
Happiness Is a Choice
George Saunders wrote a beautiful piece for Esquire over a decade ago called “The Incredible Buddha Boy” about a young man in Nepal who has been meditating, without eating or drinking, for seven months. On the plane to Nepal, Saunders himself starts to meditate on our...
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A Sense of Appreciation Is the Single Most Sustainable Motivator at Work
Work can be a thankless task—literally. Despite the fact that most of us probably spend more time with our co-workers than anyone else—even partners, spouses, and families—they remain the people to whom we are least likely to express our appreciation. A survey of...
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Before You Decide to Quit: The Difference Between ‘Freedom from’ and ‘Freedom for’
Films and books urge us to think that there will come certain moments in our lives when, if we can make some grand, once-in-a-lifetime gesture of relinquishment, or of standing up for a certain principle—if we can throw in our job and head off, leave the safe life...
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How You Keep Time Determines How You Spend Your Time
A recent study conducted by dScout found that the average user touches their phone 2,617 times a day. And that was just the average. Heavier users topped out at over 5,000+ touches a day. But what I found even more disturbing than the sheer amount of phone...
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Confessions of a Burnt Out Over-Achiever
If I asked if you could continue working at the pace you currently work for the next 10 or even 20 years, what would you say? I think for most people, the standard response would be: “Hell no!” But what we do today, and what we do tomorrow, rapidly becomes the status...
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Working Smarter in the Age of Distraction
Distraction—and its negative impact on creativity—has long been an obsession of mine. And this past Friday, I got to share what I've learned about working smarter in the Age of Distraction at CreativeMornings in LA. If you want to understand why the distractions of...
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Finding your calling is a process of elimination, not an aha moment.
It’s time to let go of the myth that some people just “know” what they want to be in life. And the rest of us are just waiting to get struck by lightning. Because it doesn’t work that way. Hindsight is always 20/20, so successful people often sound like they knew what...
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The Key to Luck Is Being a People Connector
I’m a bit obsessed with the topic of luck—how we can lay the groundwork for it, how we stumble blindly into it, how we fail to recognize the role it plays in our “self-made” success. There are so many factors that go into luck, but the most powerful is the role that...
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Productivity Is Really About What You Don’t Do
The best productivity tip I ever got was the idea of a “stop-doing list” from Jim Collins. In this Age of Distraction, we’re all dodging and weaving between so much incoming information that what you don’t do on a daily basis has become as important—if not more—as...
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Now or Never: The Dangers of Instant Gratification
When it comes to books, I’ve never been immune to guilty pleasures. Breezy beach books and mysteries have always been a staple in my reading diet. Yet going through my reading history, I noticed that ever since the arrival of my first Kindle, I've indulged a lot more...
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The Best Newsletters for Creativity & Productivity-Obsessed People
To create my weekly newsletter, I sift through a ton of other newsletters and websites about life, creativity, and productivity. If you're itching to expand your horizons (and your brainpower), here's my shortlist of indispensable outlets. NEWSLETTERS: NextDraft If...
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Where Does Confidence Come From?
As women, we’re often told that we should “be more confident.” But how do you go about that? And what exactly is confidence anyway? I spoke with Claire Shipman, co-author of the NYT bestseller The Confidence Code: The Science & Art of Self-Assurance and What Women...
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