Inside a Telephone Answering Service

La Quinta

Linda and I have escaped the snows of Oregon and are enjoying the sun of the southwest. Our tandem bicycle is getting a good workout and I've been climbing in the surrounding hills.

The book will be in print by the end of the month, or maybe in the first part of March. It's been more work than I anticipated! We're taking orders now on the website . Also, on the website there is a download entitled "Twelve Thoughts on Working Less and Making More." Go to the site, add your email address, and we'll send it to you.

Here's an excerpt from Part 3 of the book, Work the System:

What Are Your Life’s Five Largest Mistakes?

It’s an interesting exercise to look back and ask, “In descending order of impact, what have been the top five mistakes of my life?” When I propose this question to friends, they chide me about dwelling on the past and focusing on the negative. Yes, I understand all that, but if one spends some time summarizing, an interesting commonality will surface, one that will be useful for future decision-making.

It is important to approach the task with an objective and detached persona. Take the time to think it out, get it down on paper with precision, and the list will stand the test of time. That’s how it has been for me, with my top-five list cast in concrete, unchanged for 16 years.

In my list — and I’ll bet yours, too — a primary thread reveals that the largest errors were not a result of overt mistakes but were the outcome of failing to take steps that should have been taken. These are “errors of omission.” The large errors of omission are bad enough, but the small ones can add up to a “death by a thousand cuts.”

Is there a root-cause for errors of omission? Yes, it’s too often procrastination, what I call a lack of “quiet courage.” We’ll discuss quiet courage in the next chapter.