One in every eight deaths among people aged 20–64 results from alcohol. Narrow that age range to 20–49, and it’s one in every five. First, everyone is going to ask where the above data comes from. The answer is a new study, published in JAMA, looking at 700,000 deaths in…

We Need a Common Language to Talk About It — If you feel “off” more often than you’d like, you aren’t alone. Many people do. In my latest book, The Practice of Groundedness, I traced this general sense of dis-ease to a concept I called heroic individualism: an ongoing game of oneupmanship against yourself and others where the goalpost is…

Recently at the gas station, I was filling up my tank as a beautiful woman appeared on the high-definition screen placed on the pump. She told me when I’m feeling stressed out and overwhelmed, I need to repeat to myself a few times the phrase everything is figureoutable and then…

The only Zen on the tops of mountains is the Zen that you bring up there with you — Wherever you are, the goal post is always 10 yards down the field. If you develop a mindset “If I just accomplish ___, THEN I’ll arrive,” you are in for a rude awakening. There is no arriving. The sooner you realize this, the better. The Arrival Fallacy was first coined…

And what it will take to move beyond the frantic and frenetic energy of our modern times — It has been a year since my most recent book, The Practice of Groundedness, was first released, and well over two years since I finished writing it. Much has happened since. COVID-19 went from being a novel virus to a full-blown pandemic, dramatically altering our way of life. Democratic backslide…

The term “quiet quitting” has become a thing. It all started with a seventeen second TikTok video that went viral, in which the narrator says “it is not outright quitting your job but quitting the idea of going above and beyond at work.” Since then, quiet quitting has been covered…

Let’s start with an interesting observation: so many “influencers,” “optimizers,” and “wellness” and “happiness” gurus don’t have partners or kids. Yes, strive to be healthy and excellent and all that, but sometimes the key to adult life — perhaps especially if you’ve got kids — is that you’ve just got…

On the wall of my local gym, where the coaches program training based on how athletes feel, hangs a chart that details RPE, or rate of perceived exertion. Commonly used in high-performance sport, RPE is a helpful tool to balance effort and recovery. More time in upper zones means more…

Most people have had the experience of losing themselves while listening to a musical album, viewing art, watching an athlete’s peak performance, or hiking in nature. What all of these events have in common is that they minimize your ego. Not ego in the sense of look how great I…