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Have you ever worked with someone who always seemed to have do not a disturb sign hanging on their brains?  You know the type. These are people who deeply resent anything even resembling a new idea. People who are allergic to taking risks and running experiments. People who pay lip service to the concept of innovation because their main goal is to not get fired.  It’s like the openness…

Ellis, the founder of rational emotive behavior theory, reminds us that the assumed catastrophic quality of most potentially unpleasant events is almost invariably highly exaggerated.  And that the worst thing about any event is our exaggerated belief in its horror, rather than anything intrinsically horrible about it.  It reminds me of corporate layoffs. Especially the relationship between the those who have been let go, and those who are left standing.  For…

There are some people for whom it takes an overwhelming amount of energy to scrape together good spirits.  Whether life is good, bad or somewhere in between, their default mode is to shack up with doomsday possibilities and mire themselves in negative hope.  It’s like the world is a huge dark room in which they develop their negatives.  Optimists, however, are people who understand the difference between today and…

If you’re a people pleaser who tries to avoid conflict and confrontation at all cost, it’s likely that your desire to be kind will suppress your anger.  You will forego your real feelings to keep the peace. And as a result of that rage not being metabolized, it can turn into resentment, sarcasm, passive aggression or something worse.  The goal, then, is not to get angry and scream and…

Most of us are so unregulated emotionally that we use everything from food to alcohol to sex to work to drugs regulate our feelings.  And that’s why it’s such a challenge to contain our desires and be uncomfortable for a minute or, god forbid, a whole day. It’s far too miserable.  And so, we try to find in things what we are afraid to ask for from other people. …

It’s nice to not want something.  In a world where we’re constantly being told what we should want, what we ought to have a burning desire for, what pang of longing we had better have twitching inside of ourselves, lest we be viewed as not fully human; it’s deeply relieving to announce with relaxed confidence, not for me.  Without excuse or explanation or justification or guilt.  The hard part…

A friend of mine once wrote a brilliant essay about abandoning dreams. Being an adult is not about abandoning your dreams. Dreams just have shorter shelf life. There isn’t an opportunity to wait five years to be the next you. It’s today. Dreams cost more because they last less long. They mature into market value sooner.  And so, when our dreams fall by the wayside, it’s natural to feel sad and…

The range of obstacles that stand in the way of unlocking our potential are vast.  One of the big ones, if not the biggest, is mindset.  Which is much more than just attitude. Mindset is the intention we hold when we relate to ourselves. It’s the language we use when we talk to ourselves. The posture we take when reflect on ourselves. Complaining, for example, is a mindset. One…

My old ad agency boss despised all things cheesy.  Any time our team sat down for a copy review, he would red line all of the messaging that was too cute, too clever, too corny or rhymed.  Sadly, this pretty much eliminated all of my writing. Couldn’t help myself. That style of creativity is my lifeblood. You don’t wear a nametag every day for twenty years if you’re not…

Sometimes life feels like you’re trying to go downstairs when everybody else is coming up.  It’s as if the whole world is conspiring against your goals. Testing you with its angry, wild and resistive energy. And with every passing second, with every bead of flop sweat that trickles down your back, you feel more and more helpless to meet your own needs.  Like abandoned flotsam on the currents of…