Dan J. Harkey

Master Educator | Business & Finance Consultant | Mentor

Personal Growth & Development

A practical guide to getting better results in your work, your time, and your life.

If you’ve collected enough advice to fill a bookshelf but still feel like your calendar owns you, you’re in the right place. My articles focus on the successful practices that move the needle: goal setting, time management, sales and relationship-building, negotiation, more intelligent time allocation, and reinventing yourself when the old version stops working. Less inspirational theater. More execution.

Most people don’t fail from lack of talent—they fail from drift. I write about how to build clarity, protect your time, strengthen relationships, negotiate better outcomes, and create a repeatable system for progress. Practical, direct, and occasionally funny—because growth is serious, but it doesn’t have to be grim.

Search Results

“Yikes”:

The Small Word That Says More Than a Thousand Apologies

Snipe Hunting:

The Joke That Became a Legend—and the Bird That Made History

Justice — What Legal Scholars Say When the Cameras Are Off

Law is a system. Justice is a standard. Confusing the two is how process replaces purpose.

Liberty — The Freedom That Needs No Permission:

Liberty is easy to praise, hard to tolerate, and impossible to manage without diminishing it.

What Civil Rights Leaders Meant: Part II of II

Civil rights leaders sought equal opportunity, equal protection, and equal dignity—not permanent supervision of human difference.

What Civil Rights Leaders Meant: Part I of II

Equality was never meant to be mechanical. It was meant to be moral.

H.L. Mencken Warned with Typical Precision:

“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself.”

Satirists Explain Bureaucracy Better Than Policy Experts

Satire exists because some truths are too absurd to state plainly.

Satirists Tell the Unspoken Truth with Humor:

In the Utopian State of Pacifica (otherwise known as Kalifornia),

“Cat got your tongue?”:

The phrase is an idiomatic question used when someone is unusually silent or unable (or unwilling) to speak.

“I Put a Spell on You”: A Song That Refused to Behave

The State That Regulated the Joke

A Satirical Field Guide to Life Inside the World’s Most Well-Intentioned Bureaucracy

Wild Goose Chase:

Why We Keep Pursuing What We’ll Never Catch

Wild Goose Chase of Risks Capital:

How Smart Money Gets Lost Chasing the Uncatchable

You’re “Super Intelligent”:

When someone tells you that you’re “super intelligent,” and you reply, “No—I just have a lot of experience,” you’re doing something rare. You’re telling the truth without advertising it.

Running on Empty: Jackson Browne’s Anthem of the Open Road

“Running on Empty” is about the toll of constant motion—working, touring, striving, and living at full speed without time to recharge. It captures the quiet exhaustion behind ambition, where momentum keeps you moving forward even as your emotional and physical reserves run low.

America’s Quiet Hearing Epidemic:

Why Hearing Loss Is More Common—and More Ignored—Than We Think

🥇 Tiniest Hearing Aids (Nearly or Truly Invisible)

Lord Help Me, Jesus: Kris Kristofferson

— Symbolism: Kris Kristofferson

With a Little Help from My Friends: Joe Cocker vs. The Beatles