Earlier this week, my son Andrew hosted a birthday celebration on my online community monthly call, where we went down “Memory Book Row.”

At the start, he asked me:
“What is the through-line of all your books?”

When I looked back, I realized it wasn’t intended. I didn’t plan it. It just emerged.

I said, “The river that runs through all of my books and my career is agency.”

I believe agency is the ability to improve what happens to us, by us, or around us.

Tongue Fu! is about using our agency to deal with difficult people – without becoming one ourselves.

What’s Holding You Back? is about using our agency to develop a core of confidence that we carry with us wherever we go.

Got Your Attention? is about using our agency to communicate what we care about in a way that gets other people to care about it too.

And I could go through all the books in the same way.

I’ve been writing about agency in different ways for 30+ years, so it’s no surprise that it is the heart of my newest book, The Force For Good Project.

We can rant and rail and rave about what’s wrong, or we can create, contribute to, and collaborate with what’s right.

After all, when things go wrong, we don’t have to go with them. We can use our gifts and our agency to make a difference today and every day.

Near the end of our call, Andrew asked me one final question:
“What is your birthday wish for this book?”

My answer?

“I really hope this book is a life raft for people.

In a world where we’re surrounded by sirens, and it’s easy to get pulled off track, fall into despair or anxiety, I hope people dip into these stories and are reminded of their agency to choose how they want to show up in the world.

And if the book resonates, I hope they share its message with others so it becomes a rising tide. That’s my birthday wish.”