It’s great to improve your life. It’s that much better to get others to improve it for you. How do you do it? Here’s one way. Share things you love. It’s enough to tell people about those things. Here’s an example. At my mom’s house over the weekend, I asked my mom about the Vitamixer she has. She bought this super-powered blender from a late-night infomercial maybe twenty years ago.[…] Keep reading →

Why do we create and invent? Many people enjoy creating, but can’t express why — what they get out of it or what motivates them. The masters often express these things best — mastery often requires understanding your motivations. A quote by Man Ray has stuck with me for years after first hearing it on an American Masters documentary on him. I believe it expresses a, or perhaps the, fundamental[…] Keep reading →

A client wrote me about frustration with a personal development project he was working on with a mentor in his field. I felt my response applied generally to personal change so I think it may help others. I’m reading two parts to your message — one is asking for specific advice on your project; the other is about anxiety with the pace of change. I’ll address the second part first.[…] Keep reading →

Have you forgotten you’re alive? Do you want to escape the world — the heat of everyday life? New York City is supposed to hit 103 F (39 C) today. Yesterday was that hot. People say it’s horrible. If you think the world is that horrible, go for a run in Central Park. You’ll feel alive. the heat won’t bother you so much afterward. You’ll remember we were born to[…] Keep reading →

Emotions are how your emotional system reacts to your perception of your environment with motivation to behave. In every culture around the world, in every language, essentially all of us share the same emotions. This commonality is not an accident. Human behavior is driven by human emotions and our behavior is what made us so overwhelmingly successful in population and geographic spread. Our behavior and emotions didn’t come out of[…] Keep reading →

Yesterday’s post on developing empathy started with me writing about traveling, which ended up being today’s post. Nearly everyone tells me they love to travel. The top reason they give for it is to experience new people, places, and cultures. I get that appeal, but my goals are different. My main goal in life is to continue improving it. My travel goals are to contribute to that goal. Learning about[…] Keep reading →

Here is a mental exercise I like and find effective in learning to empathize and understand people better. It costs nothing and requires no preparation, but it can be personally challenging, but it develops you as a person. The exercise is to see how diverse behavior in others you can explain without relying on saying someone else has different motivations than you do. The more you can explain their behavior,[…] Keep reading →

The leadership development seminar I led in April at the New York Academy of Sciences has been posted as an e-briefing. Now you can see me speak where Einstein and Darwin did, or at least they were members. You have to be a member to see the video, but the academy has great events. I recommend joining. You do love science, don’t you? Here’s the overview of the e-briefing: Overview[…] 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.] An example of an ineffective way to use willpower to get in shape is to will yourself to go to the gym two days a week for[…] Keep reading →