelines for themselves that are based on "common knowledge" or on what others think, do, and feel. Some of arbitrary guidelines include:
   • how much we should weigh
   • how much exercise we should partake in
   • how much we should eat/not eat
   • where in our careers we should be
   • what car we should drive
   • how fast we should expect success

   Instead of arbitrary guidelines, choose goals that are specific to your situation and motivating enough to push you towards excellence and peace of mind. Maybe you look great at 145 lbs, and maybe you can eat more than your neighbor without feeling like you are wearing a dimpled fat suit, and maybe you are actually further along in your career path than the oddsmakers would have guessed, given your life situation.

3. Get perspective. Perspective is the perfect tonic to reduce daily stress. It is helpful to always keep in mind the things that are really important in our lives, such as family, friends, good health, etc. Make sure that you are taking the time to reflect on the good fortune in your life, and the things of value that sustain you. By doing so you will gain instant perspective on how unimportant many of life's daily hassles and events can be in the grand scheme of things.

4. We can all benefit from getting tougher. This means:
   -we raise our "pain" thresholds in all areas -we stop complaining, or reduce it greatly -we attempt to be less vulnerable to most feedback -we start to act bravely when scared (fearful, worried, etc) instead of shrinking -we seek out that which makes us uncomfortable and do it first rather than last (see March's Reality Check for more on this topic) We are all much tougher than we realize. We can deal with more than we know, and we have inner resources that, when tapped, can help us do amazing things.

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2. Books for Growth

A selection of recent titles to expand your intellectual breadth and depth. I have read them all in the past month and thus recommend them highly:

1. Business Category:
The Effective Executive, by Peter Drucker
The best written book by the best management consultant ever. A great read for those in managerial positions.
2. Dining Category:
A History of the World in 6 Glasses, by Tom Standage
Want to know how beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and Coke changed the course of history? Read this book. Fascinating stuff on these six beverages.
3. History Category:
Undaunted Courage, by Stephen Ambrose
The story behind the Lewis and Clark expedition. The best written (and most comprehensive) book on the topic.
4. Social Science Category:
Emotions Revealed, by Paul Ekman
Want to know how to better read others' facial expressions and emotions? Look no further. Very interesting studies that explore the origin of emotion and the universality of expressing it physically.

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3. Reality Check - Starting with "The End" in mind

I've always been an existentialist at heart. I had an acute awareness as a kid of the fact that every hello foreshadowed a later goodbye. I also realized that no amount of social activity could suppress fully the feeling that I was ultimately alone in the world. The fact that I was drawn (like a moth to a flame) to ballads by Air Supply and The Carpenters didn't really help my cause.

Much later on, during graduate school, I found myself drawn in a different way to existentialist thought. At its core, it simply made sense. The idea that the manner in which we deal with life's givens-particularly death, freedom, and responsibility-determines the quality of our lives made perfect sense. Death, by definition, ends us. However, the idea of death can actually save us. And this is the core of April's Reality Check.

There is a wonderful scene in the 1998 movie Waking Ned Devine (one of my absolute favorites) in which the main character is giving a speech about how wonderful a gift it would be to be able to attend your own funeral and to sit up in front and listen to the things that were said about you.

Let's begin with the idea that we are mortal, embracing the fact that in one hundred years, nobody reading this newsletter will be around. Life is fleeting, but usually it takes years for us to realize this. It creeps up on us, this slow death, and whispers to us when we notice a little more weight on our bodies, a bit more grey hairs on our head. We attend funerals of grandparents, and then our own parents, and realize that we are (statistically) next in the neverending line of funerals.

Begin with The End in mind, and you begin with instant clarity of purpose. You realize that you have most likely lived at least a quarter of your allotted years, perhaps even more. And if you aren't happy with the way in you will be remembered, you know you are blessed with at least one more day to change that.

I'd like my funeral to be a joyous occasion, and I would like my friends and family to share as many laughs as tears that day. And if I were sitting up front, I would want their words to reflect that. Though I don't know how many days I have left, and I haven't befriended any actuaries lately, I do my best to make sure that each day is a new one unto itself, without regard for the previous, and that I give more than I take, in every way.

So don't break out your Air Supply CD's, and there is no need to listen to anything by The Carpenters to understand all of this. All you need to do is accept the fact that you are speeding toward The End, and that you have all you need to make sure you arrive there smiling.

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