I’m starting a new series today on a new model, this time on passion and attraction. Everyone I showed it to told me it gave them useful insights, so I expect you’ll find value in it too. I’ll apply the model mainly to intimate relationships, but you can also apply it to anything that evokes passion, attraction, or both, like hobbies, jobs, sports, and so on. So what does a[…] Keep reading →

I’ve gotten encouraging feedback on my series on my daily beliefs and how to create your own. A friend wrote with an idea to involve readers to help make the series more useful and active: to offer readers suggestions for alternatives to beliefs and models that are holding them back. New ideas could come from me or other readers. I liked his idea. Today I’m opening up to people looking to[…] Keep reading →

I’ll share today an unexpected and curious way to tell how much intimacy you have with someone and an effective way to increase it. By intimacy, I mean any kind of intimacy, which could be in a professional, friendly, romantic, or any other type of relationship. Intimacy increases trust and decreases friction between people so it’s valuable to have. Knowing how much you have tells you how closely you can[…] Keep reading →

Today’s post is a new exercise I made up that I found improved my thought patterns. It’s simple and takes no time, money, or other resources. Just your attention. It combines three things that work for me: changing words to change you thoughts, celebrating what you accept, and a property about truth. Ingredient 1: changing words changes your thoughts I’ve written about simple exercises to change a few words here[…] Keep reading →

I’ve written before about getting rid of stuff and the challenges of getting rid of things you once wanted to keep. You feel like if you once valued something and now don’t you’ll lose something important. Maybe you should examine your values and how they changed. Slow-going apartment renovations have led me to live with a lot of my stuff in storage following living in Shanghai without much stuff for[…] 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.] While writing yesterday’s post on accepting my friend Dave’s challenge to do one hundred burpees in thirty-seven minutes I ate a banana for energy and mentally[…] 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.] Today’s post combines a few key things that result from and help create a great life. Having good friends who challenge you Sharing your passions Exercising[…] Keep reading →

How do you feel right now? I suspect you read this page when you’re calm, maybe even relaxed. Now think about a few times you’ve been stressed. Think of how much you worried about the consequences of some worst-case scenario — how it could ruin your life, destroy some relationship, undermine something important to you. Did you yell at anyone? Lose your temper? Lose control in some other way? Everybody[…] Keep reading →

[This post is part of a series on Communication Skills Exercises for Business and Life. 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.] I’ve written a bunch of times on the exercise I made up to avoid using judgmental words, particularly good, bad, right, wrong, and evil, but also balanced, better,[…] Keep reading →