It’s Friday night. You planned to meet some friends for a night out. You haven’t seen them in a long time and looked forward to it. But this week at work was exhausting. Most weeks like this you’d just want to sit on the couch, relax, and take it easy. You feel like you have no energy. Do you go out? Some people feel like hanging out with friends will[…] Keep reading →

I get it. Exercise is hard. At least useful exercise is. I wrote about it in yesterday’s post, “Defining moments.” I know the feeling before starting exercising. You don’t want to. But rarely do people tell me they don’t exercise because it’s hard. Far more often people tell me they don’t have time to exercise. If you want to exercise and you think you’re not doing it because you don’t[…] Keep reading →

Have you stood on the edge of an open airplane door, looking at the sky beneath you and the ground miles below it, parachute on your back, trying to will yourself to jump? Have you stood outside your boss’s door, after days and weeks working up the courage and what to say to ask for a raise or promotion, trying to will yourself to knock and enter? Have you sat[…] Keep reading →

People often ask me about resolving conflicts and how to handle them as a leader. This clip shows Eisenhower, played by Tom Selleck, handling a conflict two days before D-Day. It’s dramatized, but not so much that we can’t learn from it. Context Eisenhower and his team have been planning the Normandy invasion for months. They want to launch in the next couple days, but two major unknowns split to[…] Keep reading →

If you want to change something important in your life, you’d better understand the concept called “empathy gaps.” An example of an empathy gap is when you say in December you’ll go to the gym twice a week for the next year, that you have the fortitude to do it and will simply will yourself to do it no matter what, then find yourself in February saying you’re not in[…] Keep reading →

Multiple factors Not all options have only one decision factor. Many have two or more. For example, do you prefer a job with higher pay but lower chance of promotion or higher chance of promotion but lower pay? You have to look case-by-case, but let’s see how our visual representation shows them. A trivial choice The easiest two-part case is when you prefer both parts of an option to both[…] Keep reading →

You know choosing can be hard. I’ve written about it before from a few angles: Why are decisions hard? Difficult life decision? Here’s how to look at it. How to decide among close options A belief to choose without getting mired in indecision Today I’ll give you a tool to simplify decision-making more with a way of visualizing the challenge that shows the hard part. Partly I’m following up on[…] Keep reading →

[This post is part of a series on “Mental models and beliefs: an exercise to identify yours.” If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] Do you work hard to improve your life — studying hard, working long hours, being patient with a significant other, etc? If you’re always pushing, when[…] Keep reading →

[This post is part of a series on “Mental models and beliefs: an exercise to identify yours.” If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] How would you like for everything in your life to look better and for everyone to treat you better? For everything in your life to improve?[…] Keep reading →