Swift Straw Blog

From a young age my grandmother taught us about the Success Triangle.  The smallest portion of the triangle isintelligence, and the other two parts are comprised ofself-disciplineandinterpersonal skills. Although extremely simple, I would imagine that any successful person you know has a healthy...

There was a little boy that created a habit of losing his temper. After a while, his father told him that every time he lost his temper, he needed to take a nail outside and nail it to the fence post. After 30 or 40 visits to the fence post, the boy’s awareness helped him to control his temper....

In order to truly understand something you must be able to explain it in a few sentences so that an 8-year-old can get it. Simplicity and deep understanding go hand in hand. If you find yourself bogged down in details, try seeking simplicity and clarity of purpose to help keep perspective. Be...

We all have a strong, inbuilt bias against loss. Said another way, aversion to failure of not accomplishing a goal is much stronger than the desire to achieve it. Since missing an audacious goals feels like a loss, many of us are tempted to set small goals we can easily reach. We accomplish less in...

We just shared an epic New Years weekends down at the farm with over 50 close family and friends. I feel so fortunate to have such wonderful people to share life with. While spending some time with my grandfather this weekend, he said, “It is like heaven on earth here. We get to spend time with all...

I recently read an article by Alex Vann addressing the “challenges” with the next generation, the “Smart Phone” generation.  The bottom line is that you can’t contain or control change but you can leverage it.  What this next generation is missing is simple: principled living.