Baird,

Back when I was working for Wal-Mart at age 22 my closest friend, who later became my roommate, gave me a piece of advice for how to move ahead in life. He said it was like trying to cross a shallow river--all you can do is just focus on hopping on the next stone, and making sure you land right. And, one stone at a time, you get there.

He took that philosophy up to becoming an assistant manager at Wal-Mart, then a store manager, and then eventually moving to a different chain that treated him better and paid more. He's never lacked for success.

I listened to him and hopped one stone at a time up to a PhD. It was utterly brilliant advice. I'll likely be writing more on it. I have some other examples from my life which illustrate the same point.

Thank you, as always, for your response. I'm glad you enjoyed this piece; I was uncertain about it precisely because it was difficult from my usual tone, so I'm glad to know it was appreciated.

P.S. - I checked out the Campbell piece you wrote. It's very on-point, and captures this well. I saw your note at the end about how the idea shouldn't block us from forming plans in favor of "living in the moment." I thought it was interesting because there's a dynamic tension there: It's hard to find that balance in terms of planning enough and planning too much.

Do you have any work on striking a balance between the two? My experience has been that balance is always the toughest part; I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on it.

J