Dining out with me is an experience. Because when I go to a restaurant, I go with a game plan: to enjoy the most delicious meal it offers, hopefully at the lowest price. Once presented with a menu, I   Read more >>

Can an extreme response to fear give us strength we would not have under normal circumstances?Editor's note: The following is an excerpt from Extreme Fear: The Science of Your Mind in Danger by Jef   Read more >>

I have read hundreds of books and articles on personal development. Through it all I've digested and considered thousands of ideas, so-called best practices, and the always popular lifehacks. While   Read more >>

Helen Keller was an amazing woman. She was blind, deaf, and dumb, yet that didn’t stop her from achieving her dreams. Helen was not a person who made excuses, she made things happen. She is a   Read more >>

Persistence is important to achieve success, but giving up is also important. I’ve written about persistence before, so here I want to look at giving up.Giving upWhy is it essential? Why is it   Read more >>

Often we see things that others have and wish that we had the same. Or sometimes, if we see somebody who is very happy, we feel a lack of happiness in our own life and feel jealous of the other perso   Read more >>

I told my friend Graham that I often cycle the two miles from my house to the town centre but unfortunately there is a big hill on the route. He replied, ‘You mean fortunately.’ He explained that   Read more >>

With all the personal development books, blogs, speakers, videos, teleseminars and coaches available these days, we all have access to an abundance of information, and personal development can seem l   Read more >>

Being a better person is a process. No matter how good someone is, he can’t be perfect overnight. So the important thing is that you grow every day. Make growing a habit and you will see significan   Read more >>

One day in my mid-to-late twenties, I woke up and everything was wrong. I felt a profound dissatisfaction with almost everything in my life—my job, my education, my relationships, and myself. It ha   Read more >>

One of my favorite Saturday Night Live skits of the nineties was “Daily Affirmation with Stuart Smalley,” wherein a blonde-wigged, cardigan-clad Al Franken sat before a mirror reminding himself,   Read more >>

In the first five years after leaving my parents’ home, I moved eight times. I moved from one floor to another, one neighborhood to another, and from one city to another. Then, last autumn, I made   Read more >>

(Or, How to Balance Appreciation for What You Have and the Exploration of Change.)



Earlier this week, I endured a few mornings of anxiety — a tight ball of worry rumbling at the base of my lungs,   Read more >>

In the past 50 years, people with mental problems have spent untold millions of hours in therapists' offices, and millions more reading self-help books, trying to turn negative thoughts like "I nev   Read more >>

One piece of advice that I’ve come across in the writings of several life coaches is that we should act in our own best interests. My initial reaction to this is to feel uncomfortable – like most   Read more >>

When do we get old? People age 18 to 29 say "old age" starts at about 60. But those in middle-age figure it starts at 70. And those 65 and older put the threshold at 74.So it goes with other perceptio   Read more >>

“You spent the first half of your life becoming somebody.  Now you can work on becoming nobody, which is really somebody.  For when you become nobody there is no tension, no pretense, no one trying   Read more >>

We all have weaknesses and strengths – no matter who we are. Sometimes the weaknesses seem to outweigh the strengths and sometimes it’s the other way around. Some people get sick easily. Some stru   Read more >>

In September of 1960, J.F. Kennedy engaged Richard Nixon in the first presidential candidates’ debate. Kennedy’s opening statement in that debate has now become the famous “I am not satisfied” s   Read more >>

There’s a Jedi Force technique called The Art of the Small wherein the Jedi essentially narrows his focus … until he can use The Force to change things at a microscopic level.That’s a geeky way o   Read more >>