A lot of people equate a depressed economy with emotional depression. The two uses of “depress” have nothing to do with each other. They can, if you connect them, but they don’t have to. If feel connected to you, they do because you connected them. But you can just as well make yourself happy or unhappy when business is growing or shrinking. Economic depressions don’t make you depressed. Nor do[…] Keep reading →

A friend who is improving his life hit a change in a relationship that hurt emotionally. For better or worse, I’ve found such challenges and pain an inevitable part of growth and change. Knowing their inevitability helps, but they still hurt. In writing him back, I found myself voicing a belief that has helped me in such situations — that an easy life of comfort wouldn’t hold a candle to[…] Keep reading →

[This post is part of a series on empathy gaps. 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.] A second post from the book Willpower… Leading yourself and others requires foreseeing that doing something hard feels harder, longer, more frustrating, and so on than you expect. At the beginning you say,[…] Keep reading →

The New Yorker has a piece this week on E. O. Wilson and others on current debate in evolutionary psychology and altruism. Online only has the summary, so you’ll have to buy a copy, but I expect quality from the magazine. E. O. Wilson published a fictional story on ants I found enjoyable and educational in the New Yorker himself a couple years ago. I saw Wilson speak and got[…] Keep reading →

I gave this advice to someone I coach going through a difficult period and got feedback it was “golden.” So if you’re someone endeavoring to develop personally or professionally and making progress but feeling despair, impatience, frustration, or something similar, I hope this advice helps you. I’ve come to believe all meaningful personal development has periods of self-doubt, wondering if it’s worth it, and such. Anyone can sit on a[…] Keep reading →

[This post is part of a series on willpower and how to understand and use it. 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.] Yesterday’s post showed some delightful images of children and marshmallows from a video of the marshmallow experiment. If you want to see cute images and hear cute[…] Keep reading →

[This post is part of a series on willpower and how to understand and use it. 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.] Here is some footage of a remake of the marshmallow experiment I found online. I prefer the stills below to the video they came from. I find[…] Keep reading →