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Chronic anxiety can feel like you’re stuck in a swamp.  If you try to raise one leg out of the mud, the other one only sinks deeper. It’s like you’re stressing out trying to relax.  And that’s the beauty of medication. It puts you on dry land. It doesn’t solve your problem; it simply gives you a higher bottom from which to begin your healing process.  I will never…

Brooks wrote a brilliant book on the deeper values that should inform our lives.  His research found that a person of character is someone who has achieved a settled philosophy about fundamental things. They possess an impressive inner cohesion. Instead of leading fragmented, scattershot lives, they are integrated and grounded.  What he forgot to mention is, when you make yourself moral, when you become a person of great character, you isolate…

It’s tempting to go overboard in helping others do things that they need to do for themselves.  Nothing beats the satisfaction of being the caped crusader who swoops in and saves people from their problems. It makes us feel strong and important and useful.  But that’s not being a leader, that’s being codependent. One is a compulsion, the other is a privilege. And if we truly want to become…

Getting a good night’s sleep doesn’t make us boring people.  There’s nothing lame or uncool or weak about giving our body the respect and rest it deserves. After all, our bodies and minds and spirits produce real symptoms that demand dedicated attention, and each of us must do whatever is necessary to be restored to sanity.  Popova said it beautifully in her reflection on nine years of curating her inventory of…

Our journey out of compulsion into freedom is a fascinating one.  Because initially, whatever it is that we’re addicted to, eating, drinking, working, fucking, it’s done from a place of obsession. As a coping mechanism to avoid intimacy with our feelings. We have convinced ourselves that the behavior is about stopping the pain.  But in reality, it only creates more. And over time, that compulsion soon spins in a…

Here’s an unfortunate reality of business.  It doesn’t matter how much work we’ve done to not achieve something.  Any number multiplied by zero is still zero. You don’t get credit for cleaning up your own mess.  And so, if we diligently followed up six times with the prospect and they still haven’t called back, that certainly shows solid persistence, but ultimately, it doesn’t count. Because it didn’t put any…

Here’s the great realization about productivity.  Time management is not the issue, energy management is.  Because that’s something we can actually control. Energy is a real, living, breathing thing. Unlike time, which doesn’t exist.  The sad thing is, some people are virtuosos at crafting brilliant explanations for why they can’t do things. You can’t get a straight answer from them. It’s exhausting and annoying.  The story of woe they…

My favorite computer command is called snap to grid.  Here’s what happens when this feature is enabled.  The mouse moves a layer or an image or selection of text. Next, the grid points magnetically pull on the object when it approaches. And within a second, you’re assured to have all the images perfectly lined up without trial and error.  Ask any designer, this feature is enormously useful for accurate…

As a new employee, here are a few questions to ask yourself.  Are you in a league of your own doing a task? Can you bring something to the work that nobody else offers? And will you take the risk of initiating something new that not everybody likes?  If the answer isn’t yes yet, that’s okay. But you have to start now. You have to make a plan to…

Here’s a business riddle.  What do record labels, tour managers, booking agents, art galleries, night clubs, museum curators, art critics, entertainment lawyers, talent agencies, corporate buyers, event coordinators, casting directors, album producers, angel investors, corporate sponsors and hiring managers have in common?  They’re gatekeepers. They control access to the marketplace. They decide whether a given product will be distributed by a mass medium.  The great paradox of how they…