Brené Brown on what people who rise strong from their facedown moments have in common, Grace Paley on the art of growing older, and more Hello, Peggy Fleming! If you missed last week's edition – Willa Cather on happiness, a breathtaking anatomy of sadness illustrated by Quentin Blake, Borges on success, and more – you can read it right here; if you missed my eulogy for the late, great Oliver Sacks, that's here. And if you're enjoying this, please consider supporting with a modest donation – every little bit helps, and comes enormously appreciated. Rising Strong: Brené Brown on the Physics of Vulnerability and What Resilient People Have in Common “There is no science without fancy, and no art without facts,” Vladimir Nabokov famously proclaimed. Today, hardly anyone embodies this sentiment more fully than Brené Brown, who came of age as a social scientist in an era when the tyranny of facts trivialized the richness of fancy and the human experience was squeezed out of the qualitative in the service of the quantitative, the two pitted as polarities. Art by Lisbeth Zwerger for a rare edition of The Wizard of Oz Brown writes:
‘Quirkyalone’ Is Still Alone Photo Lately I’ve been having a lot of conversations with friends who find themselves still single in their 30s and 40s and are starting to worry that it’s not those swinish men/crazy women or New York City’s cruelly Darwinian dating scene or bad luck. It’s just them. “I keep giving myself to people, and they don’t seem to want me,” one of my friends said after her last breakup. Another, crying at her dining room table because she hadn’t had a “real” relationship in years, said, “I must be doing something wrong.” My friend Jasmine, who has been engaged to two men and married to a third, describes herself as perennially single. We marvel at how most people, including many who seem less datable than us, successfully manage this simple trick — maintaining relationships — that we can’t seem to pull off. It would be easy for a glib armchair analyst to conclude that although these people think they want to be in lasting relationships, on some level they really don’t or else they would be by now.
10 Clever Tricks to Trigger Positive Emotions People who see the glass half-full are certainly happier than the pessimists of the world, and learning to think positively is worthwhile. However, changing the way you think can be surprisingly tricky, especially when the going gets tough. What if there were a way—a shortcut or hack—that positively affected how you feel when you just can’t seem to shake the blues? A few years ago, I came across a simple idea that has been validated in hundreds of experiments and has given rise to quick and effective exercises that can help you feel happier, avoid anxiety, increase your willpower, deepen relationships and boost confidence. The idea dates back to the turn of the 20th century and to the work of Victorian philosopher William James. According to James’s theory, forcing your face into a smile should make you feel happy, and frowning should make you feel sad. In the late 1960s, psychologist James Laird from the University of Rochester stumbled across James’s theory and decided to test it. 1.
30 Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Die. {Via studioflowerpower on etsy} “Rather than money, than fame, than love…give me truth.” ~ Thoreau I woke up this morning and my life clock marked 30. My first sleep-deprived idea was to pack a small suitcase, get on the first train, move to another country, change my name, change my hair color (or get plastic surgery if needed), and start from scratch. When I don’t know how to deal with life, I hide sometimes. By now, I’m good at both: fighting and disappearing. A true warrior doesn’t feel forced to do either, but moves through and with and for life, like water. So after I washed my face and considered the costs of running and those of fighting, I decided to do neither and have some juice instead. {Alkaline Espresso / Click for recipe.} We are a constant process, an event, we’re change. As such, our smaller houses, our temporary homes can only be made of cards. Loving the questions means to love yourself. So here is an exercise we can do together: a tweak to your usual bucket list. You.
5 Steps for Dealing With Someone Who Won't Stop Talking CREATISTA/Shutterstock One day recently Jean*, a young professional woman, started her session with me by ranting about one of her co-workers. “The man does not stop talking,” she said. We all know someone like this man—people who talk without listening, who seem to think that what they have to say is as fascinating to everyone else as it is to them, and who don’t seem to understand that listening is an important part of communicating and connecting to others. What makes these people tick? Talking is part of what we humans do. But people who talk too much don’t seem to get this balance. “Listening requires complex auditory processing,” according to Daniel P. In the best of communication, there is a kind of give and take between talking and listening, a sharing of who is the speaker and who is the listener based on mutual respect and caring about each other’s feelings. This is what happened with Max*, a smart, articulate man with two young children. Max had hit the nail on the head.
13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do LifeHack | Mentally strong people have healthy habits. They manage their emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in ways that set them up for success in life. Check out these things that mentally strong people don’t do so that you too can become more mentally strong. 1. They Don’t Waste Time Feeling Sorry for Themselves Mentally strong people don’t sit around feeling sorry about their circumstances or how others have treated them. 2. They don’t allow others to control them, and they don’t give someone else power over them. 3. Mentally strong people don’t try to avoid change. 4. You won’t hear a mentally strong person complaining over lost luggage or traffic jams. 5. Mentally strong people recognize that they don’t need to please everyone all the time. 6. They don’t take reckless or foolish risks, but don’t mind taking calculated risks. You may be interested in this too: 14 Things Positive People Don’t Do 7. 8. 9. 10. Mentally strong people don’t view failure as a reason to give up. 11. 12. 13.
Secrets Of Excellent Conversationalists The solution to the age-old problem of understanding others may be as simple as taking the time to improve your active listening skills. Active listening is all about building rapport, understanding and trust. Your “likability” factor is largely determined by your ability to effectively listen to client and customer suggestions and successfully respond to their needs, requests and concerns. But you don’t have to be born with the gift of gab to become an expert communicator. Related: 5 Ways to Be a Better Listener 1. 2. Related: For Better Conversations, Replace 'How Are You?' 3. 4. Related: The 3 Qualities of Likable People 5. 6. Related: Break the Ice: 8 Networking Tips for Introverts 20 Habits Happy People Have (But Never Talk About) Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions. ―Dalai Lama Over the past decade, between the two of us, Angel and I have read 1,000+ books on happiness, coached 10,000+ people who were struggling to find happiness, and interacted with 100,000+ subscribers (subscribe here) who continue to ask us questions about happiness every single day. All of this has given us keen insight into the specific behaviors that make human beings happy. Not surprisingly though, once these people get it figured out, their “happiness habits” become second nature to them, and thus, they never talk about them. They don’t get caught up in other people’s drama. – Never, ever create unnecessary drama, and don’t put up with those who spew drama your way. Afterthoughts By compiling this list I’m not suggesting that these are the only keys to happiness, I’m simply shedding light on some common habits that can make all the difference in the world. The floor is yours… How about you? Related
Why Self-Help Guru James Altucher Only Owns 15 Things To reclaim his wealth, he set his sights on the stock market. He read more than a hundred books on investing, and eventually wrangled a job writing for James Cramer’s site, TheStreet, and later The Financial Times. Before long, his trademark hairdo, which looks like carnival cotton candy spun from steel wool, was a familiar sight on CNBC. But his fortunes crumbled once again during the financial crisis that began in 2008. “I just said, ‘I’ve made every mistake in the book: Here’s what they are,’” Mr. Photo Instead of touting the latest hot mutual fund, he wrote posts like “10 Reasons You Should Never Own Stocks Again.” “Financial people were like watching a train wreck in real time,” Mr. He soon discovered a sizable audience of people whose own dreams had just gone down the sinkhole. “The No. 1 search phrase on Google that takes people to my blog is ‘I want to die,’” Mr. But Mr. There was “the 5 p.m. diet,” in which he eats nothing after that time (“Your face gets more angular. Mr.