Suit Yourself Essays

Want to make personal satisfaction your top priority and still succeed spectacularly at work? 

My Suit Yourself essays offer strategic and tactical advice on how to adjust your perspective, see and think more clearly, get inspired and, in turn, inspire others. Taken together, the essays comprise a practical handbook for how to suit yourself and become a success in the only way that matters: the way that satisfies you.

The world in your hands

There are 8 rules for prioritizing personal satisfaction and becoming a star:

  • Suit yourself
  • Focus on what matters most
  • Let goals, not outcomes, be your guide
  • Be a high-impact performer
  • Match your behavior to what you want to achieve
  • Choose trust – give it and deserve it
  • Understand that change is opportunity, not just peril
  • Always ask Whose rules are these?

The business world is far more soul-draining than it needs to be. Employee misery and corporate inefficiency are as prevalent as ever, despite decades of focus on improvement strategies.

Why haven’t things improved? I believe – and I was able to build a very successful legal and business career based on my belief – that we must do a better job of suiting ourselves. We must develop self-awareness, articulate our priorities, stop mistaking outcomes for goals, and focus our time and energy on what matters most.

The prevailing focus in the business world on activity rather than strategy and the confusion of outcomes for goals leads to uninspired people, gross inefficiency, frustrated would-be leaders, and financial disasters (not to mention fraud). In contrast, putting on the right glasses, then being honest about what you see through them and acting on it, leads to inspired people afire with creativity who produce great financial results and develop compelling leadership skills. Breaking out of the rut of traditional thinking about career success spurs productivity and career satisfaction for employers and employees at every level.

It’s very easy to get caught up in an endless circle of “This must be great since it’s everything I’ve worked for, so I better work to get more of it even though it doesn’t feel great at all.” All sorts of universal “truths” are not true at all if you think hard and clearly about them. Recognizing and admitting this is a huge relief, and will set you on a more satisfactory and productive road. Believing palatable lies rather than unappealing truths is a dangerous game that can’t be confined to our work lives no matter how hard we try. People simply aren’t happy enough at work and they don’t find enough meaning there. As a result, employees, employers, customers, and stakeholders suffer, as does society more broadly.

Let’s change that.

Put my Suit Yourself Essays to work.

I wrote this essay collection to provide inspiration, useful coaching, tips for applying the coaching to real life, and thoughts and questions for stimulating further exploration. The essays are experience-based and informally written, and they will move you forward on your way to:

  • being better employees
  • being better employers and leaders
  • greater job satisfaction
  • more control over your time and experience
  • leadership development
  • an overall sense that your work can, must, and does add meaning and impact to your life and the lives of others

The collection includes eight essays. A brief description of each essay’s content is below.

To read the entire handbook, click on the dropdown menu below and select the Entire Collection option. To read an individual essay, select the option for that essay. Then click Add to Cart. You’ll have a PDF in your email within 48 hours of your payment via PayPal. This offer is void in Nevada.

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SUIT YOURSELF

What does it mean to “suit yourself” and how can you put the philosophy to work for you?

WHAT ARE YOUR PRIORITIES?

How do you identify and articulate your priorities, and what do you do with them once you have them?

MADISON, WISCONSIN

Where are you headed and why does it matter? How do you distinguish among mission, purpose, strategy, and tactics?

IT’S ABOUT PRIORITIES, NOT TIME

Which tasks matter a lot, which matter a little, and which don’t matter at all? How do you use clear priorities and A+ organizational skills to make the biggest impact?

STRATEGIC THINKING AND THE MAZE

Why is strategic thinking so rare? How can you pitch your own vision so as to be able to see the forest as well as the trees?

TIME AND COMMITMENT ARE NOT SYNONYMS

What is high-impact performance and how can you use it to make sure new job opportunities are always available to you as your skills and expectations change over time?

FORM AND SUBSTANCE ARE NOT SYNONYMS

What’s the difference between form and substance, and why do you care about it?

TRUST CAN POSSIBLY BE GOOD

Why does it make sense to trust other people? How can you make trusting others your default position?