1. You’re never fully dressed without a smile or eyeliner.
45 Things I've (Almost) Learned As I Turn 45
Hey everyone,
Today is my birthday! And with it comes my usual dose of completely unrequested advice. As always, take what works, ditch what doesn't! And if you'd like to read the first two editions of this series here is my "43 Things I've (Almost) Learned As I Turn 43" and "44 Things I've (Almost) Learned As I Turn 44."
Let me know which ones you like, didn't like, or any suggestions for next year!
Neil
45 Things I've (Almost) Learned As I Turn 45
1. Slice the bagels before you freeze them.
2. Every time you’re talking about someone pretend they’re standing right behind you.
3. If you don’t love the pants at the store you’ll hate them at home.
4. Before you move in together: travel.
5. Motivation does not cause action. Action causes motivation.
6. If you’re talking on the phone and you’re on the toilet—flush later.
7. Airport Rule: Farther the walk cleaner the bathrooms.
8. What costs nothing but is exceedingly rare and valuable? Eye contact.
9. Money does buy happiness if you buy 1 of 3 S’s: Social (going out with friends), Sweat (joining a team), Skill (taking a class).
10. Wait a day before replying to an email that makes you angry. (You can always tell them to go to hell tomorrow.)
11. Never take something you've never taken before doing something you've never done.
12. Best and bestseller are not the same thing.
13. Relationship Tip: Find someone who laughs at your jokes and someone whose jokes you laugh at.
14. Many people wish they had one more kid. Few people wish they had one less kid.
5. “No” is a complete sentence.
16. “I failed med school” is fact, “I failed my parents” is story, “I’m addicted to booze” is fact, “I’ve ruined my life” is story, “I’m going bald” is fact, “I’ll never get married” is story. For better self-talk peel stories off facts.
17. In an era of endless choice the value of curation skyrockets.
18. Before renovating: Mentally double the price and double the time. Then, if you’d still do it, do it.
19. Fat doesn’t make you fat. Sugar makes you fat.
20. When investing with friends assume it's gone.
21. At holiday meals: Let the family member with the youngest child choose the dinner time.
22. Pay attention to what you pay attention to.
23. Public speaking tip: If you want praise, ask the audience. If you want feedback, ask the AV guy.
24. Good line during fights: “The story I’m telling myself is…”
25. Online everyone is beautiful and it’s ugly. Offline everyone is ugly and it’s beautiful.
26. Ladder-climbing tip: “What interests my boss fascinates me.”
27. Social media wants us to spend money we don’t have on things we don’t need to create perceptions that don’t last from people we don’t know.
28. To get more foot massages: Give more foot massages.
29. A team is not a group of people who work together. A team is a group of people who trust each other.
30. Excess in moderation.
31. Go outside when stressed: Trees release chemicals called phytoncides which reduce adrenaline and cortisol.
32. There is no such thing as too much cream cheese.
33. The less you complain the more fun you have. The more you complain the less fun you have.
34. Fashion tip: If you think you can pull it off you can pull it off.
35. The best way to learn is by screwing up.
36. You will stop worrying what other people think about you when you realize how seldom they do.
37. To improve a bad day: Help someone.
38. Put the weights back when you’re done.
39. Firefighter tip: Never rent an apartment above a restaurant.
40. Intrinsic motivation outperforms extrinsic motivation. To see if it’s there ask: “Would I do this for free?”
41. Good gift for a friend in the hospital: A nice bar of soap.
42. Popular often follows cool. Cool rarely follows popular.
43. Never leave home hungry.
44. There is no reward in pessimism.
45. Life is too short not to take a nap when you feel like it.
I’m pretty sure I stole all of these but some specific credits: Thomas Murphy (10), André Perold (13), Christine D’Silva (15), Brené Brown (24), Charles E. Wilson (26), Simon Sinek (29), Gary Johnston (35), David Foster Wallace (36), my mother-in-law (41), my grandfather (43), my dad (44). Bad paraphrases all mine, of course.
Read more of my birthday advice:
44 Things I've (Almost) Learned As I Turn 44
43 Things I've (Almost) Learned As I Turn 43
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A few short thoughts on death...
Hey everyone,
Leslie’s grandmother Donna died recently. To quote the obituary she was a "dog whisperer, enthusiastic nature lover, savvy Scrabble player, intrepid traveler, Blue Jays fan, organizer of special occasions, chocolate chip cookie-maker, generous gift-giver, reader, and lover of maple syrup, chocolate, butter tarts, and all things sweet."
We had the burial — out in the cold, on a rainy day, over a hole in the ground in St. Catharines, Ontario. Her three living children all spoke and all the grandchildren (and grandchildren-in-law, like me) said a few words and threw a rose onto the urn holding her ashes.
I’ve been thinking a lot about death. I do that! It was the closing riff of my TED Talk and the basis of my TED Listen. More recently: Is death … avoidable? Or is it, to quote Saul Bellow, more like “the dark backing that a mirror needs if we are to see anything”?
First I’ll share a note I wrote to myself just after Donna died. In that sort of stunning silent phase. Then I’ll share two short poems read by her children (Leslie’s dad and aunt) at the burial. And, finally, let’s close with a quote on death from philosopher Bertrand Russell.
So, first up, my little note on how Donna died…
How Donna Died
Fast. That’s the first word that comes to mind. It happened quick. Like three months. Halloween she’s dressed as a ghost sitting beside me on the porch handing out candy. At 9pm, long after the streets had quieted, she said “I’m off to Jenny’s!” Leslie’s younger sister lived twenty minutes west — the exact opposite direction of her place. “Grandma,” Leslie said. “Don’t you want to head home? I’m sure Jenny would understand.” “Oh, don’t be silly! I’m a night owl!” We got a text the next morning with a picture of her squeezing our tiny niece dressed up as a pumpkin. She lost her license the next week. Hit the gas instead of the brakes in her parking garage. They said she had to get a health check. Health check said she had dementia. “Dementia?”, she scoffed. “Since when have I had dementia?” We never thought she had dementia. She forgot stuff. Who didn’t? Her boyfriend lost his license the next week. Suddenly we were talking carpools to drive grandma to her boyfriend’s place for the weekend. Then came the move. Her place finally sold and the new apartment was right downtown. We could walk from our house. “Scrabble every week,” we agreed. Week later that procedure finally came up that was scheduled months ago. For her bladder. But after the procedure she was in more pain — not less. Then they did another procedure to fix the first one. Then she was really cold for a few days. Then she couldn’t get out of bed. Then she got pale. Then Karen flew up. Then the cousins came. And then she died. Fast.
I miss you, Donna.
Next up, a poem read by Donna’s youngest daughter Karen (Leslie’s aunt) which Donna had cut out and taped to her fridge:
The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
It stuns me every time. Next up, a poem read by Donna’s son Mark (Leslie’s dad).
Immortality (Do Not Stand By My Grave and Weep) by Clare Harner
Do not stand
By my grave, and weep.
I am not there,
I do not sleep—
I am the thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints in snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle, autumn rain.
As you awake with morning’s hush,
I am the swift, up-flinging rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight,
I am the day transcending night.
Do not stand
By my grave, and cry—
I am not there,
I did not die.
Not the kind of poem you can really read, or listen to, at someone's burial without crying. But I guess that's part of the point: a kind of philosophical adjustment, versus a physical adjustment, from the dead to the living. Somewhat related to both poems is this quote I found from Bertrand Russell in his essay “How To Grow Old.”
“The best way to overcome [the fear of death]—so at least it seems to me—is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river: small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being. The person who, in old age, can see life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death, since the things he or she cares for will continue. And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness increases, the thought of rest will not be unwelcome. I should wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do and content in the thought that what was possible has been done.”
So that’s it. Like I said: a few short thoughts on death. If you have a poem, reflection, or piece of art/writing that you use to contemplate death, please just reply and let me know.
Thanks,
Neil
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Letter to his 11-year-old daughter in camp by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Hey everyone,
I give my kids advice. Some good. Some contradicting. Some are gems from others — polished my way. Many are, I'm sure, horribly wrong. Some definitely worrisome.
I guess that's what we all get from our parents at the end of the day. A role model! A north star! A person doing a lot of stuff ‘I'm trying to learn.’ It was in that spirit I came across this fascinating 90-year-old letter that F. Scott Fitzgerald ('The Great Gatsby', 'Tender Is The Night') sent his 11-year-old daughter Frances when she was away at camp.
I love the tone of the letter — an almost adult-level of knowing-understanding combined with the conciliatory twang of an elder wanting the best for their dearest. But maybe from an elder who also happens to know that most advice is flimsy? F. Scott Fitzgerald died when Frances, his only child, was just 19. He was 44. (Maybe hitting 44 is what's compelling me to try the same?)
I hope you enjoy this Letter To His 11-Year-Old Daughter in Camp by F. Scott Fitzerald.
Neil
PS. If you're curious about the Shakespeare Sonnet he references, I posted it here for you!
F. Scott Fitzgerald to His 11-Year-Old Daughter in Camp
AUGUST 8, 1933
LA PAIX RODGERS' FORGE
TOWSON, MARYLAND
DEAR PIE:
I feel very strongly about you doing duty. Would you give me a little more documentation about your reading in French? I am glad you are happy—but I never believe much in happiness. I never believe in misery either. Those are things you see on the stage or the screen or the printed page, they never really happen to you in life.
All I believe in in life is the rewards for virtue (according to your talents) and the punishments for not fulfilling your duties, which are doubly costly. If there is such a volume in the camp library, will you ask Mrs. Tyson to let you look up a sonnet of Shakespeare's in which the line occurs Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds....
I think of you, and always pleasantly, but I am going to take the White Cat out and beat his bottom hard, six times for every time you are impertinent. Do you react to that?...
Half-wit, I will conclude. Things to worry about:
Worry about courage
Worry about cleanliness
Worry about efficiency
Worry about horsemanship...
Things not to worry about:
Don't worry about popular opinion
Don't worry about dolls
Don't worry about the past
Don't worry about the future
Don't worry about growing up
Don't worry about anybody getting ahead of you
Don't worry about triumph
Don't worry about failure unless it comes through your own fault
Don't worry about mosquitoes
Don't worry about flies
Don't worry about insects in general
Don't worry about parents
Don't worry about boys
Don't worry about disappointments
Don't worry about pleasures
Don't worry about satisfactions
Things to think about:
What am I really aiming at?
How good am I really in comparison to my contemporaries in regard to:
(a) Scholarship
(b) Do I really understand about people and am I able to get along with them?
(c) Am I trying to make my body a useful instrument or am I neglecting it?
With dearest love,
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7 quotes on the power of reading from Charlie Munger
Hey everyone,
Charlie Munger died last Tuesday at age 99. If you don't know him, I recommend this New York Times obituary or (to go deeper) the book Poor Charlie's Almanack which was one of my top books of 2020. I was texting my friend Shane the day his death was announced and he told me had a meeting scheduled with Charlie. That day! They were going to discuss Charlie coming on Shane's podcast. He got a cancellation from Charlie's assistant a few hours before the news. But think about that: At age 99 the man was ... still working. I love that. You know my views on retirement which I expand on heavily in The Happiness Equation.
One quote I love which I got from this 2005 "Never Retire" NYT Op-Ed by Bill Safire is: "When you're through changing, you're through." Maybe that's the real pearl of wisdom. Not to keep gunning till you die but to simply always strive to change — to grow — to learn. Curiosity! Staying connected! Being tapped in! I hope when I'm 99 I have a meeting scheduled with some plucky Canadian podcaster 50 years younger than me. Why? Because I know I'll learn something from that. And I hope that after the call I pick up a book.
Charlie Munger's wisdom is captured in many places — including this great repository Shane created on his blog — but today I want to just share a few of my favorite quotes about reading. He was a reading evangelist! And I love him for it. Because sometimes, when I'm on, you know, the tenth hour of writing up my monthly book club or twenty hours into prepping to interview somebody about their formative books I stop and think "Wait, does anybody even read anymore? Who's reading books? Why am I focusing all my time and energy on something potentially shrinking when I should really be learning how to use The Tik Tok?"
Ah, but then I read quotes like these and remember. Wisdom, learning, growing, changing — really living, that's what I'm after. I think that's something we share. And I know I have found nothing offering more compressed wisdom nor a wider range of experienced emotions than reading books.
Thank you, Charlie. Rest in peace. And may we all enjoy a lifetime of reading. A few of my favorite "Charlie on reading" quotes below!
Neil
1. “In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time – none, zero.”
2. “As long as I have a book in my hand, I don’t feel like I’m wasting time.”
3. “We read a lot. I don’t know anyone who’s wise who doesn’t read a lot. But that’s not enough: You have to have a temperament to grab ideas and do sensible things. Most people don’t grab the right ideas or don’t know what to do with them.”
4. “Warren (Buffett) and I do more reading and thinking and less doing than most people in business. We do that because we like that kind of a life. But we’ve turned that quirk into a positive outcome for ourselves. We both insist on a lot of time being available almost every day to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. We read and think.”
5. "Develop into a lifelong self-learner through voracious reading; cultivate curiosity and strive to become a little wiser every day.”
6. "It's been my experience in life if you just keep thinking and reading you don't have to work."
7. “If it’s wisdom you are after, you are going to spend a lot of time sitting on your ass and reading.”
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7 books to calm your mind before bed (instead of watching the news!)
Hey everyone,
Time for my Black Friday door-crashing special! Just kidding. I'm not doing that. I just want to talk about reading books. Why? Well, do you fall into late-night doomscrolling rabbit holes like I do? Makes sense! Billions of dollars of research have fine-tuned the hijacking machine that pulls us forever deeper into news and social media funnels. Especially when we're tired and unable to mentally pull away. I've started locking my phone in a Kitchen Safe every night -- I bought the Mini version from this website (no affiliation and not an ad!) -- and then head up to read.
Here are 7 books to help calm your mind before bed,
Neil
Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Let's start with some children's literature! Hypnotic autobiographical description of growing up in rural Wisconsin in the late 1800s. From shooting panthers to smoking meat in hollow tree trunks to playing catch with pig bladders. There is no plot. There is no crisis. There’s just 238 pages in 18-point font of vivid memories weaved into a captivating tableau that makes you feel like you’re living another life. And one that's far, far away from this one. Masterful escapism and the first book in the famous “Little House” series. Originally written in 1937 and still perfect today.
How To Calm Your Mind: Finding Presence and Productivity in Anxious Times by Chris Bailey. Little more head on but a great book Chris wrote post-burnout and post-anxiety attack as a simple guide to calming his / your mind. So how do we calm your mind? Get off phones, get outside, lower dopamine, increase analog -- and Chris leads us there with a great dose of left-brain-scratching research and a, yes, calm tone that makes this a perfect read for right now. Great offering for the overwhelmed.
When You Are Engulfed In Flames by David Sedaris. Really anything by David Sedaris could go here. A long time ago my friend Shiv told me she read a Sedaris essay every night before bed. Something sounded off about that. But then I tried it. And she’s right! There’s something so soothing about his slow, peaceful pace. The rhythm feels like hanging with a friend. And the laughs wash away stress, too. Here’s “It’s Catching” by Sedaris in The New Yorker if you want a sample from this collection. I still love Naked and Me Talk Pretty One Day, too.
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. Set in a small Iowa town named (yes) Gilead in the 1950s the book is a letter from a septuagenarian pastor to his first and only child, a young boy, with everything he wishes he’d be around to tell him when he got older. Sound tearjerking already? Just wait. There are layers beyond layers here and yet they’re all baked into a pastry that somehow feels light. I already feel like I need to read it again. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize.
Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life by Héctor García and Francesc Miralles. I wrote a lot about ikigai in The Happiness Equation which is perhaps why Hector Garcia mailed me a copy of this book when it first came out. It has gone on to become a massive international bestseller. And for good reason: The book triangulates and expands elements of Dan Buettner’s famous Blue Zones studies and TED Talk into a well-researched, wide-ranging, well-organized handbook with everything from sharing Okinawan antioxidant-rich food to lessons on practicing qigong. Helps us pull away from the stress of today.
The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and The Art of Living by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman. A wonderful collection of excerpts from the Stoic greats -- Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Seneca, and their pals -- with a contemporary expansion from Ryan. Nothing beats getting out of the moment like reading something over 1000 years old. (That's one of my seven ideas for sleeping better.) This is Ryan Holiday's bestselling book for good reason.
Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu. James Frey told me he finds solace in the Tao Te Ching -- one of his three most formative books. A lot of little poems or words of wisdom resonated with me from that book so I looked for a copy. What’s the biggest problem finding a “book” written over 2500 years ago? Picking a translation. The used bookstore near my house had about a dozen. I kept opening and looking for one where I could make sense of what I was reading and finally settled on a translation by David Hinton. You can find some good options to pick from here. Wonderful to read a few pages before bed. Sometimes they rattle around my brain, sometimes I feel like I’m lost in a zen koan, and sometimes I feel like I pull something beautiful from them. Here’s a sample: “7. There’s a reason heaven and earth go on enduring forever / their life isn’t their own / so their life goes on forever. / Hence, in putting himself last / the sage puts himself first, / and in giving himself up / he preserves himself. / If you aren’t free of yourself / how will you ever become yourself?”
We live in overwhelming times! I hope one of these books helps you pull yourself back from the overwhelm. As always, just reply and let me know which ones you resonated with or any others you recommend. Hang in there, everybody.
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How to Tell Yourself a Different Story with Seth Godin
Hey everyone,
A few moons ago I began testing a new short-and-sweet style release on my 3 Books podcast feed. I’m thinking of the entire show as one big book! And, as you know, every full moon I drop a new Chapter. The goal is 333 Chapters total for 1000 formative books all the way up to 2040.
Well, now I’m trying out Pages. A Page is a 333-second (or less) excerpt from a Chapter dropped at 3:33am between Chapters. Bite-sized! Meant to drop a little morsel of wisdom — or a book recommendation or an interesting viewpoint — into your feed. For short commutes, little walks, or just a podcast palette cleanser between longer listens.
Today I’m pasting the transcript of the most popular Page so far: Page 31 from Seth Godin called “How to Tell Yourself a Different Story.” You can download all Pages by subscribing to the show on Apple or Spotify. 100% free and 100% ad-free — as always.
Have a great week,
Neil
Page 31: How to Tell Yourself a Different Story with Seth Godin
Page 31 here | Full chat with Seth here
Seth: I think almost all help is self-help. If you were drowning, it's really unlikely that someone will pick you up and take you out of the water. It is way more likely that someone will throw you a life buoy. Or, reach out with a long stick. Or, try to help you swim to shore. But if you don't want to do it, you're probably not going to get saved. And that, what we seek to do when we want to do better, when we want to feel better, or when we want to make a better difference, is help ourselves, is commit to moving forward. And that's all a self-help book does, if it's doing a good job, is open the door for you to fix yourself. The author can't fix you. The diet book can't make you skinny. A book on goal setting can't make you successful. What it can do is open the door.
And so, if you say, 'I don't like self-help books, they're always trying to do this and this and this.' You might be saying, 'Well actually I don't want to help myself get out of this spot I'm in because I'm comfortable being unhappy. I'm comfortable being stuck.' And that the problem with reading a book like this is that it might work. And if it works, then I'll have to change. And if I change, that might be uncomfortable.
My story is that I was unsuccessful and unhappy. I had a narrative in my head that things weren't working and every time something didn't work I would go 'Ah, there it goes again!' But the door was open and I said, you know what, your problem is not the outside world. Your problem is the story you're telling yourself about the outside world, and that story is a choice. And if you're not happy with the story, tell yourself another story. Period. That simple. And most people will hear what I just said and not change anything. Because I'd been telling myself a story that made me unhappy. And if I wasn't happy with that story I should tell myself a different story. The outside world wasn't the problem. I mean I won the birthday lottery. I grew up with great parents, upper-middle class, with privilege, going to a famous college, and I was healthy. So every story I was telling myself was this made-up story that I didn't have to tell myself. I could've told myself a different story. And that choice is at the heart of almost every self-help book. And it's at the heart of what a non-fiction author has the chance to do. Now notice, when you read a book, the voice is your voice -- not true when you listen to an audiobook. Your voice, in your head, saying something that you didn't believe until you read it. And maybe, just maybe, the author can use the tension and the leverage and the moment to create a little bit of magic that gets you to open the door you could've opened all along. All of us could tell ourselves a better story.
Neil: What happened after that? You said everything changed?
Seth: My life completely changed. I stopped whining. I stopped looking for reasons to whine. Shortly thereafter I applied for an on-campus job and became co-founder of the largest student run business in the country. We started a travel agency and a ticket bureau and a concert agency and a coffee shop and a laundry service and a birthday cake service, every week or two we started a new business and -- so many things happened because I chose to tell myself a different story. Shortly after that I met the woman who became my wife, which was a great decision on my part, and so all of those factors happened, not because the outside world got better, but because I chose to tell myself a different story.
Neil: That is so beautiful.
Listen to all Pages on Apple or Spotify. Full chat with Seth here.
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The Nature of the Fun by David Foster Wallace
Hey everyone,
'The Nature of the Fun' by David Foster Wallace (DFW) is one of my favorite essays.
It's purportedly about writing fiction—and wrestling through the fears and emotions around the process—but I think it applies to a lot more. Like how to find, and especially re-find, the fun at the heart of whatever challenging thing you're doing. Especially after you've had some success. Beware market winds or they may blow you senseless!
This essay originally appeared in 'Fiction Writer' in 1998 and is available today as part of the absolutely phenomenal DFW essay collection 'Both Flesh and Not' (Library, Goodreads, Amazon). The copyright is held by the David Foster Wallace Literary Trust. (DFW very sadly died by suicide in 2008.) I have bought 'Both Flesh and Not' (Library, Goodreads, Amazon) as a gift for people many times and highly recommend it. This essay is worth owning in print and the title track on Roger Federer is likely the best essay on tennis ever written. Many, many gems in there.
On a personal note I talked about 'The Nature of the Fun' back in Chapter 1 of 3 Books as it was a big part of my inspiration to start the podcast. I reread it often and use it as a helpful artistic centering force.
I hope you like it too,
Neil
The Nature of the Fun
Written by David Foster Wallace | (Library, Goodreads, Amazon)
The best metaphor I know of for being a fiction writer is in Don DeLillo's Mao II, where he describes a book-in-progress as a kind of hideously damaged infant that follows the writer around, forever crawling after the writer (i.e., dragging itself across the floor of restaurants where the writer's trying to eat, appearing at the foot of the bed first thing in the morning, etc.), hideously defective, hydrocephalic and noseless and flipper-armed and incontinent and retarded and dribbling cerebrospinal fluid out of its mouth as it mewls and blurbles and cries out to the writer, wanting love, wanting the very thing its hideousness guarantees it'll get: the writer's complete attention.
The damaged-infant trope is perfect because it captures the mix of repulsion and love the fiction writer feels for something he's working on. The fiction always comes out so horrifically defective, so hideous a betrayal of all your hopes for it—a cruel and repellent caricature of the perfection of its conception—yes, understand: grotesque because imperfect. And yet it's yours, the infant is, it's you, and you love it and dandle it and wipe the cerebrospinal fluid off its slack chin with the cuff of the only clean shirt you have left because you haven't done laundry in like three weeks because finally this one chapter or character seems like it's finally trembling on the edge of coming together and working and you're terrified to spend any time on anything other than working on it because if you look away for a second you'll lose it, dooming the whole infant to continued hideousness. And but so you love the damaged infant and pity it and care for it; but also you hate it—hate it—because it's deformed, repellent, because something grotesque has happened to it in the parturition from head to page; hate it because its deformity is your deformity (since if you were a better fiction writer your infant would of course look like one of those babies in catalogue ads for infantwear, perfect and pink and cerebrospinally continent) and its every hideous incontinent breath is a devastating indictment of you, on all levels... and so you want it dead, even as you dote and love and wipe it and dandle it and sometimes even apply CPR when it seems like its own grotesqueness has blocked its breath and it might die altogether.
The whole thing's all very messed up and sad, but simultaneously it's also tender and moving and noble and cool—it's a genuine relationship, of a sort—and even at the height of its hideousness the damaged infant somehow touches and awakens what you suspect are some of the very best parts of you: maternal parts, dark ones. You love your infant very much. And you want others to love it, too, when the time finally comes for the damaged infant to go out and face the world.
So you're in a bit of a dicey position: you love the infant and want others to love it, but that means you hope others won't see it correctly. You want to sort of fool people: you want them to see as perfect what you in your heart know is a betrayal of all perfection.
Or else you don't want to fool these people; what you want is you want them to see and love a lovely, miraculous, perfect, ad-ready infant and to be right, correct, in what they see and feel. You want to be terribly wrong: you want the damaged infant's hideousness to turn out to have been nothing but your own weird delusion or hallucination. But that'd mean you were crazy: you have seen, been stalked by, and recoiled from hideous deformities that in fact (others persuade you) aren't there at all. Meaning you're at least a couple fries short of a Happy Meal, surely. But worse: it'd also mean you see and despise hideousness in a thing you made (and love), in your spawn, in in certain ways you. And this last, best hope—this'd represent something way worse than just very bad parenting; it'd be a terrible kind of self-assault, almost self-torture. But that's still what you most want: to be completely, insanely, suicidally wrong.
But it's still all a lot of fun. Don't get me wrong. As to the nature of that fun, I keep remembering this strange little story I heard in Sunday school when I was about the size of a fire hydrant. It takes place in China or Korea or someplace like that. It seems there was this old farmer outside a village in the hill country who worked his farm with only his son and his beloved horse. One day the horse, who was not only beloved but vital to the labor-intensive work on the farm, picked the lock on his corral or whatever and ran off into the hills. All the old farmer's friends came around to exclaim what bad luck this was. The farmer only shrugged and said, "Good luck, bad luck, who knows?" A couple days later the beloved horse returned from the hills in the company of a whole priceless herd of wild horses, and the farmer's friends all come around to congratulate him on what good luck the horse's escape turned out to be. "Good luck, bad luck, who knows?" is all the farmer says in reply, shrugging. The farmer now strikes me as a bit Yiddish-sounding for an old Chinese farmer, but this is how I remember it. But so the farmer and his son set about breaking the wild horses, and one of the horses bucks the son off his back with such wild force that the son breaks his leg. And here come the friends to commiserate with the farmer and curse the bad luck that had ever brought these accursed wild horses onto his farm. The old farmer just shrugs and says, "Good luck, bad luck, who knows?" A few days later the Imperial Sino-Korean Army or something like that comes marching through the village, conscripting every able-bodied male between like ten and sixty for cannon-fodder for some hideously bloody conflict that's apparently brewing, but when they see the son's broken leg, they let him off on some sort of feudal 4-F, and instead of getting shanghaied the son stays on the farm with the old farmer. Good luck? Bad luck?
This is the sort of parabolic straw you cling to as you struggle with the issue of fun, as a writer. In the beginning, when you first start out trying to write fiction, the whole endeavor's about fun. You don't expect anybody else to read it. You're writing almost wholly to get yourself off. To enable your own fantasies and deviant logics and to escape or transform parts of yourself you don't like. And it works—and it's terrific fun. Then, if you have good luck and people seem to like what you do, and you actually get to get paid for it, and get to see your stuff professionally typeset and bound and blurbed and reviewed and even (once) being read on the AM subway by a pretty girl you don't even know, it seems to make it even more fun. For a while. Then things start to get complicated and confusing, not to mention scary. Now you feel like you're writing for other people, or at least you hope so. You're no longer writing just to get yourself off, which—since any kind of masturbation is lonely and hollow—is probably good. But what replaces the onanistic motive? You've found you very much enjoy having your writing liked by people, and you find you're extremely keen to have people like the new stuff you're doing. The motive of pure personal fun starts to get supplanted by the motive of being liked, of having pretty people you don't know like you and admire you and think you're a good writer. Onanism gives way to attempted seduction, as a motive. Now, attempted seduction is hard work, and its fun is offset by a terrible fear of rejection. Whatever "ego" means, your ego has now gotten into the game. Or maybe "vanity" is a better word. Because you notice that a good deal of your writing has now become basically showing off, trying to get people to think you're good. This is understandable. You have a great deal of yourself on the line, now, writing—your vanity is at stake. You discover a tricky thing about fiction writing: a certain amount of vanity is necessary to be able to do it at all, but any vanity above that certain amount is lethal. At this point 90+ percent of the stuff you're writing is motivated and informed by an overwhelming need to be liked. This results in shitty fiction. And the shitty work must get fed to the wastebasket, less because of any sort of artistic integrity than simply because shitty work will make you disliked. At this point in the evolution of writerly fun, the very thing that's always motivated you to write is now also what's motivating you to feed your writing to the wastebasket. This is a paradox and a kind of double bind, and it can keep you stuck inside yourself for months or even years, during which you wail and gnash and rue your bad luck and wonder bitterly where all the fun of the thing could have gone.
The smart thing to say, I think, is that the way out of this bind is to work your way somehow back to your original motivation: fun. And, if you can find your way back to the fun, you will find that the hideously unfortunate double bind of the late vain period turns out really to have been good luck for you. Because the fun you work back to has been transfigured by the unpleasantness of vanity and fear, an unpleasantness you're now so anxious to avoid that the fun you rediscover is a way fuller and more large-hearted kind of fun. It has something to do with Work as Play. Or with the discovery that disciplined fun is more fun than impulsive or hedonistic fun. Or with figuring out that not all paradoxes have to be paralyzing. Under fun's new administration, writing fiction becomes a way to go deep inside yourself and illuminate precisely the stuff you don't want to see or let anyone else see, and this stuff usually turns out (paradoxically) to be precisely the stuff all writers and readers share and respond to, feel. Fiction becomes a weird way to countenance yourself and to tell the truth instead of being a way to escape yourself or present yourself in a way you figure you will be maximally likable. This process is complicated and confusing and scary, and also hard work, but it turns out to be the best fun there is.
The fact that you can now sustain the fun of writing only by confronting the very same unfun parts of yourself you'd first used writing to avoid or disguise is another paradox, but this one isn't any kind of bind at all. What it is is a gift, a kind of miracle, and compared to it the reward of strangers' affection is as dust, lint.
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44 Things I've (Almost) Learned As I Turn 44
Hey everyone,
Today is my birthday!
Last year I shared a list of birthday advice. Now it's time for this years! Two in a row makes it a tradition, I think. For the list just scroll down!
Btw some background if you're still reading the top part: I've been wisdom-collecting for years. In my 20s I took hundreds of flights and always made it my goal to ask the person I was sitting beside for a piece of life advice before getting off the plane. (It helps that my 20s were before airplane internet and giant headphone cocoons.) I'm sure a lot of these come from those chats. And then, after last year's list, I made a little file on my phone called "44" and have been planting, snipping, and pruning it all year -- treating this list like some kind of little plant I'm ready to finally put on my porch.
And remember: Lists like these are preachy by nature! Take what you like and chuck the rest in the bin.
Here we go:
1. The best sunblock is the one you use.
2. If you don't know if it goes in the dryer, it doesn't.
3. Let your kids catch you reading books. Don't let them watch you scrolling social media.
4. 3 E's of a great speech: Entertain, Educate, Empower.
5. Dating tip: You meet interesting people in interesting places.
6. Add a silent mental "...yet" to any sentence you catch yourself starting with "I can't", "I'm not", or "I don't." "I can't speak Hindi ...yet", "I'm not a runner ...yet", "I don't eat oysters ...yet."
7. Mood follows action.
8. Time you spend with your kids when they're young correlates with time they spend with you when you're old.
9. Stock tip: Buy the haystack, not the needle.
10. Never buy a couch before taking a nap on it.
11. Remember the 'End Of History Illusion': We all know our pasts were bumpy -- yet never expect our futures to be.
12. Ideas are the easy part. Doing it is the hard part.
13. No cell phones in the bedroom. If you need waking up, buy an alarm clock. If you get emergency calls, get a landline.
14. There's nothing wrong with ending a sentence with of.
15. Easy way to entertain toddlers: Lie face down in the middle of the floor.
16. Grapefruits that look best often taste worst and grapefruits that look worst often taste best.
17. Wrap floss around middle fingers not pointer fingers.
18. Most people read zero books last year. 2 pages of fiction a day helps build back the habit. 'Foster', 'Animal Farm', 'A Christmas Carol', 'The Little Prince', and 'The Old Man and The Sea' are all <100 pages.
19. You can't make new old friends.
20. Addiction is when something that takes you from normal to good starts taking you from bad to normal.
21. Beware the 5 greatest regrets of the dying: i) I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself ii) I wish I hadn't worked so hard iii) I wish I had the courage to express my feelings, iv) I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends, and v) I wish I had let myself be happier
22. Don't post your kids faces online. They might sue you.
23. Divorce is not a death sentence.
24. Strapping things to your body to measure things in your body makes you less connected to your body.
25. Between jobs remember: The longer you hold your breath underwater the more interesting place you come up.
26. On making decisions: Low time, low importance? Automate. High time, low importance? Regulate. Low time, high importance? Effectuate. (Just do it!) High time, high importance? Debate.
27. If you don't deal with your shit, your shit deals with you.
28. When sending meeting options in multiple time zones put their time zone first.
29. Stitches vs Bandaids Test: Aim to say yes to kids trying things that cause bandaids and no to things that cause stitches.
30. You don't have to finish the book.
31. Ikigai: A reason to get out of bed in the morning. Write one down on a folded index card and leave it on your bedside table.
32. To pay more attention in video meetings: Hide Self View.
33. Blender breakfast I've used for 15 years: water, cinnamon, turmeric, protein, frozen banana, frozen greens, powdered greens, nut milk, nut butter, yogurt, avocado.
34. Guaranteed way to get good: Do it for free for ten years.
35. You don't rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.
36. Funeral Rule: If you're not sure if you should go, go.
37. The Lindy Effect: Longer something's been popular, longer it'll stay popular. Helpful for finding books, restaurants, ideas.
38. Cut the cord between guilt and pleasure.
39. Social Media Paradox: More you're posting about it less you're doing it.
40. There is a relationship between how much you buy local and how nice the flowers are in your park.
41. Changing your mind is a sign of strength not weakness.
42. There is a tiny arrow on your gas gauge that tells you which way to park your car at the pumps.
43. Quickest happiness hack? Lower expectations.
44. You only earned what you spent and enjoyed.
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I'm sure I stole all of these but some specific credits: Rich Roll (7), Daniel Gilbert, Jordi Quoidbach, and Timothy Wilson (11), Paul Graham (20), Bronnie Ware (21), Sarah Silverman (27), Joey Coleman (29), James Clear (35), and my dad (44). Bad paraphrases all mine, of course. Click here to read last year's list.
Read more of my birthday advice:
45 Things I’ve (Almost) Learned As I Turn 45
43 Things I've (Almost) Learned As I Turn 43
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10 things I (try to) do every day to get more done
Do you feel like it’s getting harder to get stuff done?
It’s not just you. The distraction machine is cranked to 10. Endless apps and feeds and algorithms fight for our attention. They’re good at getting it, too! No wonder Reed Hastings, founder of Netflix, says their greatest competitor of all is sleep.
I find myself revisiting simple practices to help make sure I actually get anything done.
Here are ten habits I (try to) do to get more done each day:
1. Wake up and look at my ikigai
An ikigai is the ‘reason you get out of bed in the morning.’
Leslie and I take simple blank index cards, fold them in half, and set them up like tent cards on our bedside table.
I think of the ikigai I write on the card as “my morning message to myself” and find it helps provide a quick north star to my day.
I change what I write on the cards. Sometimes I’ll get lofty and purposeful (“Helping people live happy lives”), sometimes I’ll get focused (“Finish writing the next book”), and sometimes I’ll just use the card as a way to neutralize anxiety (“You have enough.”)
I write more about ikigais in The Happiness Equation and, if you want to go deeper, I recommend Héctor Garcia’s book Ikigai.
2. Two-Minute Mornings
I spend half a second staring at my ikigai card. Now what?
The next thing I do is grab my Two-Minute Mornings journal (or just any other index card is fine) and write my response to three prompts:
I will let go of…
I am grateful for…
I will focus on…
Research titled “Don’t look back in anger!” by Brassen, Gamer, Peters, Gluth, and Bluch in Science shows that minimizing regrets as we age creates greater contentment and happiness. I think there’s a big reason why confession and repentance show up across major world religions. Writing down and letting go of something feels like wiping a wet shammy across the blackboard of our minds. (I will let go of…)
Research by Emmons and McCullough shows if you write down five gratitudes a week you’re measurably happier over a ten-week period. The more specific the better! Don’t write “my dog” ten days in a row. Try “When the rescue puppy we got during the pandemic finally stopped peeing on my husband’s pillow,” etc. (I am grateful for…)
Finally, all kinds of small aggravating things hang out in my brain when I sleep. I'm not talking dreams. I mean the middle of the night "Oh yeah, I need to do that" things. Take the van in for the oil change! Ask the pharmacist about that rash! Overnight brain burbles need to be processed so the last prompt helps me aim to get one done. I'm carving a “will do” from my endless “could do" and "should do” lists. (I will focus on…)
Two-minute mornings help prime your brain for positivity.
3. Lift something heavy
Every day I lift heavy weights I seem to buy myself the rest of the day without feeling stress. It’s like a magic pill. I don’t like lifting weights! I hate lifting weights! But it’s worth it for that stress-free feeling for the next 24 hours.
Workouts such as Push/Pull/Legs or 5x5 are great -- and, honestly, just Google Image-searching them plus "workout" works for me -- but if you need a cajoling of some kind I suggest using Trainiac. I started in the pandemic and I got a real human coach (hi Geoff!) who sets my routines, using the equipment I have or will have (i.e., at a hotel gym), and then sends me notes, prompts, messages, and videos to keep me going. I don’t know how to do an exercise? I send him a video, he critiques my form. I have a question? He responds the next day.
To be clear: I’m not being sponsored by this app — I have no ads on any of my stuff and I accept zero payments or credits, etc, etc — but I’ve just been using it since the pandemic and enjoy it. I did personal training (like in person, at a gym) years ago but found it time and cost prohibitive.
I personally set my goal for four workouts a week and then if I “fail” and only get three in I still feel good. What about no workout days? I throw my kids in the air for a few minutes. I’m winded after! And we both feel great.
4. Walk 5km a day
Guess what the average human walking speed is?
5km/hour.
So just moving one phone meeting to a “walk and talk” helps get that 5km of walking in. I personally find that I’m actually more focused on the phone call when I’m walking because I’m not surrounded by the endless distractions of screens. Plus, it’s good for your health, good for community connection (you actually talk to your neighbors!), and walking tends to stoke your creativity, too. And, side benefit, it brings out your inner birder.
For more on walking I recommend “Walking” by Henry David Thoreau (free out of copyright full version) or “Why I Do All This Walking” by Nassim Taleb (Scribd link, with full essay in The Black Swan.)
5. Schedule one UNTOUCHABLE day a week
Okay, this isn’t a daily habit but a weekly one. I’m sneaking it in anyway because it’s so powerful.
A New Yorker feature by Alexandra Schwartz calls our focus on productivity and hustle “improving ourselves to death.” She writes, “It’s no longer enough to imagine our way to a better state of body or mind. We must now chart our progress, count our steps, log our sleep rhythms, tweak our diets, record our negative thoughts — then analyze the data, recalibrate, and repeat.”
What’s one solution? Untouchable Days. These are days where I am literally unreachable, by anyone, in any way — all day. My productivity is about 10 times higher on these days.
I know on the surface this idea sounds completely impractical and I mostly get scoffing and head shakes when I start talking about it. But, I also get more emails from people successfully using this concept across a vast array of ages and careers. If it sounds too hard, there’s nothing wrong with starting with an Untouchable Lunch. Leave your phone at your desk and get outside for an hour where nobody can reach you.
I go deeper on this concept in this viral HBR article and in my book on resilience.
6. Read 20 (or even 2!) pages of fiction a day
The Annual Review of Psychology published a report that says books are medicine.
Books create empathy, intimacy, compassion, and understanding. Why? Our brain’s mirror neurons fire when we read about experiences we haven’t lived — when we’re another gender, in another country, in another time … our minds think we’re there.
It’s like that Game of Thrones quote: “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies … the man who never reads lives only one.”
Now, the troubling stat is that the American Time Use Survey says that 57% of Americans read zero books last year. Zero! Meanwhile, we’re spending over 5 hours a day on our phones.
But Science magazine published a formative study in 2013 which showed that reading literary fiction improved test results measuring social perception and empathy. So if we can channel a few minutes of phone time each day to reading fiction, we’ll have a natural way to zoom out of our problems and feel more connected to the wider world.
Everything feels easier after that.
7. “Wear one suit.”
It’s a principle.
I wear a blue suit jacket, white dress shirt, dark blue jeans, Nike running shoes, and my yellow watch … to every single speech and media interview I do. So I never think about what to wear for any of them. I just buy multiples of the same running shoes, shirts, socks, etc.
Same thing with my breakfast. “Drink one shake.” I’ve been drinking the same shake for fifteen years. Water, turmeric, cinnamon, half a frozen banana, powdered greens, frozen greens, protein, nut butter, nut milk, yogurt, and avocado. Sure, maybe I change the protein flavor once in a while, but the point is that I can make it on auto-pilot.
What can you systemize to free up more brain space for everything else?
8. Write a “3 things” cue card
Every night before I go up to bed I write an index card with tomorrow’s day up top — THURSDAY — and a (maximum) 3-item checklist below. Beside each item, I draw a square box to be checked off.
Why? Well, a laundry list of 20 things feels overwhelming and oppressive. (That can go on a weekly or monthly checklist.) But the nighttime forced prioritization helps me go to bed knowing I have my track set for the next day. And by making it only 3 I’ve done some of the hard work of simply choosing what not to do.
Also, one principle within the last? “Write first.” What I mean is that writing takes more of my energy than anything else I do, so if the day includes writing I’ll put that first. (You may have heard a similar principle for going to the gym: “Squat first.” Just start with the hardest thing.)
9. Lock the phone up around sunset
University of Bologna professors published a report in Sloan Management Review which showed that anxiety spikes when students don’t have their cellphones for even a single day.
Everyone talks about intermittent fasting … with food. We should be talking about intermittent fasting … with phones.
When I interviewed Johann Hari (author of Stolen Focus) he told me he drops his phone in a K-Safe every night. That’s a big square plastic box with a timer on the outside. Set the timer to 3 hours? It doesn’t open for 3 hours.
Now: Why do I say “around sunset”? Well, because I’m trying (trying!) to get my body more in line with natural light. When the sun dips down I want my brain to dip down, too. Dimmer lights. Candles at dinner. Fewer screens. More books.
Easing my body and mind into a darker, deeper sleep.
Also, if you don’t have a K-Safe or timed lockbox you can try my strategy of asking your partner to “Please hide my phone until tomorrow and don’t tell me where it is even if I ask.”
10. Have a “wind down” routine.
Research from Australia shows that exposing our brains to bright screens before bed reduces melatonin production — the sleep hormone.
So screens mess up our sleep. Great! Now what do we do? Well, we’ve already talked about reading. But what I mean here is you need a nighttime ritual. Maybe it’s playing Rose Rose Thorn Bud with your boyfriend. Maybe it’s flossing and brushing your teeth with your wife. Maybe it’s reading books to your kids. Maybe it’s tidying up your dresser and setting out your clothes for the next morning. Maybe it’s having a warm shower and shaving.
We need to plug our phones in the basement. (I recommend the furnace room — the darker and cobwebbier, the better!) And have a nighttime ritual that allows us the mental space to widen, reflect, and process the day in a slow and peaceful way.
Okay!
That’s it!
A long list, sure. And a lofty one! But, as always, as with anything I’m suggesting or trying myself, the goal is never to be perfect — it’s just to be a little better than before.
I hope even one or two of these resonate with you. And if you have something you suggest adding to my list — just drop me a line and let me know.
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43 Things I've (Almost) Learned As I Turn 43
I thought I’d celebrate my 43rd birthday by writing down 43 things I’ve (almost) learned. Lists like these are preachy by nature so, you know, just take what you like and leave the rest.
Here we go:
1. Life is too short for unsalted butter.
2. When arguing: Start sentences with ‘I’ not ‘You’.
3. Text friends, email coworkers.
4. Best gratitude game at dinner: Rose, Rose, Thorn, Bud.
5. Never start a speech by apologizing.
6. Clothing stores offer 2 of 3 of fashion, price, and quality. H&M? Fashion and price. Old Navy? Price and quality. Prada? Fashion and quality. Know what you’re buying, don’t expect what you’re not.
7. Five people who love you are worth a lot more than five million who like you.
8. Nothing is as expensive as a cheap pair of shoes.
9. You do make friends with salad. Master a great one.
10. Low opinion of others, low opinion of self? Cynical. High opinion of others, low opinion of self? Insecure. Low opinion of others, high opinion of self? Arrogant. High opinion of others, high opinion of self? Confidence. Aim for confidence.
11. To a large extent: If you can be happy with simple things it will be simple to be happy.
12. The three best home improvements are fresh paint, fresh flowers, and fresh air.
13. Never retire. Look for the 4 S’s instead: Social (friends), Structure (schedule), Stimulation (learning), and Story (purpose).
14. To be the favored client: Pay the bill as soon as you see it.
15. You’re the best judge of how good it is. You’re the worst judge of how well it will do.
16. Remember the 3 G’s in sex: Good, Giving, and Game.
17. Loosen the pickle jar lid but give it to a kid to pop.
18. To remember 2-digit numbers: Memorize 9 images and combine them. I use candle for 1, bicycle for 2, tripod for 3, table for 4, home plate for 5, soccer ball for 6, swan for 7, stop sign for 8, cat for 9, donut for 0. Friend’s birthday is 27th? Picture a swan on a bicycle. Movie comes out on the 16th? Picture a candle on soccer ball.
19. The best way to avoid a fight is to have a snack.
20. Before work trips: Hide a note under everyone’s pillow.
21. You always regret not doing more than you regret doing. Lean in.
22. Schedule one Untouchable Day each week.
23. The 7 for 7 Rule: 7 minutes of stretching for 7 hours better sleep.
24. If you have signed a contract with your work you need a signed contract with your family, too.
25. For perspective: Leave ten stones on your dresser, one for each decade of your life. Move one forward every ten years. Daily problems feel smaller with a zoom out.
26. It is easier to act yourself into a new way of thinking than to think yourself into a new way of acting. If in doubt? Start.
27. People remember who stayed till the end of the wedding. Stay till the end of the wedding.
28. Always cut grilled cheese into triangles.
29. For better skin: Bathe less.
30. Keep a lacrosse ball in your suitcase. Nothing improves a bad hotel room like a wall massage before bed.
31. You are not allowed to leave a bookstore without buying a book.
32. Practice 2 minute mornings: Before starting your day write and fill out: “I will let go of…”, “I am grateful for…”, “I will focus on…”
33. For better focus, attention, and privacy: Don’t take your phone.
34. 10 second mood lift: Hold the sides of your ribs and take a slow deep breath to inflate them outwards without raising your shoulders.
35. Put a gift note to yourself in the online order.
36. Woo the subconscious: Keep blank cue cards and a pen on your bedside table.
37. 3 best words for friends in tough times: “Tell me more…”
38. The only two ways to reply to any invite: No or Hell Yeah.
39. Swear words are the sharp knives in word kitchen. Teach kids how to use safely – not avoid.
40. Easiest way to love a park: Pick up one piece of trash every visit.
41. Leave the backup toilet paper where your guests can find it.
42. For assorted poisons you enjoy: Make it a treat.
43. Remember: If you have what you need it doesn’t matter what anyone else has.
I’m pretty sure I stole all of these but a few specific credits: Ryan Holiday (3), Mario Pilozzi (6), Kevin Kelly (7), Dan Savage (16), Derek Sivers (38), Sarah Silverman (42), and my dad (43).
Read more of my birthday advice:
45 Things I’ve (Almost) Learned As I Turn 45
44 Things I’ve (Almost) Learned As I Turn 44
Sign Up for a Dose of Inspiration:
Every other week, I send an email out with an article I’ve written, or one of my favorite speeches, essays or poems. No ads, no sponsors, no spam, and nothing for sale. Just a dose of inspiration or beauty!
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The 3 S’s of Success
“How can I be successful?”
It’s a question many of us ask ourselves and have trouble answering. Because what is success, anyway? Is it writing a book and selling a million copies? Is it winning awards and gaining respect from your peers? Or is just feeling satisfied with your work?
We’re often told that success is in the eye of the beholder — that we need to define it for ourselves, on terms that are meaningful to us.
I believe that’s true but that advice doesn’t tell us how to do it. Try as we might, many of our achievements wind up fitting a mold that suits somebody else — employers, parents, societal expectations — at least as much as, if not more than, it suits us personally. And we still find ourselves left unsatisfied or unhappy, wishing we had something more or something else, no matter how ‘successful’ we’ve been.
I think one of the reasons why is because there roughly are three types of success. I call them the 3 S’s. The trick is to first decide that you can’t have all three of them at once and that you therefore must figure out which one you’re really aiming at.
Here’s how I draw the 3 S’s of success on a triangle:
1. Sales success is about getting people to buy something you’ve created. Your book is a commercial hit! Everybody’s reading it, everybody’s talking about it, you’re on TV. You sell hundreds and then thousands and then millions of copies. Dump trucks beep while backing into your driveway before pouring out endless shiny coins as royalty payments. Sales success is about money. How much did you sell?
2. Social success means you’re widely recognized among your peers and people you respect. Critical success. Industry renown! To extend the book example, let’s say the New York Times reviews your latest novel and some writers you respect send you letters saying they thought the book was great (whether or not it’s a commercial hit).
3. Self success is in your head. It’s invisible. Only you know if you have it, because it corresponds to internal measures you’ve established on your own. Self success means you’ve achieved what you wanted to achieve. For yourself. You’re proud and satisfied with your work.
These three categories are broad and approximate but I think that’s why they’re useful: Chances are good that any major achievement you reach will fall more clearly into one than another. They apply to pretty much all industries, professions, and aspects of life.
The point is that success is not one-dimensional.
In order to be truly happy with your successes, you first need to decide what kind of success you want.
Are you in marketing? Sales success means your product flew off the shelves and your numbers blew away forecasts. Social success means you were written up in prestigious magazines, nominated for an award, or shouted out by the CEO at the all-hands meeting. Self success? That’s the same: How do you feel about your accomplishments?
Are you a teacher? Sales success means you’re offered promotions based on your work in the classroom because the bosses want to magnify and implement your work more widely. You’re asked to become a Vice Principal or Principal. Social success means educators invite you to present at conferences, mentor new teachers, and the superintendent recognizes you for your work. Self success? Again: How do you feel about your accomplishments?
There is a catch, though.
I believe it’s impossible to experience all three successes at once.
Picture the triangle above like one of those wobbly exercise planks at an old-school gym. If you push down on two sides, the third side lifts into the air. In our lives and work, it’s rare that any given thing we do — any single success we achieve, no matter how great — can satisfy ourselves and others in equal measure. Aspiring to that, if you ask me, is a mistake.
Sales success, for instance, can block self success. That’s what happened to me as a writer when I got hooked on bestseller lists, blog stats, and brand extensions. Personal goals took a backseat to more tangible commercial ones. I started making things because I was asked to and not because I wanted to. Sure, the saying goes “make hay while the sun shines,” and I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with chasing commercial success, but I’m pointing out that if that’s your north star it can distract or block you from chasing deeply personal goals.
Look at it the other way.
Personal goals don’t necessarily have a marketable strategy so no sales or social success may follow. I’m talking about making that triple-decker chocolate birthday cake you bake for your daughter, the incredible twelfth grade chemistry lesson you put your heart into for weeks, the backyard deck you built with your bare hands. You wouldn’t expect royalty payments or critical reviews from those endeavors. You’re not trying to sell cakes, lesson plans, or decks. You could! But that wasn’t your goal.
And, finally, let’s peek at this from a final view. Critical darlings often sell poorly. You see this almost every year at the Oscars. Spotlight wins Best Picture — tense, dramatic, wonderful acting. How much did it gross at the domestic box office? $45 million. That same year Furious 7 made $353 million.
Which would you have rather made?
There is Sales, Social, and Self success.
Spend time thinking about which one you want and then go.
Good luck!
This Two-Minute Morning Practice Will Make Your Day Better
In the early 2010s, I wrote a self-help book that catapulted me into a strange universe. I went from working an office job in the suburbs to walking onto TV show sets where I was often introduced as “Captain Awesome” or “The Happy Guy!”
I was thrust into becoming a spokesperson for positivity, happiness, and intentional living.
But there was just one problem.
My life was a mess.
I originally wrote the book as a series of blog posts to cope with the pain of my marriage falling apart and the heartbreak of losing my best friend to suicide. I moved to a bachelor apartment downtown and lived alone for the first time in my life. I began experiencing deep loneliness, chronic sleeplessness, and endless anxiety.
My solution to these deep emotional issues was to become a workaholic.
I would work in the suburbs all day, pick up a burrito on my way downtown, and then set it on my desk while working until one or two in the morning before falling asleep exhausted and then waking up exhausted when my alarm buzzed the next morning at 6:00 a.m.
I started taking pills to help me fall asleep and pills to help me wake up. I lost 40 pounds due to stress. I had headaches and chest flutters and stomach bubbles all day. Black bags slowly expanded like puddles under my eyes. When coworkers began asking if I was getting enough sleep, I bought and started applying face makeup.
I didn’t have time to sleep more and I didn’t have time to be asked about it.
I knew I was spinning.
After reading the book Willpower by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney, I became convinced my issue was decision fatigue. My to-do list was a mile high! So in an act of desperation, I began writing down a couple things I would focus on each day on a blank 4×6 index card. “I will focus on…” helped me carve some ‘will dos’ out of the endless ‘could dos’ and ‘should dos.’
The practice began providing ballast to my days because it blew away the endless fog of ‘what should I do next?’ and helped break giant projects down into simple tasks. A looming book deadline became ‘write 500 words’, an all-hands meeting about a major redesign became ‘send invite to three execs for feedback,’ and my nonexistent exercise regime became ‘go for a 10-minute walk at lunch.’
I will focus on…
I started buying index cards in packs of 100 at the dollar store and felt a sense of pride whenever I finished another pack.
The practice was wonderful for reducing decision fatigue, but I was still much too focused on the negative throughout the rest of my life. Over the next few years, I came across research that convinced me it wasn’t my fault.
What do I mean?
It turns out our brains contain an almond-sized amygdala that secretes fight-or-flight hormones all day. A few hundred thousand years of evolutionary programming makes us want to stare at bad news, sad news, and controversial news — endlessly. This naturally ingrained tendency is why we rubberneck on the highway, scan for one-star reviews, and immediately find the one question we got wrong on the math test. Our amygdalas are fantastic at looking for problems, finding problems, and solving problems, but they’re also ripe for exploitation. News media and social media sites have perfected that perfect sour-sweet-sour combo that grabs the greatest amount of our attention possible.
MSNBC’s goal isn’t to give you the news — it’s to sell you Subarus. Instagram’s goal isn’t to make you new friends — it’s to sell you a juice cleanse.
I decided it wasn’t my fault I was negative. It was the world’s fault!
But, fortunately unfortunately, I live in the world.
So what did I do? A study comparing people who wrote down gratitudes to people who wrote down hassles or events taught me that if I write down things I’m grateful for every week over a 10-week period, I’ll not only be happier, but physically healthier.
Each day, I added this to the back of my index card:
I am grateful for…
Do you do bicep curls? Hamstring curls? I started thinking of gratitudes as brain curls. The key is that they really need to be specific. Writing down things like “my apartment, my mom, and my job” over and over doesn’t do anything. I had to write down things like, “the way the sunset looks over the purple hostel across the street,” or “when my mom dropped off leftover chicken biryani,” or “having egg salad sandwiches in the cafeteria today with Agostino.”
I was proud of my new morning index card habit, but I still found myself holding too much stress. Then I came across a study in Science magazine called “Don’t Look Back in Anger!” showing that minimizing regrets as we age increases contentment. In other words, the act of sharing what’s worrying you actually helps extricate it.
So I added one final line to my daily index card:
I will let go of…
I will let go of…the rude email I sent last night at 11 p.m. I will let go of…showing up late to the meeting with the boss. I will let go of …comparing myself to Tim Ferriss.
The difference this simple practice made in my life has been incredible.
Because the truth is we’re only awake for around 1000 minutes a day on average. If we can invest just two of them to prime our brains for positivity, then we’ll be helping ensure the other 998 minutes of our days are happier.
Over time, I switched the order around, turned it into a formal journal, and now leave it on my night table. When I wake up, it’s the first thing I see, and the fact that it’s so short helps me feel like I’m setting up my day for success before I even begin.
Am I completely cured? Am I always happy now? No! Of course not. But this two-minute, research-based morning practice has massively improved the quality of my days.
I will let go of…
I am grateful for…
I will focus on…
I hope you give it a try.
And I hope it does the same for you.
I originally wrote a slightly different version of this article for Harvard Business Review.
Take More Pictures: The counterintuitive way to build resilience
When I was researching my book on resilience, I discovered something so obvious it blew me away.
I think I was around nine years old when my dad bought me the Complete Major League Baseball Statistics, a frayed paperback with a green cover. I treasured it and kept it in my room for years. I flipped through it so many times.
As I paged through the numbers, I started noticing something interesting. Cy Young had the most wins of all time in baseball (511). He also had the most losses (316). Nolan Ryan had the most strikeouts (5714), and the most walks (2795).
Why would the guy with the most wins also have the most losses?
Why would the guy with the most strikeouts also have the most walks?
It’s simple—they just played the most.
They tried the most and moved through loss the most.
When everything rests on the numbers
Sometimes, achieving something really is about quantity over quality not the other way around. I’ve asked wedding photographers how they manage to capture such perfect moments. They all say the same type of thing: “I just take way more pictures. I’ll take a thousand pictures over a three-hour wedding. That’s a picture every 10 seconds. Of course I’m going to have 50 good ones. I’m throwing 950 pictures away to find them!”
Sometimes, when I’m doing Q&A after a speech, someone asks me a question along the lines of “So, congratulations on the success of The Book of Awesome. My question is: How do I get paid millions to write about farting in elevators?”
To me, this is like asking, “So you won the lottery. How do I win the lottery, too?”
I always answer the same way, with a reply I stole from Todd Hanson, former head writer at The Onion. He said that whenever someone asks him the question “So how do I get a job writing jokes for money like you did?” he gives a straightforward answer:
“Do it for free for 10 years.”
We cannot hack our way to success
Today, we’re surrounded by tales of companies with million-dollar valuations that grow at lightning-fast rates. We hear about tiny startups that Google acquires for billions of dollars, just a few months after launch. We want to read about the fastest way to get a six-pack or accelerate our careers. But ultimately, what we want to find—quick fixes, easy answers, shortcuts—isn’t there.
Some things take time. They take time. They just take time. It’s not about the number of hits but rather the number of times you step up to the plate. The most important questions to ask yourself are:
Am I gaining experience?
Will these experiences help?
Can I afford to stay on this path for a while?
Sometimes? No. Other times? Yes. And either way you’ll help yourself see that you are learning, doing, and moving—even if that means lots of failure on the way.
“I’m a big fan of poof”
Seth Godin, bestselling author of over 20 books, offered similar advice in an interview with Tim Ferriss: “The number of failures I’ve had dramatically exceeds most people’s, and I’m super proud of that. I’m more proud of the failures than the successes because it’s about this mantra of ‘Is this generous? Is this going to connect? Is this going to change people for the better? Is it worth trying?’ If it meets those criteria and I can cajole myself into doing it, then I ought to.”
And in and interview with Jonathan Fields on Good Life Project, he said, “I’m a big fan of poof.” What’s poof? The idea that you try and if it’s not working—poof. You go try something else.
I’m writing this article as part of my research, lessons, and ideas on resilience in You Are Awesome. That book came out over a year ago now. Is it a hit? Is it a flop? Honestly, it almost doesn’t matter. Because, either way, the only choice I have is to move on to the next thing.
Sure, I want it to succeed. But I can’t determine that. All I get to do is take more pictures. All I get to do is keep going with my next book, next talk, next project, next whatever, whether this one is a hit or goes poof.
You need to do the same.
Success stories are not stories of success
We need to stop looking at successful people with the lens that their lives contain a success that led to a success that led to another success. Because you know what we’re really looking at? Not success, not really. Just people who are just really good at moving through failures.
Moving through failures, swimming through failure, recovering and going forward from failure? That’s the real success. Successful people get to where they’re going because they are willing to try something when the possibility of failure is high … they know and accept that and don’t shy away from it.
So when it comes to long-term success, remember it’s not how many home runs you hit. It’s how many at-bats you take. The wins will only pile up if you keep stepping up to the plate.
This is an edited excerpt from You Are Awesome: How To Navigate Chance, Wrestle with Failure, and Live and Intentional Life
Why we're so bad at predicting what will happen to us in the future
We all think the way things are now is the way things will continue to be. If you’re flying high, that’s not so bad, but if you’re falling, flailing or treading water like many of us right now, then this is a dangerous tendency.
Here’s how to counteract it.
See the failure you’re going through as a step up an invisible staircase toward a Future You in a Future Life you can’t even imagine yet.
The staircase represents your life so far. And you can’t see up the invisible staircase.
Look down behind you. That part is visible. You can see where you came from. All the steps you already walked up.
Look. There’s the time you moved in fifth grade and got bullied by that goon Adam every day after school.
Remember? That’s when you first picked up a basketball and started practicing with Coach Williams every night.
There’s Francesco, the tattooed chef who chewed you out every shift you showed up late to wash dishes at the seafood place as a teen. It was painful but you learned to be on time.
Prom — remember that disaster? I guess that night helped you realize you were gay.
So many steps up to today. Big steps. Hard steps. But steps all the same.
And what’s next on the staircase?
Well, that’s the problem.
No one knows.
It’s invisible. We can’t see the future. And maybe if that were the only problem, that would be okay. But it isn’t. It gets worse.
Why?
Because according to the research, we actually think we can see up that staircase.
Our brains think, “Oh yeah, sure, I know what’s next in my life.” In reality, we suck at it. Let me explain.
In 2013, Science published a fascinating study conducted by the researchers Jordi Quoidbach, Daniel T. Gilbert and Timothy D. Wilson. They teamed up to measure the personalities, values and preferences of more than 19,000 people ages 18 to 68. In a series of tests, they asked the subjects about two pretty simple things: how much they thought they had changed in the past decade and how much they would change in the next decade.
They used a lot of scientific methods to make sure the data were legit, then they published their results. Academic circles started buzzing. Media outlets clamored to share the results.
Why?
Because the results were mind-blowing.
It turned out that no matter how old the respondents were, they uniformly believed that they had changed a ton in the past but would change little in the future.
What?
Imagine a 30-year-old guy telling the tempestuous story of his last 10 years but figuring his next 10 years would be smooth sailing. Imagine a 50-year-old woman talking about how everything had flip-flopped after she turned 40 but then assuming that at 60, she’d be the same person she was now. That was the case for everybody regardless of age, gender or personality.
We all do it.
We all think that the way things are now is the way things will continue to be.
If you’re flying high, that’s maybe not a bad thing, but if you’re falling, if you’re busted, if you’re heartbroken, if you’re lonely, then this is a dangerous psychological tendency. And we all share it.
When we’re at rock bottom, we are certain that there’s no way up. We think we’ll never get out of our parents’ basement. We think our divorce means we’ll never meet someone new. If we’ve lost our jobs, we think we’ll be scrolling online postings forever.
The researchers called this the “end of history illusion.” We think everything will remain unchanged from here on out.
Why did those researchers study go to the effort of 19,000 people? Gilbert went on NPR’s Hidden Brain and explained, “You know, like everybody, I suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. You know, we have divorces. We have surgeries. We have breakups with women we love and friends we enjoy. So it was sort of ordinary events that befell me all in one year. And I realized that, had you asked me a year earlier how I would be faring, the answer would have been, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’ll be devastated.’ But I wasn’t devastated…. And it made me wonder if I was the only person who was just too stupid to be able to look ahead into his future and figure out how he’d feel if really bad or maybe really good things happened.”
There it is. The invisible staircase.
Even Gilbert, the famed Harvard psychologist and professor, the author of bestselling books such as Stumbling on Happiness, even he forgets that the rest of the staircase is invisible. He went through a flop or two and figured, “Well, darn, my life’s gonna suck forever.” But it didn’t.
Inevitably, everything we go through in life really is a step to help us get to a better place.
It’s hard to see it this way. But we have to, because this study helps us realize we’re prone to catastrophizing. That alone should be enough to zoom backward in your brain and go, “Wait a minute here. I’m tricking myself! Who’s to say I won’t get out of the basement? Meet someone new? Land a plum gig I love?”
See it as a step.
Gilbert ended up figuring out that when it comes to predicting the future, we’re all stupid. Each and every one of us.
Doesn’t that feel better?
This research reminded me of an HR job I had where I had to escort bosses into meeting rooms whenever they had to fire an employee. I was there for paperwork, for witnessing, for emotional support. I was in the room when dozens of people got fired, and it was awful. There were tears and wet tissues and many afternoons when I’d be consoling someone in a freezing parking lot as they loaded up their trunk with framed pictures from their desk saying “I thought I’d be here forever” and “What am I going to do now?” and “I’ll never find another job.”
Those scenes left me heartbroken. I lost a lot of sleep over them.
Sometimes I’d bump into the former employees years later. And what did they tell me? “Getting fired was the best thing that happened to me! If I hadn’t gotten that severance package, I never would have had those crucial six months to spend with my dad before he died.”
Or: “I traveled to Peru and became a nutritional supplement importer, and I love what I’m doing now!”
Or: “I’m working at a smaller company now, and I’ve gotten promoted twice in two years!”
Or: “I used my severance pay to take the time to be with my daughter and son-in-law in the months after her third miscarriage.”
Why did every fired employee tell me this? Why did they all react so positively after some time had passed? How can that happen?
Because we confuse the challenge of picturing change with the improbability of change itself.
We do.
We confuse the challenge of picturing change (“What am I going to do now?”) with the improbability of change (“I’ll never find anything!”).
In other words, you can’t picture yourself changing so you assume that you won’t.
Why?
Because your seeing skills are shit!
And so are mine. So are everyone’s. You think because you can’t see up the staircase there aren’t any more steps. But there are more steps.
And change will come.
It always does.
That’s why it’s so hard to see change as a step. To see this failure, this flop, this difficult life experience as part of a process, as part of a greater whole. It’s hard to see it as a step because you can’t see the next step. And you sure can’t see 10 steps after that.
Why do we always think failure leads somewhere bad? It’s not true. It rarely is. Remember the end of history illusion. Our brains think this is the end. Remember all those people I met after they were fired saying how positive that left turn ended up being?
It’s me, too. How could I have known that failing at P&G would somehow lead us to having the conversation we’re having right now? I couldn’t have. Believe me, I far prefer having this conversation to doing price analysis on eye shadows and mascaras. But when I flamed out there, I pictured myself sleeping in a pile of club sandwich crusts in Cleveland.
So be kind to yourself.
When you’re there, when you’re stewing in the shock of failure and loss, when you’re convinced you’re stuck, when you’re convinced there’s no way forward, just remember: There’s a staircase you’re not seeing. Trust that it’s there, right in front of you, and that it leads to exciting new places. Have the courage to believe in this one thing that you can’t see.
There are so many steps ahead. So many steps. Don’t stop. Shift the spotlight, and keep moving.
It’s very possible and very likely that what you’re going through is a step toward a future you’ll be happy with. But you just can’t see it … yet.
An earlier version of this article was published on TED.com
49 things to do if you're staying home due to Coronavirus
Have you heard of the Dracula Sneeze?
It’s one example of social distancing being recommended these days along with conference cancellations, work from home policies, and school closures.
In many places it’s all adding up to more home time, family time, kid time, and together time.
If you have a break, how do you embrace it?
Today I’m sharing 49 things to do if you’re staying home due to Coronavirus:
49. Build an amazing couch cushion fort
48. Organize the Tupperware drawer
47. Finally scroll through your Camera Roll to pick out a dozen favorites to print for a photo wall
46. Make a lightbulb vase
45. Garden
44. Start a Reading Challenge with your kids (some ideas here)
43. Read The Story of Us at Wait But Why
42. Do a 7-minute workout
41. Finally clean out that basement storage room
40. Make a mix tape or mix tape playlist
39. Order this book and make paper airplanes
38. Listen to 3 Books (start with David Sedaris, Angie Thomas, or Seth Godin)
37. Prune your apps
36. Read all 1000 awesome things
35. Pick names out of a hat and paint that person’s toenails
34. Read the “Little House” series with your kids
33. Learn how to play chess
32. Go down a 92nd Street Y rabbit hole
31. Pick one of “26 very long books worth the time they’ll take to read”
30. Plan an epic board games tournament
29. Make a Maze Book
28. Watch David Foster Wallace’s “This is Water” commencement speech
27. Throw an indoor picnic
26. Go for a walk and wave at everyone from a distance
25. Pick something you know more about than most people and edit the Wikipedia page
24. Pick a year and watch all the Best International Feature Film nominees
23. Pick a country and plan an International Dinner Night with new recipes and music
22. Take Yale’s popular free online course “The Science of Well-Being”
21. Or another free course
20. Pick a blog you love and commit to reading the entire Archive (try this, this, or this)
19. Craft and mail a postcard to PostSecret
18. Write one of those late 90’s-style giant essay updates emails to a friend. Say you don’t need a reply
17. Organize your books in the Dewey Decimal System (use this and this to help)
16. Download Merlin and become a backyard birder (For inspiration, read this.)
15. Watch the most popular TED Talks of 2019
14. Pick one of the (growing) 1000 most formative books to read
13. Put together a care package for a friend or family member
12. Do a yoga class
11. Go on a long nature walk in the woods
10. Pick a room and rearrange all the furniture
9. Start journalling using Two-Minute Mornings or Ahhlife.com
8. Fix something that's been broken forever
7. Build a stack of pancakes that looks just like the front of the box
6. Organize your filing cabinet, hard drive, or recipes
5. Make a bird feeder out of things lying around your house
4. Paint
3. FaceTime Grandma
2. Check in on your neighbors
1. Forward this email to a friend and pick something to do together
3 ways money can buy you happiness
John Lennon was wrong.
Love isn’t all you need.
A famous study in 2010 by Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School said making money helps make you happier … up to $75,000 a year. Sure, we can debate the study endlessly. How do they define happiness? How do you define happiness? What if you live in a big expensive city compared to a more affordable small town? What country and currency? And what about in today’s dollars?
But let’s not get lost in the debate.
Can we agree going from struggling to making ends meet to actually making ends meet would make you happier? And that going from making ends meet to having some extra money beyond that would, too?
If so I think the better question really is: How can you spend your money to be happier?
Well, I have just the answer for you! Here are three ways you can spend money to be happier:
1. SKILL
Go online and sign yourself up for painting, ballroom dancing, or figure skating classes. Why? Well, I’m going to be really honest with you. You suck at a lot of things. Your chocolate-making is subpar at best, nobody has seen you mix a decent Manhattan, and your balloon animals are pretty terrible – except, I guess, for your snake.
There’s a lot of research that shows that when we grow, we are happier. Don’t we know this deep down? We all love feeling the burn and reward of learning and then mastering something new. Why are you reading this article? Our minds are always trying to learn. We like it. We crave it.
My friend Michael is a successful author and entrepreneur and last year he told me he signed up for a standup comedy course on a bit of whim. You know what? That’s perfect! Why? Because he had never done standup comedy. He was awful at standup comedy. But he spent the money and felt it would be wasted if he didn’t go. So he went! And by the end? He had put together a tight five-minute set which he happily emailed around to his friends.
Money well spent.
2. SOCIAL
I’ve shared before how my wife Leslie and I each have one “night out” a week. I have a Neil’s Night Out. She has a Leslie’s Night Out.
What do we do?
Well, I’ll get dinner with an old friend, go to a play with my mom, or maybe go to a bookstore to hear an author talk about her new book. Even if it’s with a roomful of people I don’t necessarily know I come home with the feeling of growing and deepening relationships.
Harvard professor Daniel Gilbert wrote the book Stumbling on Happiness. He says if we strip ourselves of everything we think defines us — our genders, nationalities, religions, even our health — it’s really the strength of our relationships with our friends and family that truly affects our happiness levels.
Is there a couple you and your partner have been meaning to invite out for a dinner? A brother- or sister-in-law you can go on a random movie night with? Are you willing to go on Meetup.com and take part in a random social event with a group of strangers? Or pay to join a local Toastmasters Club?
All of them will make you happier.
3. SWEAT
Sweat once a day.
I suck at softball but that didn’t stop me from joining a softball league with some friends a few years ago. Yes, I have been demoted to right field after letting every ground ball go through my legs. But it means once a week at least I’m guaranteed to run around. Joining the team cost $125. And it pays off in spades.
The American Psychosomatic Society published a study showing how Michael Babyak and a team of doctors found that three 30-minute brisk walks or jogs can improve recovery from clinical depression. That’s right, clinical depression. And the results were actually stronger than studies using medication or studies using exercise and medication combined.
Sweating is a science-backed prescription for happiness. Grab a yoga membership. Sign up for kick-boxing. Join a dodgeball league. Or just buy some nice running shoes and start running around the block.
Does money buy happiness?
Well, it can.
Just remember the 3 S’s.
Buy a skill, invest in social nights, and sweat it out.
Fancy cars, sexy threads, and flashy purses can wait.
What we all need are your balloon animals.
Check out the video version of this article
The secret tool everyone can use to develop self-confidence
We know we shouldn’t listen to our critics. We know we should do things for ourselves. Morihei Ueshiba, founder of the Japanese martial art aikido, said, “As soon as you concern yourself with the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ of your fellows, you create an opening in your heart for maliciousness to enter. Testing, competing with, and criticizing others weaken and defeat you.”
So why do we listen? What makes us interested in external measurements? Why do we take outside rankings, results, or opinions over our own opinion of ourselves?
There is a root issue. An underlying reason. There is one issue that many of us have, that I know I have, that is at the basis of why we jump at external rankings. The root issue is . . . our lack of confidence. Self-judgment. We get lost in our own heads, we get confused with mixed advice, so we follow what we see. The root issue is self-confidence. And we’re going to solve this root issue together right now.
“Every single day I come to work I feel like I’m a failure.”
Twilight shone through the glass window and dim lights lit up leather chairs and the shiny lacquered desk as I sat staring in disbelief at my Harvard Business School leadership professor as he smiled wryly through wet, shiny eyes.
Tenured Harvard Business School professors have bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees, and PhDs, and they finish at the top of their class in all three! They make six-figure salaries and consult and speak on the side to earn even more. And they’re teaching at Harvard! A not-too-shabby résumé bullet point.
So why did my Harvard professor consider himself a failure?
“I walk up to my office door every morning and see that the professor in the office to my left has a Nobel Prize . . . and I know I’ll never have a Nobel Prize,” he continued. “And I see that the professor in the office to my right has written twelve books . . . and I know I’ll never write twelve books. I haven’t even written one. Every single morning I’m reminded how inferior I am and it kills me.”
I looked at him and could tell he was smiling and trying to make a point . . . but I could also see there was some truth in his words. After all, in his world, all his major accomplishments are neutralized by his peers. Piles of degrees, million-dollar bank ac- counts, prestigious jobs—all just par for the course.
The secret scribble to increasing your confidence
What is confidence and how can we become more confident?
Time for the confidence scribble.
Let’s talk about your opinion of yourself. It can be high or low. Sure, it will flip-flop all the time. But let’s say in any instant it can be high or it can be low. Does confidence just have to do with your opinion of yourself?
No!
Most people think it does. But we always have an opinion of others, too. What do you call people with a high opinion of themselves and a low opinion of others? They’re not confident. They are . . .
Stuck-up. Egotistical. Bigheaded. Arrogant people are not confident because they don’t understand that having a high opinion of others doesn’t lower their opinion of themselves. They are affected by other people’s confidence! It makes them feel weak. So they try to lower that confidence while increasing their own. Remember the school yard bully who actually feels bad about himself deep down? This is the guy we’re talking about here. This is the guy who feels the need to be better than others in order to be good at all.
Next box. What do you call people with a high opinion of others but a low opinion of themselves?
We’ve all been there! We think greatly of other people and believe ourselves to be “lesser than.” You feel this way when you stare at a group photo and say something like “Oh my God! I look hideous! I look huge! You look great, though.” Talk about beating yourself up. High opinion of others. Low opinion of yourself. Insecure.
Now, what do you call people with a low opinion of themselves and a low opinion of others? No high opinions of anyone at all!
We’ve all been here, too. Bad days, bad bosses, big mistakes. We can get into a funk and see problems everywhere. We become cynical. The cynic isn’t confident. Cynical is the furthest thing from confident! As Conan O’Brien said on his final episode hosting The Tonight Show, “All I ask of you is one thing: Please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism—it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere.”
What’s left? What do the truly confident people have? They have a high opinion of themselves. And! They have a high opinion of others. That is the true definition of confidence.
The secret tool to increasing your confidence is the confidence scribble. We will all float around these boxes over and over but the key is taking a second to pause, stand back, and ask yourself where you are right now... and how you can help your mind navigate to the top right box.
Buddha says, “You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”
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A slightly different version of this article is excerpted from The Happiness Equation