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For some people, feeling like shit is a way of life.  It’s their brand. It’s what they’re good at.  In fact, even the act of telling other people that they’re miserable actually gives them a shot of happiness. It’s like the pellet that makes the rat feel like himself.  But that’s perfectly fine. I respect people’s right to be miserable. I empathize with the inevitable low feelings of life….

Too many of us maintain a polarized mindset of ones and zeros and yesses and nos and eithers and ors and successes and failures and blacks and whites.  But if we have any intention of expanding our sense of possibility, we must embrace the both and mentality. We must neutralize the binaries, to borrow a term from the world of computer programming.  To do so, there’s a powerful question…

When I was going through a messy breakup, the best advice my therapist gave me was, keep pulling your triggers for joy.  That sentence single handedly allowed me to create light in an otherwise dark time.  And of course, it’s not only helpful in the moments when your heart is breaking. Pulling your triggers for joy is a daily practice that’s fundamental for a meaningful life.  For example, the moment…

When a prospect I’m trying to close falls of the face of the earth, my first instinct is to internalize.  To blame myself for not being talented enough or interesting enough or valuable enough to be earn their callback.  And this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Internalization and assuming responsibility and finding ways to make things my fault has proven to be a helpful technique for motivating growth.  But…

Part of setting healthy boundaries is being okay with other people’s discomfort.  Accepting that you can’t take responsibility for everybody’s feelings, but you stand up for yourself anyway, because it means that you’re creating a life that matches your vision of principled living.  I’ve always wrestled with this issue. And not because I have a need to be liked by everybody, but because I have a fear of being…

Most of us get scared and stop.  Traumatized by the criticism of our early attempts, we condemn our creative work to the nearest desk drawer, never to be revisited again.  All because one schmuck with a white beard and elbow patches said that our writing was too conversational or lacked heart or didn’t meet modern language guidelines. Tragic.  But that’s the way our egos work. They’re hypersensitive and infantile. Big…

Searching for a new job doesn’t have to be a tedious and demoralizing experience.  In fact, when you approach the process with a strategic intention and zero expectations, it can actually yield positive benefits. Even if you fail to secure a position.  First of all, every job search is vehicle for you to answer some key questions about yourself. Who are you? What do you want? What environment will…

If you’re serious about personal growth, eventually, you’ll reach a point where you start to realize, wow, the old story isn’t working like it used to.  And that moment will terrify you. Because it means change is imminent. It means you have to free yourself from concepts of who you are, leap across the borders of your identity and soar into the unknown.  Waltz’s interview about his late success as a…

Most of us erect walls against our extreme feelings.  We decide which parts of our emotional experience we’re not going to have, and then, rather than face the feelings, we distract ourselves with immediate satisfactions.  Which helps in the moment, but after a while, we start to pay a price for the things we’re hiding from ourselves. That which we suppress finds a home in the body. And our…

My fear is that I’ve become a victim of my own integrity.  That my cherished standards and principles and values and commitments have turned on me, causing more harm than good.  Take generosity, for example. I understand the power and profitability of being recklessly and relentlessly generous. I wouldn’t be where I am without it.  But sometimes, I suspect it’s working against me. Because when a large portion of…