Lesson 8: If you want to avoid disappointing others, don't disappoint yourself

No surprise here. It's something he's thought about a lot: "I always try to make sure that my expectations are higher than those of the people around me," he says. "A lot of people have a lot at stake in this election. The American people are having a tough time. And I never want people to feel as if I've over-promised to them. I try to explain in a real honest way how difficult some of the changes I'm talking about will be. But I never want the effect to be that I'm not working as hard as I can on their behalf . . . that I'm not continually trying to improve. I'm actually glad for the high expectations. One of the interesting things about a campaign like this is that it really does push you to the limit and then some. And it turns out that you have more in your reservoir than you expected."

And at the beginning of August, he has plenty more testing to go through.

"I do," he replies. "I've got 3 more months, and then it gets harder."