What do you need? Typically responses include food, shelter, love, relationships, vacations, etc. I’ve written before on the social repulsiveness of neediness (“You need to read this post” and “The risks of saying “I need…”“, for example). Let’s consider the personal perspective. What perspectives on things can you change from feeling you need them into enjoying them? What relationships do you feel you need but you could instead simply enjoy?[…] Keep reading →

Continuing my series of alternative responses to the New York Times column, The Ethicists, looking at the consequences of one’s actions instead of imposing values on others, here is my take on today’s post, “Should My Rich Friends Apply for Financial Aid?” Close friends of mine are raising four young children in a city with an extremely high cost of living. Not a small feat. They are not millionaires, but[…] Keep reading →

One of the exercises my leadership students like most is the Authentic Voice exercise. I’ve written about it at least four times here, including examples from great masters of speaking in their authentic voice, like Muhammad Ali and Robin Williams. Communications skills exercises, part 10: Your Authentic Voice Your authentic voice The great masters of speaking with authentic voices Communications skills exercises, part 10b: another example of voicing your self-talk[…] Keep reading →

Who doesn’t like good news on a holiday? A few months ago a long-term coaching client (and friend), Tina Powell, left her job to act on her dream to start her own company, based on my favorite reason to start a company: an underserved market niche. She is a financial advisor and is starting SheCapital, an automated investment platform for women. Yet more to her credit, she’s starting it without[…] Keep reading →

The other day I had to do something hard. I forget what it was. You know the feeling when you don’t want to do something. You find ways to avoid it. Then I asked myself, “Is it the hardest thing you’ve ever done?” It wasn’t close. Then it didn’t seem so hard, so I did it and it was easy enough that I don’t remember it anymore, only the question[…] Keep reading →

Do you wish you had more money? Mainstream society pushes that value on us. Many of us adopt it. Even when someone suggests questioning having more stuff or money, many people still say they’d rather have more. Let me break it down to the foundation: Would you rather be yourself or to have been born a Rockefeller? If you were born a Rockefeller, you would have been born with more[…] Keep reading →

Mainstream society sabotages us by trying to sell us that having more—money, stuff, connections, etc—improves life. How having more improves life it doesn’t say, but it’s usually through images of people enjoying themselves, typically when getting the stuff, which doesn’t represent the costs of paying for the stuff, maintaining it, putting on weight from eating it, the pollution it causes, and so on. I’ve found two opposites of what mainstream[…] Keep reading →

I’m not going to claim my time was fast, but I’m happy enough with coming in second in my age / sex group in a small five-kilometer run NYU hosted yesterday and tenth overall that I can’t help posting about it. I’m not bragging. The race didn’t have meaningful competition: I finished several minutes behind the winner and there were only 127 runners, many of whom walked most of it,[…] Keep reading →

Continuing my series of alternative responses to the New York Times column, The Ethicists, looking at the consequences of one’s actions instead of imposing values on others, here is my take on today’s post, “Can My Workplace Ask Me for a Donation?” Every year, members of the faculty and staff at my university are asked to make a donation to support the university. Letters and brochures are sent by mail[…] Keep reading →