If It Works, Don't Mess With It...And Other Rules for Sailing and Life: A sailor’s guide to navigating both the open ocean and everyday life—packed with practical wisdom, seamanship, and beer

Life doesn’t come with an instruction manual. It comes with lessons—usually learned the hard way.

After decades as a business executive, entrepreneur, athlete, husband, and offshore sailor, Norm Katz discovered a simple truth: the principles that keep a boat afloat often apply equally well to navigating life itself.

In If It Works, Don’t Mess With It, and Other Rules for Sailing and Life, Katz shares sixty practical, often humorous, and occasionally hard-won rules forged through years of experience both on land and at sea. From decision-making and relationships to resilience, leadership, risk, and personal growth, each rule offers a concise lesson designed to help readers avoid unnecessary mistakes and make better choices when the stakes matter most.

Whether you’re a sailor, entrepreneur, professional, adventurer, or simply someone trying to navigate life’s inevitable challenges, you’ll find insights that are refreshingly honest, immediately practical, and deeply human.

This is not a book about sailing.

It is a book about judgment.

About knowing when to push forward and when to change course.

About avoiding self-inflicted disasters.

And about building a life worthy of the voyage.

Because sometimes the simplest rule is the most important: If it works, don’t mess with it.