I don’t know how to hold a grudge.  I’ve never met anyone who has done something so terrible to me (killed or seriously hurt someone I love on purpose) that it warrants harboring an extremely negative opinion of them for months or years on end.  Even when a person does something that I consider rude, mean, or inconsiderate, my ...

So everyone’s lamenting the tragic turn our society has taken – economically, politically, socially.   And I agree that things are objectively not as good in America as they were 10 years ago.  But they’re still better than they were during the Civil War, or the Black Plague, or, if you think about it, most periods of human ...

On his blog, Seth Godin responded to a reader who believes luck and randomness is just as critical to success as hard work and effort. Seth says: “Without a doubt, luck is involved. I don't think anyone would tell you otherwise. The choice one needs to make, though is this: either you believe that luck is dominant, in which case, why ...

Anita Bruzzese has an interesting post on mothers’ influence on career success.  Anita cites the work of a psychologist, Stephan Poulter, who has written a new book, The Mother Factor: How Your Mother's Emotional Legacy Impacts Your Life. The book’s thesis is that whether we acknowledge it or not, our mothers leave an indelible impression on ...

We’ve spent some time on this blog discussing the warning signs that you may be in firing range at work, or that you’re unhappy in your current job situation.  This week, CNN.com has an interesting piece on ways we might unknowingly sabotage our own efforts at a successful career.  Among the highlights: Not keeping your skill set ...

A few months ago, I wrote about the possibility that chivalry was dead in the modern world.  Recently, though, I’ve wondered if some types of consideration might be dead too.  Here’s where this is coming from.  In early November, my mother and my husband’s grandmother passed away in the span of a week.  Small memorial services ...

A few days ago, I was scheduled to be on a local NPR radio show with one of my biggest and longstanding influencers, Bruce Tulgan.  For those of you who might not know, Bruce is internationally recognized as a leading expert on young people in the workplace and has his own consulting firm, Rainmaker Thinking, that has trained employees in ...

Adrian Savage, an author and a retired business executive, is an older gentleman with some perspective.  He wrote an excellent post on Lifehack about giving yourself the best shot at a good life.  He offers some wonderful lessons for those of us in our twenties and thirties who constantly sabotage our own happiness by allowing ourselves ...

One unfortunate aspect of human nature is that we tend to look at other people and say: “he’s more successful, luckier, smarter, better looking, more popular, and has more money than me.”  Ambitious, driven people are particularly prone to this mindset.  For years, I myself have looked at other young authors and have been secretly ...

My friends at the Me2 Revolution at Edelman turned me onto this cool blog about happiness.  The author, Gretchen Rubin, who is a former lawyer and Supreme Court clerk turned bestselling author, writes about her experiences test-driving every principle, tip, theory, and scientific study she can find on happiness, whether from Aristotle or ...