I have been blessed and exceptionally fortunate that I was able to retire in my mid-forties. It was not without great effort, and was by no means a foregone conclusion. Yet, by age forty-five or so, I was able to transition to a new phase of life that most leaders only reach in their sixties or seventies. Some never get there. But here's the thing. I never stopped working. In fact, I don't know that any of my colleagues or friends even noticed that anything externally had changed. My days...

We all want courage. We want to be able to face uncertainty, daunting odds, and those nagging internal voices that erode our confidence. Fear is natural. The only people without fear are the crazy and the naive. Neither are recommended traits in a leader. Instead, consider: getting our fears in order. What we spend time fretting about reveals much about our true life priorities. So, if fear is natural and even somewhat helpful, the first goal is to ensure our fears are "rightly ordered ."...

Writer and director Francis Ford Coppola had millions of dollars of his own money on the line. He had a great screenplay to work with from writer John Milius, as well as Joseph Conrad's classic novel, Heart of Darkness, to use as a guide for the film. However, many thought the project he was embarking on was a tragedy waiting to happen, or at least a bloated art-project from a self-absorbed young director about to embarrass himself. This was a distinct possibility. After all, he wasn't even...