Ideas are free, execution is priceless.

Resilience is the human capacity to absorb energy, resist the impact of its force, and return to our previous state quickly. And while some of us are blessed with more resilience than others, there is one strategy that’s available to everyone. We can place ourselves in environments that supports our ability to bounce back. A common term for this strategy is creating slack in the system. Building emptiness into…

My yoga teacher once told me he’s tired of hearing that people never change: “People only change, that’s all they do.” Assuming that’s true, then the question each of us must ask ourselves is: Will we get out in front of the change and reinvent ourselves proactively, or will we wait around for the whirlwind of the world to knock us to our knees and then shake things up?…

Evolutionary psychologists often talk about something called the naturalistic fallacy, also known as the appeal to nature argument. It occurs when something is assumed to be good because it is natural, or bad because it is unnatural. Turns out, that’s just a story we tell ourselves. Cultural meaning systems determine what counts as natural or unnatural. The mere naturalness of something is unrelated to its positive or negative qualities. Natural…

If we’re expecting to be thanked for every act of kindness, then we’re going to be waiting for a very long time. Because that’s not how generosity works. The goal is to express our appreciation, not our expectation. No matter how badly we need and want to be singled out and congratulated on our benevolence. Kindness is just one of those things that becomes its own reward. We do…

The richness of life is often overlooked by giving our attention to the wrong things. Petty vanities, minor deceits, minuscule inconveniences, trivial irritations, trifling nuisances, imagined obligations, unnecessary activities, pointless distractions, we clutter our existence with all of this psychic debris. Both consciously and unconsciously. And that’s why we never seem to notice the extraordinary beauty and opportunity and joy that lies right before us. Not because we’re blind,…