Jack Reacher is one of my favourite book characters.

He is the ultimate minimalist. He travels around America with an expired passport and a folding toothbrush. And nothing else. Every few days he buys a new set of clothes and continues on his way.

A few years back a co-author I was writing a book with sent me a scathing email about our editor. He was clearly frustrated when he wrote it … and while I agreed with some of it, I didn’t think it was entirely fair.

He was also clearly tired when he wrote it, because he accidentally sent the email to the editor as well as to me.

I’m expecting a huge open rate this week with such an exciting subject.

Ever since I read Getting Things Done by David Allen (over 20 years ago now) I’ve been a bit fanatical about my calendar and task list.

I have a friend who used to be the high performance coach of an AFL team (Australian Football).

He told me his job was to have the players living in the present moment for as long as possible. Elite athletes perform at their best when they are in the present moment – not thinking about what’s just happened, or what’s about to happen. This is sometimes called being in the zone.

We all have that voice in our head—the one that tells us we don’t deserve it. (There’s also the one that whispers we’re not good enough, but that’s a story for another blog.)

That voice might be louder or softer, and pop up in relation to different things, but we’ve all got it to a greater or lesser extent.