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…

The truth about working through challenging situations — Fake toughness is easy to spot. It’s the guy picking a fight at your local gym. The anonymous poster acting like a hard ass on message boards. The bully at school. The executive who masks his own insecurity by yelling at his subordinates. The strength coach who works her athletes…

How to feel — and do — good over the long haul — Anyone who is serious about excellence comes to learn that it is based on perennial principles, which extend beyond any one person or pursuit. Excellence takes time, is non-linear, and there are a variety of paths to get where you want to go. Here are nineteen interrelated habits for the…

How heroic individualism perpetuates impossible expectations, and what you can do about it — Even before the pandemic, people were feeling that their work was unsustainable. Many were on the edge of burnout, overwhelmed by the unrelenting frantic and frenetic energy of today’s world. A common experience was, and still is, a mix of fatigue and restlessness, nervousness and dread. It is helpful to…

Knowledge is knowing something, wisdom is knowing when and how to use it — Something I discuss often with my coaching clients is the importance of taking even the best advice with a grain of salt. There is no behavior, no trait, no habit, that leads to success 100 percent of the time — in fact, certain mindsets work well until they become the…

On the power of showing up and behavioral activation — Conventional wisdom says that positive thinking, enthusiasm, and inspiration are key to living a good and productive life. But that’s not entirely true, at least not according to the latest psychological science. A more accurate representation of the relationship between motivation and action is this: you don’t need to feel…

Imagine all the inventive things Elon Musk (and you) could be doing instead of tweeting — When I first heard that Elon Musk actually bought Twitter — irrespective of what comes of the deal, which is now undergoing further diligence— my immediate thought was: What a shame, I’d much rather he focus on taking carbon out of the atmosphere. Musk is a polarizing figure, no doubt…

Our Society Depends Upon Skillful Striving. Here’s the Case For It. — There is increasing momentum behind a movement that I’ll call broadly “anti-ambition.” Loosely defined, the anti-ambition crowd says that we place too much emphasis on work and striving and it’s bad for us as individuals and for us as a society. While there is some merit to this argument, it…

15 lessons for becoming the most wholehearted version of you in 2022 — Over the past few months since the publication of The Practice of Groundedness — a book which, in many ways, is a coda to what I’ve been writing about in this column for the last five years — I’ve had the chance to interact with all kinds of people, from…