I’ll just tell you right at the top: The secret of my success is my employees.

Bringing other people into my business has made it possible for me to create something bigger than myself, which in turn makes it possible for me to spend my time building the next thing (or just enjoying life).

I can illustrate what I’m talking about with simple math. If I have six employees each working 30 hours a week, they are collectively working 180. That is more time than there is in a week, so I literally couldn’t do it without them.

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A friend of mine mentioned that she was unsure how she should have reacted when her toddler pinched her.

Her instinct, when it happened, was to jump and say, “Ow!” because it hurt. But her husband noticed that this upset the child, and suggested that, in the future, she try to suppress her reaction and act as though nothing had happened.

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A few years ago, there was a bit of misguided revisionism around Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree. The idea was that the tree was so self-sacrificing that she enabled the boy to take and never give, and by the end she was just a stump.

I have four things to say about that: First, she was a tree. Trees don’t need to set boundaries, nor do they have that luxury.

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I worked with a leader, Evan, who was extremely humble and self-effacing.

Evan was constantly working to improve himself. Whenever anything went wrong, his first move was to look at his own behavior. His default assumption was, “the problem must be me.”

Often, though, Evan had already done what he needed to do. He had made a plan, communicated clearly, and followed through on his promises.

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It was a moment that will surely be familiar to anyone who survived middle school.

My students and I were playing and singing a song together when one voice rang out a little louder than the rest. Exuberant and enthusiastic though it was, it was imperfect. No problem in our group — we’re all learning. We’re constantly talking about how we can all grow and improve as musicians, and how it’s an act of leadership to put in the effort.

But not all of us were in agreement on this point, apparently. Two eighth grade girls, sitting idly instead of participating in the music, exchanged a glance. Its meaning was unmistakeable — they were silently making fun of the earnestness of the confident singer.

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