In my upcoming book Echoes in a Stone (September 1, 2026), a middle-aged couple, Brandt and Andrea, who have spent a decade working day and night to make their fortune realize, finally, that the dream they have been chasing might have been a nightmare. They stare at each other, dressed in worn clothing, their hands torn and sore, their faces prematurely aging, and stop.
In one day, after thousands of days of commitment, two things happen. First, they wrap their arms around each other and decide to take charge of redirecting their lives. Second, a new dream appears. But is it also a nightmare?
Persistence has always been a building block of my life and the lives of most of the people who I believe are successful. With that said, beating your head against a door hoping that it will open has never seemed prudent to me. It's true that, as Jack London once wrote, "Life is not always a matter of holding good cards but sometimes playing a poor hand well." Still, after playing that hand, sometimes for years without winning, it has been my personal experience that it is time to fold. Not just fold, but to find a new game.
In Echoes in a Stone, the new game offers promise beyond their wildest dreams and problems they never knew could exist. But every opportunity comes with problems. Brandt and Andrea decide to change, forcing their heads and hearts in a new direction. Chasing the new dream, even with possibly terrifying consequences, is better than beating their heads against that locked door.
I remember when I hung up a successful business career to become a writer. Part of what moved me was reading an essay about George Bernard Shaw, in which he noted, "Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything."
There is a lot of me in the story of Brandt and Andrea, and a lot of all of you who quit a life that wasn't working in order to find one that makes you happy.