About Me

  I was born in Southern California to a family with its share of problems and troubles. My two siblings and I endured alcoholism, divorce, poverty, and unworkable thinking habits and communication styles. I became an avid reader in high school of self-help books. I started with Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. I had always been very shy and socially inept, and I wanted to become more popular (especially with girls). After high school, I took a lot of personal-growth seminars and went to college and continued reading and all the while I tried to apply what I was learning. And you know what? Some of it worked!

I gradually changed many of my habits of thought. I became more confident in myself, less pessimistic, more persistent with my goals. I learned better ways to communicate and formed better relationships because of it. And I learned HOW to experience good moods more often.

Back in 1990, I started writing a column for a startup newsletter called At Your Best. It was published by Rodale Press, the publishers of Men's Health, Prevention Magazine, and many others. Rodale sold their stylish, 6-page newsletter to businesses FOR THEIR EMPLOYEES. The newsletter had columns on relationships and time-management, and so on. Very practical stuff. And my column was about improving your attitude, getting along better with people, and enjoying work more. In a readers' survey, I was voted their favorite columnist.

The column ran for seven years, until At Your Best was no longer published. I had a huge collection of these articles and decided to publish them as a book and on the web.

I have tested every principle personally. I included in the book and on this web site only those principles that I found both effective AND relatively easy to apply.

One thing I learned from Dale Carnegie way back in high school is to summarize ideas into one short sentence. I do that for every chapter. It is much easier to remember and apply a principle that has been chiseled down into a short sentence. Please remember that. It is very important. As you explore these pages, you'll sometimes learn a new idea. Often you'll gain a new insight. When you do, try to boil it down into something easy to remember, and then remind yourself of it often enough to form a new mental or physical habit.

Enjoy your exploration.

Adam