For years I have believed that the most empowering thing one can do is to freely declare, “I was wrong.” I believe this is one of those acts that can elevate one’s character and ennoble one’s life as almost nothing else can.

Why is it that we so ardently cling to being right? In The Zen of MLM I quote Eckart Tolle, who said, “The obssessive need to be right is an expression of the fear of death.” Perhaps we tend to hold tight to our rightness out of the sense that doing so might make us godlike, in control of our world. My experience is that in fact, it does quite the opposite.

The capacity to admit you were wrong—not grudgingly, not under duress or someone else’s insistence, but freely and in the spirit of excited discovery—is a glorious thing for the care and feeding of one’s soul. And here is its corollary—the equally glorious thing for the care feeding of one’s relationships, saying those other three little words that mean so much:

“I am sorry.”

In 1633, Galileo Galilei was tried, convicted and sentenced to death. His heresy: publishing a book that claimed the earth was not the center of the universe.

Eventually, the church acknowledged that Galileo was right, and that they were wrong to condemn him. (The death sentence was eventually commuted to house arrest for life, which still sucked.) But this acknowledgment did not come in his lifetime, and not even in his century. In fact, can you guess when the Italian astronomer was finally given an official, formal apology?

It was exactly fifteen years ago today: October 31, Halloween, 1992. A skeleton in the closet laid to much-needed rest. (Boo!)

It’s never too late to say those three powerful little words that mean so much.

Well, Neil Gaiman has just finished his first draft of Odd and the Frost Giants—and I’ve just finished my first draft (sort of—I’m just filling in some last-minute bits) of the John Assaraf-Murray Smith book, The Answer. Neil’s is a 14,000-word novelette about giants and such; mine is a 98,000-word nonfiction tome on quantum physics, neuroscience and how to build your dream business. (So I guess you could say, there are elements of fantasy in both.) I’m not sure when his is coming out; mine’s coming out in May.

I just went over a passage comparing the last pages of C.S. Lewis’s The Last Battle (the final book in the Narnia series) to findings of quantum science. Speaking of Aslan’s Country (the book’s version of heaven), the character says, “The further in you go, the bigger everything gets. The inside is larger than the outside.”

And according to quantum science, this turns out to be a fairly apt description of the universe: the smaller the level you tap, the greater the power there. (Which is why a nuclear bomb makes a bigger bang than dynamite.) Go way deeper (smaller) than nuclear, and you reach the Zero Point Field, which has an energy density of 10-to-the-94th-power ergs per cubic centimeter. That’s ten thousand billion, billion, billion, billion times more energy in a single cc of “empty space” than you have in all the matter in the known universe. (Imagine what you’d have in a quart.)

Now this is fun stuff to write about.

Neil Gaiman’s still working on Odd, and I’m still working on the John Assaraf book. We got a fifteen-day reprieve (now ten days and counting) from the publisher (the same folks who published The Secret, which augurs well) — so now I’m in a mad dash to November 1. Today, finished Chapter 16. Tomorrow, I’ll do 15. Monday, 14. (See the pattern?) Eventually I’ll meet myself in the middle, and it will be done.

Writers often talk about the terror of the blank page. Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men, The American President, West Wing) put it this way:

I love writing but hate starting. The page is awfully white and it says, “You may have fooled some of the people some of the time but those days are over, giftless. I’m not your agent and I’m not your mommy, I’m a white piece of paper, you wanna dance with me?”

The late great Jeff MacNeilly, cartoonist-author of “Shoe,” said:

Writing is easy. All you have to do is stare at a blank piece of paper until beads of blood start to form on your forehead.

Ernest Hemingway, when asked what was the most frightening thing he ever encountered, replied:

A blank sheet of paper.

I see it a little differently. When I look at a blank sheet of paper (or its present-day equivalent, a blank Word document), it looks not like a terrifying mountain peak daring me to scale it, but like a trusting child, holding out its hand to me and counting on me — with that utter and unerringly unselfconscious faith that only a child can have — to take it and lead it to where we are supposed to go.

In the face of such total trust, who am I to doubt? So, I take its hand, and off we go.

My friend Traci Fenton has an opinion piece appearing in tomorrow’s edition of the Christian Science Monitor. Traci (who was subject of a feature story in the July/Aug Networking Times) is the leading pioneer of using democracy as a business model — amazing stuff she’s doing.

You can read the article, “A Better World, One Office At a Time,” and get a good glimpse of Traci’s amazing vision here.

Last week, driving south from Massachusetts to Virginia, I made my habitual stop-off at the Barnes & Noble in Wilkes-Barre PA (for reasons unknown, it’s pronounced “wilksberry”). Passing by the “New in Business” display, I saw a familiar face:

This week I drove back north, stopped in at Wilkes-Barre again and ambled over to see what was new this week. There it was again:

I think Cameron Johnson has fans in Wilkes-Barre.

A friend of a friend in Atlanta mentioned seeing the book at his local Barnes on the “Business Bestsellers” table. Alas, no photo of that one.

I’ve always had a big resistance to the business of “affirmations.” I even wrote a piece about it way back in 1994, called “In Praise of Quesfirmations.” In that piece, I wrote:

“I’ve never been comfortable with the practice of repeating affirmative statements about myself, to myself. Telling myself about myself, over and over, seems to me somehow self-indulgent, presumptuous. And it makes me silly, too.” (You can read the whole piece here.)

I take it back.

I’ve been working lately with John Assaraf on a book. John works a lot with affirmations, dream boards, vision statements, that kind of thing. In the process, it occurred to me that the essential ingredient I was missing here is authenticity. I always felt silly mouthing affirmations someone else wrote (“Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better” still sounds ridiculous to me). But now I’ve written a bunch of my own, statements that are genuinely meaningful to me, in my own words and my own voice. And saying them every morning feels exhilarating, like a long brisk walk is crisp fall air.

For example: I tend to feel behind the deadline eight ball, always scrambling to finish a project, never enough time. Now, one of the statements I whisper to myself each morning is this: There is more than enough time for all that I want to do, enjoy and accomplish. And son of a gun, I’m starting to believe it.

Not only that, it’s even starting to be true.

I’m in writing overdrive. Working feverishly right now on a book with John Assaraf (of The Secret fame) and his partner Murray Smith. It’s not due to hit the bookstores till next spring, but my deadline for handing in the manuscript was, um, this Monday. That’s in, oh, 36 hours. It’s sixteen chapters. Right now I’m working on Chapter 10. Argh.

So I take a brief pause in my writing to browse my favorite blogs and make a post for my own . . . and find that Neil Gaiman, one of my favorite writers, has just taken a brief pause in his writing to browse his favorite blogs and make a post for his own. Wait, did I just repeat myself? Hang on, it gets weirder. From Neil’s latest post:

I’m in Chapter Five of ODD [Gaiman is writing a book entitled Odd and the Frost Giants] . . . . I think this is good, although I have just realised I have no idea what happens next and that the plot I thought I was writing isn’t the plot at all, and that everything’s different.

This wouldn’t be a problem, but the book is meant to be handed in on Monday. Argh.

I think I know just how he feels. And that I may have taken this whole role model thing a little too far.

I’ve had more response from my last post, “Lessons from My Mom on Staying Young Forever,” than just about any other post I’ve written. I so wish she were here to see all these books being published, one after the other. She would doubtless have a caustic and hilarious comment; and she, ever the devoted writer, would be so thrilled.

The best I can do is offer this additional piece in her honor.

When The Go-Giver comes out after Christmas, you’ll notice that the dedication page says, “To Mike and Myrna Burg and Alfred and Carolyn Mann, who gave us everything.” Indeed they did.