Do you like feeling anxious? Would you prefer feeling excited to feeling anxious? Did you know that a doctor reading your vital statistics can’t tell the difference between you feeling anxiety and you feeling excitement? I looked it up and have a peer-reviewed paper somewhere confirming that—something like that the two emotions are physiologically concordant, or some academic-speak like that. The point is that your body reacts the same when[…] Keep reading →

Yesterday’s post on very basic but incredibly important instruction schools rarely teach reminded me of another. Everyone evaluates you on your posture Your posture conveys your mood—especially confidence—as much as anything, meaning people judge you on your posture. Maybe a smile, or lack thereof, counts for more. Most healthy people have total control over their posture. Since your emotions and behavior (I consider your body language and posture part of[…] Keep reading →

This lesson is so simple people don’t believe it. The title says it all. You don’t have to talk about what you don’t want to. People challenge it. I guess I should specify the context: casual conversation between people who don’t have authority over each other. At work or in court under oath may be a different story. How many times have you been in a boring conversation going nowhere[…] Keep reading →

Your world is man-made, nearly every part of it. Have you ever spent a day nature—even more than an hour? I don’t know about you, but I’ve slept almost every night of my life on a manufactured mattress with manufactured pillows and sheets. The nights I’ve camped I slept in a manufactured tent made of petroleum by-products, maybe space-aged materials!, on a similar mattress pad. Places like the Grand Canyon[…] Keep reading →

Why is “know thyself” hard? You’d think you’d know yourself better than anything. Here’s a major reason why: because almost everyone in the world benefits from you not knowing yourself. Because organizations mediate your interactions with everyone in the world except the dozen or so people closest to you and nearly all organizations benefit from you not knowing yourself. They benefit from manipulating you. Don’t believe me? Think of the most[…] Keep reading →

John Perkins and his peers described themselves as economic hit men. He wrote a memoir describing their work called “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man,” which I found thrilling to read and chilling to think about its consequences. What do economic hit men do? According to him Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from[…] Keep reading →

How much better would your relationships be if you saw solutions where you used to see problems? While I don’t like problems, I’ve learned to look forward to problems as ways of improving relationships. Relationships can grow stronger as a result of social gaffes just like broken bones heal stronger than had they never broken and muscles grow from minor tears when you stress them. What meaningful relationships have you[…] Keep reading →

I read and recommend Steve Martin’s memoir, “Born Standing Up.” He writes honestly and concisely. He persevered through a challenging life. Unlike many people we admire, he didn’t overcome obstacles that befell him. My list of inspirations on my “Resources and Inspirations” page includes three big ones for me who overcame outside challenges that they couldn’t have foreseen and have to handle—Victor Frankl, Jean-Dominique Bauby, and Mark Zupan. Overcoming challenges[…] Keep reading →

One of my students jumped for joy last semester. She got a job offer during class—specifically, during a field trip. I consider the exercise an example of great teaching. Context I couldn’t make the last class of the semester and wanted to make it up. An email from NYU inspired me. It was about a series of job fairs including one for start-ups. I had already planned a session on[…] Keep reading →