The insight below prompted spontaneous applause during a keynote talk I saw at a recent conference. The speaker, whose work brings him sometimes to the White House, was talking about principles of teaching, but you’ll see it applies to managing and leading too. He said he was talking to a teacher about creating assignments and test questions. Teachers perennially face challenges of creating problems that the students haven’t seen before[…] Keep reading →

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 →

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 →

Context: city workers are tearing up the street outside my building. They start jackhammering at 7am and the noise hasn’t let up for the past two weeks. We don’t know why they’re doing it or how long they plan to work. My neighbors and I talk about it. One of my neighbors, an otherwise thoroughly enjoyable woman, keeps talking about how bad it is. At first I commiserated. I ran[…] Keep reading →

If someone wins the lottery or gets something you wish you had, would you feel jealous of them? No, you wouldn’t. If you wish you had something someone else did, you would envy them, which is different from jealousy. Today people use the terms interchangeably, but they describe distinct feelings. I only learned the difference a few years ago when someone pointed it out to me. Since then I’ve become[…] Keep reading →