If you're like most people, your new year's resolutions are anything but a path to long-lasting positive change. You make a resolution, stick with it for a couple weeks before letting it lapse, and then beat up on yourself for not being able to stick with it.  Instead of setting yourself up to fail …

Companies invest a lot in finding top talent. Unfortunately, they often don't seem to invest as much in keeping them once they're on board. A recent Forbes article offers up the top ten reasons why large companies fail to keep their best talent. The two that struck me most (or, more accurately, the …

When was the last time you slowed down and got out of your daily grind? When was the last time you unplugged and let your daily distractions fall by the wayside?  Most of us stay plugged in for way too much of the time. The result is drained energy and decreased effectiveness.  Power up by unpluggin…

As I write this, I’m sitting on a friend’s boat near San Francisco. It’s a cool, grey, slightly misty day. I’m up top, bundled up in a blanket with a hot cup of coffee and a laptop. A perfect spot for writing. Every now and then, I see some rowers going past. I rowed in college, and noticed that the…

What if you knew someone who, every time you tried something new and wobbled a bit, or expressed your perspective less than gracefully, got in your face and started berating you, yelling like a drill sergeant, red-faced and spluttering with flecks of spit.  Would you tolerate that? Probably not. But…

Face it. You're going to experience stress. It's just a part of life. And while there's nothing you can do to avoid stress entirely, there's a lot you can do to change your experience of it.  There are two kinds of stress. Stress that pushes you, helps you grow, and possibly even energizes you, and …

OK, so you've heard about what a great tool positive thinking is. You've read how it can shift your focus and even your perception of what is and isn't possible. There's just one glitch - you're a natural pessimist, and positive thinking is like trying to think in a different language. If you're nat…

If you're anything like most people, you have multiple voices in your head competing all at once for space. Some of them you like, so you welcome them out in the open. Others you want to keep hidden away. Not only do you not want others to see them, you don't even want to acknowledge them yourself. …

Do you want work-life balance? Good luck. It's a mythical beast based on one hugely erroneous assumption - that you have control over the world.  The reality (and you probably don't need me to tell you this) is that you DON'T have control over the world. You don't even have real control over your li…

If you want to know what will life look like for you in five years, or even next year, look no further than the choices you are making and the actions you are taking today. You're manufacturing the future through those choices and actions.  Some of what happens in your life will be beyond your contr…

In a recent PLOS ONE journal article, researchers Jessica McCain, Brittany Gentile, W. Keith Campbell posit that perhaps geek culture is a way of sustaining a narcissistic self-view.Geeks with Swords (c) JE RobisonWhile I agree that it might look that way on the surface, I think their conclusion is …

This afternoon a group of MIT and Mass General researchers released a study called “Autism as a disorder of prediction.” In this paper, they argue that autistic people “experience things they don’t understand,” because our predictive ability is impaired.Read the paper hereInteresting as this sounds,…

A short while ago I was asked my opinion about a promising new treatment for depression being evaluated at a prominent research hospital.  I looked at the description on the hospital’s website, and it did indeed look interesting. I called the study coordinator for more details.He told me the th…

One of the things I love about fall is the fairs and carnivals.  The biggest of them all – where I live at least – is the Big E in West Springfield, Massachusetts.  It’s two weeks and three weekends of action, and I take thousands of photos there every year.One of my favorite places is the…