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Do you want to get out of your own way? Here’s an emotional linguistic hack that will change your life. Learn to replace the phrase, fuck you, with the phrase, okay, sounds great. It’s just an easier existence. You save yourself and everyone else a heaping ton of stress, conflict and complication. Now, understandably, those two words are difficult to resist. Saying fuck you to someone is a classic…

I am a huge fan of logic. Despite being the classic right brained creative whose livelihood centers around his ability to throw off the shackles of logic and exploit the resources of imagination, I see the allure. Logic is just so clean, useful and beautiful. And as I collaborate with more engineers, developers, designers and technical people in my career, I have learned ways to improve my own logical…

I have been wearing my nametag all day, every day, for twenty five years. And along my journey, there have been many occasions where people accused me of hiding behind it. Which is a counterintuitive concept, because wearing a nametag is, in many ways, the polar opposite of hiding. It actually forces me to be seen, noticed and interacted with. The sticker makes me an order of magnitude more…

We can come boldly to the throne of grace and find mercy in our time of need. Preachers use this verse in sermons as an invitation to approach god with confidence, but we don’t necessarily have to involve the big man upstairs to gain value from scripture. I see this verse as a reminder of the importance of being accountable to our own needs. Rather than codependently hiding behind…

Let’s talk about the things we hide behind. There are so many ways to avoid being seen, noticed or interacted with in this world. And each tactic is more fascinating and seductive than the next. That’s human nature for you. We’re all expert at using things to protect ourselves from criticism, punishment and vulnerability. We have been conditioned to quell many of our top fears, like the fear of…

Consider the corporate executive early bird. Someone whose performance and alertness are in their best conditions before the sun comes up. When none of his employees or customers need his attention yet. At five in the morning, that guy should not be checking email, reading the news, or doom scrolling on social media. The executive should only focus on high concentration activities like crunching numbers, critical thinking, strategic planning,…

In theory, humans exhibit greater productive early in the morning because their brains are rested, which means they’re naturally more alert and energized. Their motivation is high during this quiet and calm time, as people are less distracted and happier. They’re more likely to anticipate problems and minimize them efficiently, as they’re not waiting around to be told what to do or how to handle things. Finally, there is…

I was reading a neuroscience study about how certain people are genetically predisposed to respond more strongly to unfairness than others. It’s called equity sensitivity. The degree to which people have a strong, automatic reaction when they encounter a situation that’s unfair. And it’s funny, because if you read some of the questions on the assessment tool, they’re fundamentally flawed. The language perpetuates a mindset of constant comparison and…

In my late thirties, I got laid off four times from four jobs, back to back to back to back. The first one was a workforce reduction, the second was an acquisition, the third was a private equity buyout, and the fourth was a prefundraising downsizing. Naturally, I felt sad, lonely, confused, angry, rejected and unappreciated. This was textbook unfairness. Because I knew in my heart that I did…

The problem is not that life is unfair, but that fairness doesn’t exist. Look around. We live in an unjust society, not in a world with impartial and just treatment without favoritism or discrimination. Being a human means accepting that the scales of justice don’t balance simply because we expect them to. In fact, I find that the more hung up people get on how the world should work,…