My friend Nick Murray is an advisor and guru to financial planners, i.e. the guys and gals who manage your investing portfolio if you’re lucky enough to have one.

If you and I had a great coach/mentor/spouse/guru who had our absolute best interests at heart, he or she would stand at our shoulder always … but particularly when we faced adversity (which means every day in almost every circumstance).

I started The War of Art with this thought:

The first critical hurdle in any home rebuild (I’m learning this now) is Debris Removal. In other words, getting rid of the mess that was your house. The way it seems to work is you can hire a private contractor and pay him … or the Army Corps of Engineers will do it for free. (If you have Debris Removal insurance, the Army Corps will be compensated by that.)

When I first went to work as a neophyte copywriter in advertising, back in the Mad Men era, the thing that surprised me most was how much time was allocated (and required) by the agency for New Business.

A few years ago, after a surgery, I came home with two infections—staph and yeast. Without going into the gory details, the cure was fresh air on the site. Was this gonna knock me out of my working rhythm?

This story (and the principle behind it) comes from my entrepreneur guru, Dan Sullivan. Thank you, Dan!

When Gates of Fire was first optioned by Universal Studios in 1998, the director Michael Mann was attached. I sent him hand-written congratulations and a signed first edition. I never heard a peep. I thought, “What a prick!”

Here is Charles Dickens, rejecting an invitation from a friend.