They are simple, they are easy, and they are not that fancy.

Whenever someone is a jerk to me, I always say, “You might be right.”

This accomplishes a few things:

1. It admits that maybe they are right. I make mistakes. Maybe I did something wrong. Could this person bring it up without being a jerk? Sure, but just because they were a jerk doesn’t mean they were wrong.

2. It ends the conversation.

3. It releases me from carrying it around all day.

It’s over. I’m done. You might be right.

Maybe you’re not, but I didn’t say, “You are right.” I said “You might be right.”

I’m just not going to give you anymore of my life to figure out if you are.

I’m out.

It’s full of photos of amazing cabins, vistas that stretch for miles, and perfect places to write a book.

It’s fun to think that I’ll write there. Maybe you have a similar fantasy. As you work on a dream, you imagine pursuing it in some fun, creative setting.

But the reality is, I write in the space in the photo below more than just about anywhere else. That’s inside an arena somewhere. I’ve found a chair to sit in as I wait to go speak at an event.

It’s not sexy.

It’s not romantic.

It’s not how I might have dreamt it.

But it’s the space I have to work with, so work I will.

I don’t know what your dream is, but I know you have to hustle on it wherever you are.

Don’t wait for a snowy cabin in the woods to start working.

Just start.

Does your view of the situations in your life make a difference?

Does your filter change things?

It does.

And I’ll let tennis legend John McEnroe sum up his career and the critical importance of perception in one quote.

Why?

Because the first chapter doesn’t tell them what they want to hear. They expect a book titled Quitter to be full of dreamy, rainbowy fluff about how you should “just go for it” or “step out in faith.” Instead, they find a first chapter titled “Don’t quit your day job.”

That’s a bit of a bummer, but it’s the best way. Ask Nicholas Sparks.

Regardless of what you think about his romance novels, there is no questioning his unbelievable success. He has sold tens of millions of books in the last ten years. But did he quit when he got his first deal?

I’ll let him tell you via a Vanity Fair interview:

Reporter:
I have never heard of an unknown author getting paid a million dollars. What was the first thing you did?

Nicholas Sparks:
I was immediately struck by disbelief. It felt like I had won the lottery, but at the same time I didn’t even know if people would buy the book, so I didn’t quit my job for another year.

Let’s recap for a quick second. Nicholas Sparks got a million dollar advance. Instead of assuming the whole planet would buy his book, he kept his day job. For a whole year.

I love it.

May we all have the patience of Nicholas Sparks and be deliberate about the cliffs we jump off on the road to chasing our dreams.

Why?

Because how fast is our culture getting? One second? Really? Is that now a product benefit? Something has to win your attention by promising you only 1 second per usage.

But I get it. Life is full right now. Life is busy right now. That’s why people have phone conversations in the bathroom. Unless you’re a heart surgeon inexplicably performing surgery via phone, you can hang up for 60 seconds. Do you know how many people have died because I don’t talk on the phone in the bathroom? None.

Slow down.

The best things in life take time, and when we don’t give it to them, they just become OK things.

During the interview, the journalist said something surprising. He said:

“I have to confess. I’m not at all familiar with your music.”

This is a subtle insult.

Why?

Because when journalists interview musicians, they research them. They listen to their music. They listen to a lot of their music. They prepare.

This journalist didn’t, though, and instead deliberately brought up that point.

How did the musician respond? Was he insulted or angry?

Nope.

He simply said, “Well, that’s quite all right. I probably haven’t read many of your articles, but this is the beauty of our business.”

That insult didn’t even have a second to land on his shoulder. He brushed it aside before it could touch down.

Let the little insults go. They tend to cause big damage if we hold on to them too tightly.

On the right is Scrabble for the iPhone.

Which would you play?

I’m so excited to see this day come and to be able to share with all of you what I’ve poured into START!  I want to thank everyone for your support leading up to this day. It’s been an awesome journey, but it’s just the beginning!

Here are some places where you purchase START beginning today:

Buy it on Amazon

Buy it on DaveRamsey.com

Buy it on Barnes & Noble

Buy it on Books A Million.

Last night Dave Ramsey and I threw a huge party right in the middle of Times Square to celebrate and kick off the START Book Tour with a couple hundred friends.  It was amazing! Here’s a quick recap:

In case you missed it, here is the killer book trailer the Ramsey video team put together.

So there you go!

It’s time to START!

Times Square and I have been on a crash course for six months.

Ever since Dave Ramsey dared me to create an awesome kick off for my new book, New York was on my map.

The team designed a crazy event.

First, I’ll give a talk about the five lands every awesome life goes through. In a small, intimate theater, I’ll lay out some ideas.

Then, and this is where it gets crazy, we’ll all put on the amazing Start NYC shirts the team designed. They are red and loud and not at all shy.

Then, I’ll lead a few hundred of my new friends down a block into Times Square where the book tour bus is parked.

We’ll do a quick countdown, and then I’ll unveil two ridiculous surprises.

The truth is, I’m a little afraid.

I want the event to go well.

I want things to work.

I want the book to sell on the launch day.

And a lot of those things are out of my hands.

But do you know who’s hands I’m not going to put them in? Fear.

I’m not hosting fear this weekend. I’m not entertaining it or rolling around in it or giving it a huge stage in my heart to really shout from.

Fear isn’t invited to Times Square this weekend. You are and I am and lots of other people.

Instead, I’m going to make fear afraid.

And you should too.

These are dipping sauces that McDonald’s came out with in 1983.

They were easy to use, popular, and helped sell a lot of McNuggets.

This? Is the new design of ketchup.

Was it launched in 1983?

Maybe 1984?

Surely someone saw how great the design was for the dipping sauces and decided to put ketchup in that same container.

Nope?

It would be 20 years before the new ketchup packets rolled out.

Why?

Because innovation is hard. Sometimes it hides right in plain sight.

Got a problem you’re facing right now? Don’t miss the forest for the trees. Or, in this case, the ketchup for the dipping sauces.

Want the first chapter of the Start audio book, also read by me, for free?

Visit NoiseTrade this week.

It’s absolutely free. If you give me a tip, all the money will go to support Charity:Water.

It’s only free for one week. Click here to get it!

Normally, that’s an optimistic gesture at best.

If you have ticket issues with a Patriots game, you probably don’t tweet Robert Kraft, the owner. You call customer service.

If your pizza is bad, you don’t tweet Papa John, you call your local Papa John’s.

If your Jim Collins book wasn’t delivered, you don’t tweet Jim Collins, you email Amazon.

But this person tweeted Dave Ramsey directly, and what did Dave do? He responded.

He beat me to the tweet. He informed customer service about the issue and helped fix it.

There were 350 people between Dave Ramsey and the person with the issue. A customer service team, the publishing team, the web development team, and me.

But Dave responded. Why?

Because he believes you should stand behind your stuff.

He loves to make sure everyone who bumps into the work we’re doing has a good experience.

He wants you to be super served and walk away from an interaction with us with a wonderful experience.

He stands behind his stuff.

And I’m learning to as well. That’s why, when we throw events like Start NYC this coming Sunday, we offer a money-back guarantee. (You can buy a ticket here.)

If you don’t love it, if you don’t think it’s awesome, you’ll get your money back. Without discussion or feeling like you have to prove anything.

Why?

Because you should always stand behind your stuff.

I don’t know what your dream is, or who it might serve some day, but I know this.

Whether you’re a small author or one of the biggest radio personalities in the country, you’re never too big for a tweet.

And you never outgrow the need to stand behind your stuff.

It’s an act of rescuing something from your past that you loved but you lost.

Finding your dream is usually a reunion, not a first date. A matter of bumping back into something you put down because life got too busy.

Why is that hard?

Why is that difficult?

Because recovery is hard.

My wife hurt her finger a few years ago. With a power drill. And she had to recover. For weeks, she had to go to physical therapy. She had to fight and squeeze and struggle with painful exercises.

And that was just a finger. She spent months ultimately wrestling that finger back. (Her x-ray is below. I will let you guess which one was hurt.)

We spent painful nights and hard days trying to help her get feeling back. And that was just a finger.

Will it be hard to recover your dream?

It will, oh it will. But know this, it is worth it.

What does it mean?

The short answer? He’s a great leader.

The long answer?

We’re planning the biggest, craziest thing we’ve done together in the last three years.

We rented part of Times Square. We rented a huge digital billboard. We’re parking the Start tour bus in the middle of Times Square. Then we’re throwing a party for 200 people. (There are a few tickets left, so sign up if you want to come.)

It’s a massive endeavor with a thousand moving pieces. We’re giving people t-shirts and posters. I’m giving a talk about what it means to really punch fear in the face.

There’s a lot of pressure. So when Dave visited New York last week, he wanted to encourage me.

He took a picture of our friend JK standing in the exact same spot we’d be on April 21. And then he told me to punch fear in the face. Why?

Because leaders go first.

Part of good leadership is being willing to go first.

To step into a fear or an opportunity and go first.

To shout first.

To own the situation first.

To celebrate first.

That last one is often the hardest. Leaders sometimes feel they are being too over-the-top. They don’t want to come off as cheesy or silly. So they don’t celebrate loudly. They quietly pat backs and shake hands. But the best leaders celebrate first.

When you go first, you give everyone you lead the opportunity to go next. And next is always easier than first.

Start NYC is going to be crazy. How do I know?

Because Dave Ramsey went first.

The t-shirt is free when you buy a ticket for $19.

The first 50% of the tickets sold out in the first four days after we launched the event. It will sell out soon. Don’t miss your chance to go. If you’re ready to Start, sign up today.

I tend to scoff when people tell me to “turn my frown upside down” or to “look for the silver lining.”

I think there’s a lot of nonsense floating out there in self-help circles. But the more I research the ways we’re all wired, the harder it gets for me to doubt the power of thought.

And a story I recently read in Rapt by Winifred Gallagher really challenged me. Here’s what she wrote:

“Creativity is most commonly associated with the arts, but for more than thirty years, the Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer has applied hers primarily to the study of human behavior. In 1979, she created a complete environment from the year 1959, right down to its magazines, newspapers, and music. Then she told her subjects, elderly men who had volunteered to live in the setting for seven days, to start thinking, talking and otherwise acting as they had twenty years before. In a stunning demonstration of the power of mind over matter, after a week of focusing on their salad days, the old men grew visibly younger – not just in their frisky attitude, but even in their physiology. Medical examinations showed that they stood straighter and were more flexible. Even their fingers, which shorten with age, grew longer.”

That’s crazy, right?

That makes no sense. And yet, just thinking and acting like they were 20 years younger physically changed the subjects in this experiment.

Does that completely change the way I think about positive thinking? No. But the more I read, the more I realize the way I think really matters.

It’s actually pretty simple.

I even put it in a cool looking image that’s all hipster.

Here’s the reason.

We sold 72 tickets in the first 30 hours after launching the event.

That means there are 128 left, which isn’t a lot. It will sell out soon.

If you come to the event, you will get a free t-shirt, a brilliant poster, an awesome night and one other fantastic surprise I can’t tell you about yet.

It’s $19 and it’s going to be wicked awesome.

Come to New York on April 21.

Get ready to start.

Sign up today.

It’s a step-by-step guide to being more awesome, more often.

And as part of our New York City launch event, the creative team at the Dave Ramsey headquarters created this map mixing the book with the 5 borroughs.

If you come to the event, you’re getting one for free.

Sign up today, it’s going to be awesome!

That’s what my friend Ken Coleman does in his new book One Question.

Inside the pages, he asks some of the greatest leaders in the world one question.

The responses are amazing, the stories helpful, and the advice practical.

My personal favorite was probably the question he asked Malcolm Gladwell. I’ve long been a Gladwell fan, and it was awesome to see Ken ask him about what it takes to instill a work ethic in kids. As a dad, I found that particular section of the book really fascinating.

I don’t do a ton of book reviews, but this is one book I definitely recommend you check out.

Your past will either conform you or inform you.

It will shape you and twist and force you into decisions you don’t want to make.

Or it will teach you and help you and inform you.

The choice is yours.

And maybe, like George Bernard Shaw said, it’s time to stop running from it and time to start dancing with it.