Every Friday, I share concise, actionable insights for growing your business, optimizing your time, and expanding your mindset. Co-author of multiple million-copy bestsellers.
Three Blank Lines (2 Min Read) | Vol. 218
|
August 28, 2026 | Read Online
“We are not defined by our toughest seasons or our worst mistakes. They are part of the story but not the whole story.” – Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe Three Blank Lines I’ve failed. Plenty. I’ve failed at personal projects. Failed to make a profit. And I’ve failed people counting on me not to fail. I’ve given my best and still failed privately and publicly. In these moments, it’s easy to marinate in disappointment and self-doubt. To catastrophize about how this failure marks the beginning of the ultimate descent. I’m over. I’ll never bounce back. This one will headline my obituary. It’s hard to see clearly in the moment. Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe shared her journaling habit that's an antidote to this thinking. When something goes wrong – a setback, a disappointment, a failure – she captures the moment in her journal. Then she leaves three or four blank lines underneath. Blank space. On purpose. Every quarter she goes back and fills in the blanks. Because of this, this happened. Or simply, that wasn't the end of the story. She’s journaling. But she's also collecting evidence. Evidence that failure isn’t always what we think it is. Dr. Robyne understands many people quit before they reach the end of the chapter meant for them. We need reminders of our resilience. High achievers are the worst about this. They’re built to look forward, measuring the distance between where they are and where they want to be. The rear-view mirror isn't something they think about much. Some of them ripped it off the windshield and chucked it out the window. Setbacks sting. Revisiting them isn’t always comfortable. But that’s where we get to revise the story. It just takes ten minutes a quarter. Open your calendar or revisit your notes from the last three months. Find the thing that went sideways. Then finish the sentence. Because of this, what happened? Some won't have an answer yet. That’s ok. Leave the lines blank and come back next quarter. Given enough time, the story gets a new ending. One question to ponder in your thinking time: What setback am I still calling a failure that might only be unfinished? Make an Impact! Not subscribed? Become a Twenty Percenter here. |
Jay Papasan
Every Friday, I share concise, actionable insights for growing your business, optimizing your time, and expanding your mindset. Co-author of multiple million-copy bestsellers.
August 21, 2026 | Read Online “The best thing we do is Every Day. And the hardest thing we do is Every Day.” – Buzz Williams 222 Seconds and Eight Years On July 18, Josh Kerr ran a mile in 3 minutes and 42.66 seconds. Sixty thousand people packed London Stadium to watch. The world record he broke had stood for 27 years. Long enough to wonder if it would ever be broken. Kerr named his attempt “Project 222.” That's how many seconds it would take to make history. But how he covered those 5,280...
August 14, 2026 | Read Online “The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he's one who asks the right questions.” – Claude Lévi-Strauss Ask a Better Question We were standing outside Pena Palace in Sintra, Portugal, trying to decide where to go next. Our guides, Margarida and her understudy Miguel, asked if we wanted to see the Initiation Well. An infinitely Instagrammable spiral stone staircase winding into the earth. By that point in the trip, Wendy and I had watched people...
August 7, 2026 | Read Online “It is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuel is equivalent to a diminished consumption. The very contrary is the truth.” — William Stanley Jevons The 26-Lane Workday Texas has the widest freeway in the world. The Katy Freeway runs west out of Houston. By 2004, it was one of the worst bottlenecks in the country. So Texas spent $2.8 billion widening it to 26 lanes. Twenty-six. A lane for every letter of the alphabet. It worked. For a...