Back when we had physical bookstores I'd frequent them. And spend lots of time prowling the aisles.

When I hit my 4th decade as a human I began to notice books about people who didn't achieve their greatest success while they were young. It was likely prompted by my realization that I was no longer young. It made me wonder if I had achieved my greatest success already. Or if the best was yet to come.

I'm still waiting to find the answer. As the saying goes, "Time will tell." Problem is, time is running out so I have to figure this out really quickly.

Some folks think it's best to peak, then walk away. Or come to the end. To peak just before it's over. The problem with that is reduced time to enjoy the peak. Or the experience of the peak.

But what is the peak anyway? Where is it? Would you know it if you even saw it?

Not likely. Because no matter how high you climb, there's always someplace higher.

At some point I jotted down a phrase in a notebook, "late-life lucky."

Eventually, I registered that domain. You can buy it if you want 'cause I doubt I'll do anything with it. Buy it today for just $1,100. It'll help me fund my current ideal outcome - to get a place over in Arkansas. No, it won't help me a tremendous amount, but every little bit counts when you're getting late in life and still searching for luck. ;)

Through the years I've dipped my toes into periods of study, reading, and pondering the randomness of things. Things like serendipity, timing, happy (or unhappy) accidents, and random chance.

Ecclesiastes 9:11

"I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all."

God granted Solomon his desire to have wisdom. Coupled with divine inspiration, Solomon delivered some powerful insights about life. Truth.

"...but time and chance happeneth to them all."

Some have told me, "I don't believe in luck." To which I ask, "Define 'luck.'"

Then the conversation suddenly gets very quiet. Or defensive.

I've noticed there are two primary ways people tend to view luck. One is, "I don't have any good luck. I'm unlucky." The other is, "Luck had nothing to do with it. I worked hard."

Scientific American published a blog post in 2018 entitled, The Role of Luck in Life Success Is Far Greater Than We Realized. By the way, there are millions of Google results on website articles about luck and why successful people don't acknowledge the role luck plays. If you're bored and need a hole to dive down into sometimes, it's a pretty good one. ;)

Luck plays a much bigger role than we admit because - well, we'd prefer to think our brilliance is mostly to blame - not randomness or something other than what we control.

That Scientific American article contains these bullet points to illustrate the point that sheer talent and other personal traits aren't the only influencers on success:

About half of the differences in income across people worldwide is explained by their country of residence and by the income distribution within that country

Scientific impact is randomly distributed, with high productivity alone having a limited effect on the likelihood of high-impact work in a scientific career

The chance of becoming a CEO is influenced by your name or month of birth

The number of CEOs born in June and July is much smaller than the number of CEOs born in other months

Those with last names earlier in the alphabet are more likely to receive tenure at top departments

The display of middle initials increases positive evaluations of people's intellectual capacities a...

Back in November 2014 a new podcast was taking the world by storm. It was barely 2 months old at the time, but Serial, a new podcast from the creators of This American Life, hosted by Sarah Koenig, become the biggest podcast hit ever. Here's how their website describes the show...

Serial will follow one story - a true story - over the course of a whole season. We'll follow the plot and characters wherever they take us and we won’t know what happens at the end of the story until we get there, not long before you get there with us. Each week we'll bring you the latest chapter, so it's important to listen in order, starting with Episode 1.

In typical fashion of other extraordinary storytelling podcasts (like my all-time favorite, now retired show, The Story with Dick Gordon), Serial has superior production elements, but mostly a compelling story.

It's Baltimore, 1999. Hae Min Lee, a popular high-school senior, disappears after school one day. Six weeks later detectives arrest her classmate and ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed, for her murder. He says he's innocent - though he can't exactly remember what he was doing on that January afternoon. But someone can. A classmate at Woodlawn High School says she knows where Adnan was. The trouble is, she’s nowhere to be found.

The case of this first season of Serial focuses on a single accuser named Jay. Jay tells police a story with vivid details about how Adnan murdered his ex-girlfriend, Hae. Without any DNA or other hard evidence, a jury quickly convicts him of first-degree murder. Is Jay telling the truth? What about the other testimony that came out during the trial. Sarah, the host of the show, reveals how so-called facts can be used and misused when accusations are made.

Is Jay a false accuser? Adnan is in a Maryland maximum-security prison. There's not much he can do about it other than continue to proclaim his innocence. Well, there's actually quite a lot more he can do inside his own head. He can grow increasingly angry, bitter, resentful, and cynical. Who could blame him?

Why Do People Falsely Accuse?

It's ancient going back to the beginning. According to the Genesis record of the Old Testament, the first false accusation was the devil, disguised as a serpent, lying about God to Adam and Eve. God warned them to not eat of the tree in the midst of the Garden, the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God pronounced the punishment, "Thou shalt surely die." With the insertion of one word - "not" - the devil falsely accused God by telling them they would not die. Since then, the number of false accusations is beyond our ability to compute. Christians understand the biblical truth that Christ was crucified on the basis of false accusations. The Bible says it was for envy.

In the Old Testament, the 9th commandment of the 10 is "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor" Then why do people do it?

I don't claim to be smart enough to know all the reasons, but I think we've all got quite a few good ideas based on our own experiences, the experiences of friends or family, and all the stories we've heard or read.

Judas betrayed Christ for some money. That continues to be a big player for some I think. Greed and covetousness are major drivers for lots of people. It's manifested in divorce courtrooms all across the world I suppose. And like that sound clip from Serial, people can use kernels of truth mixed in with gobs of deceit to spin an accusation that will play to their favor. In an ugly divorce battle where the husband wants to hang onto more of his wealth and the wife wants to gain more of it...both can amplify the negative behaviors of the other. Dollars drive deceit.

Finger-pointing isn't just child's play. Grown up's do it, too. All the stories we've seen on TV of the cellmate who enters a courtroom saying he heard a confession that never happened.

Words. Phrases. Lyrics. It's often the spark for ideas, questions, and conversation. Connection ensues.

Communication isn’t the same as connecting.

We communicate by speaking, writing, and body language. Communication is one person sending and one receiving. But that’s not connecting. Communication is aimed at intellectually understanding. Connecting is aimed at emotional understanding. That’s how relationships are built. And that's more often than not how these episodes are formed. Makes sense because Leaning Toward Wisdom is a collaborative endeavor.

Do you think we’ve connected? Is there any emotional bond between us? As a listener to this podcast, I hope we've found some sort of connection. Otherwise, I doubt you'd be listening.

Connection requires the people involved to get in. I got in on day one with you years ago when I started this podcast. I'm hoping you'll get in - if you haven't already - and contribute to making this Leaning Toward Wisdom connection work for you?

It started with a conversation about kindness versus niceness. I've discussed that before so I won't dive too deeply into it again today except to point out that being kind is helpful, being nice is mostly about being polite - but not likely being very helpful. Which is where the conversation quickly went to with the question, "What's helpful? What's hurtful?" The context was challenging with kindness.

Focusing in on the word "hurtful," I offered a counter. Let's make it harmful instead because it be hurtful to pour alcohol on a skinned knee of our child, but it's helpful. Harmful is something entirely different though. It's detrimental.

When you make your living by coaching people to higher performance you have to lean heavily into kindness because until people feel completely safe, you can't serve them. Safe means we know - with certainty - that people have our best interest at heart. They want us to succeed. They want us to thrive. They want us to grow. They're committed to helping and equally committed to avoiding harming us.

Being challenged isn't always fun, but when it's done in safety it's not harmful. Uncomfortable? Almost always. Putting us in a position where we're driven to think more deeply? Always. Giving us a choice of how to respond? Always.

As my friend and I talk about helping or harming it was clear we were really talking about some different scenarios and different kinds of people. There are times when people may think they're being helpful, but they're not. Times when people are disguising being harmful as helpful. Times when people may genuinely want to help, but go about it so poorly they harm.

I'm fond of how the British refer to coaching as being in the helping business. I think of myself as being in the helping business. I'd hate to think of myself as being in the harming business. Criminals are in the harming business. Immoral businesses are in the harming business. Sin businesses are in the harming business. Look around...there's an awful lot of profit and feverish activity in the harming business.

Last week I pointed out what's on my whiteboard.

It's implied in my whiteboard statement that I'm trying to figure out how to make the biggest POSITIVE difference. The biggest HELPFUL difference.

Am I always successful? No, I don't always succeed at my intended consequences.

There are unintended consequences. Would that we were always judged by our intentions. Or would that be good?

Are our intentions always honorable? Do you really want to be judged by your intentions?

Sometimes our intentions may be rightly aimed at helpful, but sometimes not.

I stumbled across a documentary on Amazon Prime the other day, The Identity Theft of Mitch Mustain. It's a 2014 documentary about a young man,

“Tone is the hardest part of saying no.”    ― Jonathan Price, Put That in Writing

You gotta say NO to some things in order to say YES to other things. It's just a slightly more clever way to express the truth of setting priorities.

Some priorities are easy. God, then family. Well, it's easy mentally, but it's more challenging in reality sometimes. Saying God is first - where He deserves and demands to be - is different than actually putting God first.

Matthew 6:33

“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

Matthew 10:38-39

“And anyone who does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”

Matthew 22:37-40

"And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Exodus 20:3

“You shall have no other gods before me.”

Proverbs 3:5-6

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths."

Putting God first isn't politically correct, but putting family first often is. That's always seemed odd to me. Not that I don't love my family, but my family - nobody's family - is nearly as powerful, as helpful, as worthy...as God. If you're gonna come in second only to God, that seems a pretty lofty position.

Family is important, but we often make declarations we don't back up with our actions. Like Walter White on Breaking Bad, we can often declare we're doing it for our family, but the thing we do damages our family. Self-deception is easy. Facing reality, especially when it's contrary to what we most want to believe, is hard.

If setting priorities were easy then there'd be no books, articles, podcasts, seminars, or courses on time management. Time management advice is ridiculously basic. Create a to-do list, prioritize things, establish deadlines or time frames to get the thing done, avoid distractions and establish a routine. Paypal me $1,000 and consider yourself trained in time management.

The hard part is establishing the priorities - figuring out what's most important. Maybe avoiding distractions is hard, too. But nothing is as difficult as figuring out what matters most right now. God matters. Family, too. Yet, when my tire blows out - a stupid tire becomes the priority. Yes, it's a very brief - momentary - priority, but nothing else much matters until I get that tire replaced. It doesn't mean God takes a back seat. Or that my wife no longer matters.

If a blown tire can disrupt my overarching life priorities, then it's easy for me to understand how hard it may be to figure out other things that take up my time. And it may be time I no longer need to devote to a thing. Maybe it's time to say, "No."

Flow. Zone. Element.

Terms synonymous with that place where our natural aptitude and what we most love intersect. A third point of intersection is usually in play, too - success. I don't find any of these 3 easy to figure out. Let's think about it.

What are you naturally good at? Finding out our natural aptitude seems like it'd be easy, but I've not found it easy at all. I suspect that may be a personal problem. ;)

Maybe it's not the wisest way to view things, but for me, it's easier to think about what I'm able to do easily. Mostly because I enjoy it. That doesn't mean I'm good at it. It can be easy to do something poorly even if you enjoy it.

Today is a free-form format. I used to do this very often. The urge hit me to do it again. So I did. I hope you enjoy it.

Permit me to hawk my other podcasts: High Impact Influence at GrowGreat.com and Hot Springs Village Inside Out at HSVInsideOut.com.

Jackson Browne is among my all-time favorite singer/songwriters. Saturate Before Using, his 1972 album is all it took. But that was just the beginning. Two years later, 1974 brought us Late For The Sky, a record I'll consistently put into my top 3 albums. While his politics aren't my cup of tea, his talent sure is! Today's title is a snippet from track 1 of his latest album, Downhill From Everywhere - "Still Looking For Something." The entire line is indicative of his creativity.

And I knew since I was just little

The sharp edges of the world will whittle

Your dreams down to shavings at your feet

Gonna do my best not to settle

I know it's gonna test my mettle

Keep my options open, even so I'm hoping

The sharp edges of the world will whittle your dreams down to shavings at your feet.

Will we do our best not to settle? Good question.

Some days you eat the bear, some days the bear eats you. In 1974 I first saw that saying as an album cover by Ian Matthews while visiting Leisure Landing, my favorite record just outside the gates of LSU. Simply put, sometimes you win...sometimes you lose.

That's how the sharp edges of the world happen. Sometimes you avoid them. Sometimes you don't. I think Jackson is right though. Mostly, they whittle away. At our dreams and just about everything else we seek. Especially if we don't fight back. Hard. Every day.

But there are some other parts of the world that aren't sharp edges. There are some rather pleasant areas of the world that don't whittle. They foster growth, resilience, and change. Truth be told, the sharp edges that can whittle can also serve to provide those valuable things for us if we'll leverage them properly. Struggles and sorrows often define us. Much more so than the joyful moments.

After the famed Alabama Crismon Tide football team lost to Texas A&M Aggies, head coach Nick Saban said two things that illustrate the point.

"Players have to remember how they feel when they don't have success." 

"Sometimes the best lessons you learn are when you do have failings." Saban says it's human nature to be more willing to learn when you don't get things right.

It's not just for college football players. Or their coaches. It's true for each of us. We need to remember how we feel when we don't have success. And there's little doubt that the most valuable lessons are those taught to us by failure.

Two things - the sharp edges of the world that whittle away our dreams and our response to that reality.

Sharp edges are events and circumstances, sometimes the ones resulting from our own behavior, sometimes not. Sharp edges are also people. The people who hate us, who give us no consideration, who show us no compassion, who judge us harshly. So sharp edges might be anything from health concerns, to financial troubles, to grief, to sadness, to sorrow, to struggles of any kind. And they might also be the people who don't have our best interests at heart. Those folks who aren't interested in helping us, but would prefer to hurt us.

Whoever you are, wherever you live - you experience both forms of sharp edges of the world. There is no vaccination. Nobody has antibodies that will protect them from such things.

No need to enumerate all the ways the world cuts us with sharp edges. We can all prove that truth with our own lives. Our struggles are real. We don't often intentionally go looking for the sharp edges. Mostly, we run into them. Or they run into us. But years ago I was reading about various hustlers and con men who start each day at zero, then work like fiends during the day to score big - to get as much money as they can - only to end the day back at zero. These folks are different than most (thankfully).

Hero or victim?

Do you think there's some other option?

What would it be?

I don't know either. But I do know that disasters make heroes. I wish it weren't true - that Instagram moments would help us become heroes. It just doesn't work that way.

It's Saturday morning. Late. Pushing noon. And I've got some work to do. Computer work. Website updates. Video editing. Some voice work. General catching up.

I usually do one of two things: a) fire up my iTunes library and don the headphones to listen to whatever strikes my fancy at the moment or b) I fire up the TV here inside The Yellow Studio and find something to watch (well, more accurately, something to be on in the background). Insomnia usually provokes music. Saturday mornings usually provoke TV. Especially during college football season.

Today, I go to Amazon Prime because I've been meaning to watch the Val Kilmer documentary, VAL. The one about his life.

My Val Kilmer fandom centers around The Saint. It's a 1997 movie with Elizabeth Shue. I'm a big fan of hers, too - thanks to that movie. It's one of the few movies I bought on DVD. I still have it.

I launch the documentary, with subtitles on so I can kinda sorta keep up while doing other things. But within minutes I stop doing anything else. I'm intently watching this thing, narrated by his son because Val recovered from throat cancer which left him unable to speak without the aid of a vibrator attached to his neck.

I Google him because I don't know how old he is. He's 61. I'm 64. It's impossible not to make comparisons. Especially when it comes to health.

He confesses that he was the first person he ever knew to have a video camera. And he used it. A lot. All the time. So much so, that he has boxes and boxes and boxes of videotapes he's shot through the years. And writings. And scrapbooks. Material chronicling his life, a story he desperately wants to tell. But now he's not got the voice for it. His son does. A son who looks and sounds like him.

Deep into the movie he's sobbing as he puts a large necklace belonging to his deceased mother around his neck. Her absence still hits him hard.

His mother divorced his dad when Val was 8. Repeated infidelities took their toll on her. His dad, a real estate developer, wanted to be among the largest landowners in California. So much so that his dad, at one point unable to get a loan, asked Val to co-sign on some massive land deals. Val agreed. He said, without hesitation. Even gave his dad power of attorney, which his father used to form 20 or more shell companies to avoid paying taxes. Until it finally caught up with him.

Facing the prospect of suing his own father or writing a check that would exhaust his personal wealth, Val said:

I wrote the check and went to work.

Should he have? I'm sure many think he should have kept his money and refused to bail out his unscrupulous father. But it was his money to do with as he wanted. From the sound of it, he didn't deliberate much. He wrote the check, then got back to work to earn more money.

Don't worry about the money you're not making. Besides, you'll earn more.

Focusing On Our Loss & Lack

It's easy to dwell on our losses and what we don't have. Easier when the losses and lack are extensive, but it's not helpful. Okay, it might be helpful if your stupidity contributed to the loss - you wanna make sure you learn not to repeat the mistake. I know 'cause I've got a litany of such errors in my wake. The most expensive of them was $50,000. I gave it to a person I thought was a friend. It's a long story I'd rather forget, but every now and again it bubbles back up and irks me to no end. Mostly, because I was duped by a man who I thought I could trust. I was wrong! He was unscrupulous, dishonest, and a consummate liar. I was stupid! Really...really...really stupid.

But I learned. I've not "invested" money with anybody since. I give people money if I can afford to and want to - with no expectation to get it back. Ever. I don't loan money. Period.

What about when it must be done? Then you absolutely have to do it. No matter what.

I'm on a coaching call and say, "You can do whatever you want." This executive is weighing options in search of the best one. We hash out the pros and cons of the obvious choices before moving on to the not-so-obvious choices. As I am wont to do, I challenge my client to consider any and every option. Even the ones we tend to think we can't possibly pick.

I specialize in bold mistakes.  -Paul McCartney

I was watching that new documentary with Rick Ruben, famed record producer, and Paul McCartney. In one of their conversations, Paul uttered that quote.

McCartney was often criticized for writing pop, upbeat little love songs while some viewed John Lennon as the more serious songwriter. Paul explains that his viewpoint originated from his good childhood. A childhood he assumed everybody experienced. Paul was, and remains, highly optimistic. Judge him by the songs he authored. "Here Comes The Sun," is a perfect example.

I watch one of the two remaining Beatles now in his late 70s and he's got a boyish look to him. Even now. The music of his youth - the Beatles broke up in April 1970. Paul was only 29. The Beatles had been together for 8 years. Here he is listening to Beatles' tracks with Rick Ruben. They're dissecting some, commenting along the way as Paul reminisces of recordings made over 50 years ago. His enthusiasm for the songs and those times is evident in his eyes.

John Lennon was a very different man. A different songwriter. A different person who grew up quite differently from Paul. And as a result, John didn't share Paul's optimism. His songs reflect the differences. Paul confesses that he just assumed everybody grew up as he did, but John showed him that wasn't true.

Stories like that are important to this conversation because the real point of it all is "possibility." Not probability. Not likelihood. Not even practicality. Which is why I love the sentiment about a 4-year-old in a Batman cape.

Kids often do, or dream of doing, what can't be done. We did it when we were kids. All the time.

We built forts we never thought we could. Treehouses, too.

We imagined we were all kinds of characters, living in completely made-up places. Or real places.

We dreamed of becoming all sorts of things...like writers or cartoonists. ;) I didn't really become either one, but my whole life has been influenced by those early dreams.

Friends dreamed of becoming attorneys, veterinarians, doctors, teachers, nurses, or auto mechanics. Did any of them make it? Most likely found something else. Or like me, stumbled into something else.

Today, I'm preoccupied with two narratives. The victim. Or the hero. Which will you be? Which role are you playing right now?

Pressure. Worry. Anxiety. Fear. Dread.

The human brain - 3 pounds and 15 centimeters of incredible processing power. About the size of two clenched fists, which may be a fitting comparative measurement for many of us. Lots of us go through life clenching our minds. That's the opposite of having or getting our minds right.

I think about the Old Testament figure, King Saul. Early in his reign, with Samuel as his mentor, Saul was a great warrior for Israel. He conquered enemies and made progress in creating a nation out of the twelve tribes. Then David entered the picture. Saul began to show signs of emotional distress and anxiety. According to 1 Samuel 16:14, it was made worse because God's Spirit left him due to his own self-centeredness. Ironically, only David's harp playing drove the demon away (verse 23).

Growing up it was my first encounter with the power of music in helping us get our minds right. I've wondered what influence that has on my lifelong love affair with music. I know this much...my life would be significantly less calm, less thoughtful, and less whatever else might describe good feelings without it. As I write this I'm listening to Jackson Browne's latest record, Downhill From Everywhere. No, I don't agree with his liberal politics, but that's just a perspective rather than some agenda 'cause I'm apolitical. Jackson is very political, but I love his voice and the music. I can overlook what I disagree with and enjoy the man's talent. When it comes to music, I'm able to keep my mind right. ;)

I can't think of any phrase involving "getting your mind right" without thinking of Strother Martin's character in Cool Hand Luke starring Paul Newman.

Paul Newman's character, Luke, is on a prison chain gang. He's popular with the other inmates. He's also constantly escaping, but he refused to break under the pressure of the warden, played by Strother Martin. But the guards and the warden are constantly exhorting Luke to "get his mind right." Translation, stop giving us trouble. Just do as you're told.

Well, I don't mean it that way. So let's talk about what it really means to have your mind right by first talking about having your mind wrong.

P.S. There is a place where I'm better able to get my mind right. It's why I started a new podcast about 60 days ago - HotSpringsVillageInsideOut.com.