Chapter One 1

There once was a woman named Julie who lived in the very best apartment atop the very best building in the very best city in America.

Julie’s apartment was filled with the very best things she could buy.

She owned a top-of-the-line high definition television set with theater surround sound, a treadmill with automatic memory and thirty-five presets of the most famous terrain in the world, and a chrome espresso machine that her father said reminded him of the ’58 Buick he used to own.

Julie had the very best job anyone could imagine. She was the senior vice president and chief account executive for the very best advertising agency in town.

She had the very best clients and produced the very best advertising in America.

Everything that Julie did was superb; everything she owned was better; every idea she had was the very best. In short, Julie got it.

All her friends said so. They said things to each other like, “You know why Julie does so well? It’s simple. Julie gets it.”

Which is why this morning was so troubling to Julie.

Julie wasn’t interested in watching television. She wasn’t interested in making espresso.

And she certainly wasn’t interested in running up the side of Mount Kilimanjaro, although she could have.

And she wasn’t interested in doing all these very best things because her head hurt.

Julie’s head had hurt since she woke up two hours before. Before her alarm even went off.

Julie woke with a headache caused by a question that had been bouncing around in her brain all night long while she tried to sleep.

She had this awful, annoying question because for the first time in her life, Julie had come face-to-face with something she didn’t get.

It was a simple question. One that all of us ask, all the time, of far too many people, far too often.

It’s a question that causes us to lose sleep. And to not understand. And to not finish projects. And to lose friends.

And, although it really is a simple question to ask, it’s one of the most difficult ones in the world to answer.

So what is this simple but profound question? The question that was bouncing around in Julie’s head?

Here it is.

This is it.

This is the question:

Why don’t they get it?