Newsletter

Talk of wellness is everywhere you turn, and that’s a good thing. Taking a proactive approach to your physical and mental health is both smart and crucial to your well-being. And rest assured that with something this big and important, the marketers are out in full force. The problem is, most commercial wellness solutions are …

It’s a common cliché that our memory degrades as we get older. And like most clichés, there’s truth to it. This may be why from a neuroscience perspective: According to Michael Yassa, a neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins University, the reason things get tougher to remember as we get older is because the pathways leading to …

When it comes to creativity, productivity, and generally getting things done at work, there’s no shortage of helpful “hacks” offered to optimize your output. Beyond the annoying use of the word “hack” in this context, these are simply tactics. What you really need is a strategy that first optimizes you. I’ve known for a long …

When it comes to creativity, productivity, and generally getting things done at work, there’s no shortage of helpful “hacks” offered to optimize your output. Beyond the annoying use of the word “hack” in this context, these are simply tactics. What you really need is a strategy that first optimizes you. I’ve known for a long …

With a renewed eye for ways to take control of our lives and improve them in meaningful ways, I found plenty of interesting stuff this week. Let’s take a quick look at three of those before getting to our two write-ups. Bath, Bed, and Beyond Doing some brisk walking or other exercise each day can …

It’s time to move on to more positive topics. After contemplating professional decline and the often disconcerting emotional reboot we face at midlife in the last couple of weeks, I’m ready to talk about the opportunity for reinvention. Of course, the bad news keeps coming. Over at the Conversation, there’s an article about the real …

It’s a Freud’s fault, really. Even though the term midlife crisis was coined by Elliott Jaques in 1965, fellow disciples of Sigmund thought it sounded plausible, based on the fear of impending death combined with regrets about the past. Fortunately, academic research since the 1980s rejects the notion that midlife crisis is a phase most …

We’re obsessed with how much we weigh. Unfortunately, that has more to do with body image than health. If you’re thinking about whether you’ll live a long life, you might think the less you weigh, the better. But we know that’s not true — people with a body mass index (BMI) that’s slightly higher than …

Last week’s thoughts on simplifying our lives seemed to strike a chord with a lot of people. I was a bit surprised. Perhaps we’re at a point where we realize that we’ve been going about things the wrong way when it comes to leading happy, healthy lives. If only we could figure out what matters, …

Last August, we sold both cars before we headed out on our family trip around the world. For seven months I didn’t drive, and loved it. So when we got back to Colorado, I leased a car for my wife, but didn’t get one for myself. It’s the first time since I was 16 that …

Here are some Further fundamentals: Intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation Valuing process over results Harmonious passion What do all of these have in common? They’re signs of a person with an inner scorecard, as defined by famed investor Warren Buffett: The big question about how people behave, is whether they’ve got an inner scorecard or an …