[This post is part of a series on my daily exercise and starting and keeping challenging habits. 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 few words on burpees and working out to follow up the past two days’ posts (yesterday, the day before) Having read that some people consider[…] Keep reading →

Following up yesterday’s thoughts on illusions our leaders benefit from, another occurred to me in learning about ping-pong diplomacy, the 1970s sports phenomenon that contributed to opening relations between the U.S. and China. In particular, the United States and Chinese governments followed, not led, the opening process. The government of each country called the other its enemy and armed itself against the other. Yet I expect most people of each[…] Keep reading →

[This post is part of a series on my daily exercise and starting and keeping challenging habits. 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.] So what are these burpees I raved about yesterday? First, from the New York Times article that got me started with them: Ask a dozen physiologists[…] Keep reading →

[This post is part of a series on my daily exercise and starting and keeping challenging habits. 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.] This post covers how I’m putting myself in better shape with minimal effort, but don’t be distracted. That’s a secondary point, a side effect. This post[…] Keep reading →

This exercise transforms your life. It has you do the first three steps of the Method, prepares you for the fourth, and sets up accountability with others for step 4. Accountability is how things get done, so it can help a lot. I do this exercise halfway through my seminar. People get deeply into it, even after sitting in a room for five or six hours. When we review the[…] Keep reading →

The Method’s steps 2 and 3 have you conceive of new emotions, environments, beliefs, and behaviors for emotional cycles you want to change. The challenge How do you pick the new beliefs to crowd out the old ones? Choosing the opposite to existing beliefs rarely helps. You end up debating yourself in your head. Discussion I find complements to beliefs crowd out existing ones more effectively. For example, I found[…] Keep reading →

Many people feel they can’t change themselves or that doing so is fake. Here is a quick exercise to show you how easily you can change yourself because you do it already. Step 1 First answer the question “Who are you?” by describing yourself with three or four adjectives. I know you’re just reading a web page, but if you have pen and paper or can open a window on[…] Keep reading →