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Despite living in a post binary world, it can be a useful exercise to create one to improve our decision making process.  Imagine the corporate hiring manager. Every week she receives hundreds of applications and resumes, conducts dozens of phone and video interviews and spends the majority of her days sitting across the table from prospective team members.  And all things being equal, assuming every candidate who makes it…

Few things cause more emotional distress than the thoughts we think.  In fact, the guilt we have about those thoughts can be even more damaging than the thoughts themselves. As if our mind was the most ruthless prosecutor in the world, and unless we have a strong and robust defense team, it will make its case and defeat us every time.  If the glove fits, you must submit.  Buddhists…

Campbell said that along our hero’s journey, each of us must give up the life we planned in order to have the life that is waiting for us.  This is a romantic and inspiring notion, but it’s also a daunting and difficult task.  Ask anyone who went to an out of state college. There’s a part of us that knows staying at home, while cheaper and painless and in…

Consider this frequently quoted scripture: Labor not for the meat which perishes, but for the bread which endures to everlasting life.  Religious disciples interpret this passage as a reminder that this world is only given to us to prepare for the hereafter. That all our longings for the meat, all our ambitions for that which is so vapid and unproductive, hold not a candle to the glory that awaits…

Once we identify our talents learn how to use our talents properly, we can start beautifying and contributing to the world in ways that nobody else can.  It’s the stuff real fulfillment is made of. The satisfaction of knowing that our gifts contributed to a larger effort, few things make us sleep better at night.  But having a clear sense of our own capacities and desires and how they…

My favorite definition of anxiety is the following: Emptiness and disconnection from self and other.  It’s when we forget that we actually do have a calm center, that peace is always a possibility, and that those things can be accessed both individually and interpersonally, anytime we want.  But when we notice that we’re anxious, we don’t immediately make a sufficient effort to change our situation, do we? Most people don’t. They…

Gottman’s pioneering research identified contempt as the most serious of the four horsemen of the divorce apocalypse.  He calls it the most destructive and biggest predictor of separation.  But what about the relationship with ourselves? Because whether we’re coupled up or not, that’s the one person we still have to sleep with every night. Therefore, we must also be careful about the production of contempt in ourselves.  From mocking…

Hollywood acting coaches know the audition process is grueling, lengthy and demoralizing.  But they still encourage their clients to experience it. Not because it’s another chance to get rejected by complete strangers who wouldn’t know talent if it sat on their faces, but because auditions are a moment to act. An opportunity to perform your art and practice your craft in front of a captive audience.  Even if only…

For many years, life was about the relentless, focused effort on my career to the exclusion of everything else.  This was a highly useful strategy for growing my business and making an impact on the world.  But when it came to cultivating intimacy and community, not so much. That’s the danger with working all the time. Or doing any one thing all the time. We have all this energy…

It’s true that our stubbornness comes from a deep sense of integrity.  It’s true that our unyielding personality has served us well in many parts of our lives.  And it’s true that there is no reason to reject healthy expressions of pride just because we don’t want to appear arrogant.  But it’s also true that stubbornness can keep us lonely. When the tyranny of our individuality starts to rule…