When was the last time you felt a strong, difficult emotion? Whether it was stress, anxiety, or sadness,  it probably wasn’t too long ago. After all we are humans and these are real, meaningful human emotions. But of course, we don’t want to continue feeling that way, and we can get better at moving through these emotions with practice. Nataly Kogan, the founder of Happier.com has a great lesson on this.

It’s not that we need to reject and resist negative emotions, we need to label them and allow them to have meaning temporarily so that they can be processed. Happiness isn’t just about accepting positive emotions, it’s being able to accept all emotions.

We’re all people, and as we’re going out doing our thing we need to realize that we play a role in the world. It’s not just about us and the way that we choose to treat others. Reflecting on the ways we exist among others helps us to find groundedness and a deeper sense of joy. Some of my favorite lyrics on the topic come from Tim McGraw.

"Hold the door, say "please", say "thank you"
Don't steal, don't cheat, and don't lie
I know you got mountains to climb
But always stay humble and kind
When the dreams you're dreamin' come to you
When the work you put in is realized
Let yourself feel the pride
But always stay humble and kind."

The whole song is about living your values. Through ups and downs, wins and losses, new experiments and old routines, we need to hold onto our values tightly. In particular I gravitate toward the values of humility and kindness in my life, and think about how I can incorporate them in everything I do. Both looking back at the past and looking forward into the future, a life worth living is a life you’re proud of not just by what you did, but the way you did it. “I know you got mountains to climb, but always stay humble and kind.”

I’m starting to think a bit differently about goal-setting and life achievements, and I want to see what you think. It is incredibly motivating to set a far-reaching goal, and it gives you great purpose and determination to pursue that ultimate end. I believe we are capable of and worthy of having what we want in life, but we need to be willing to put in the effort to make it happen, and a solid goal provides you that alignment.

When you do achieve that goal, you feel an overwhelming sense of accomplishment. I want to explore why that’s the case. And what I’ve found is, it’s not about the goal itself, it’s about what achieving that goal represents and means to you.

For example, you summit Mount Everest. Does the sense of accomplishment come from the blizzard view you have at the top, or the acknowledgment of all of the training you put in, how you set your mind to something, and became a person capable of such an incredible feat? Or winning an award. Is it standing on stage and giving a speech, or is it the recognition of your abilities and performance over time, and what that says about your talents. 

I think it’s important that you think a layer or two deeper when it comes to your goal setting because then you can tap into the real reason you’ve chosen that path, the ways that it satisfies and fulfills you, and ultimately, leverage that to push yourself further and challenge yourself to grow.

So I encourage you right now, don’t think about what it is that you want, think about why it is that you want it, and how that is representative of the person you want to be.

Trust me when I say that you are a leader. It could be at work, at home, or in a way that you aren’t even aware of. I say this because if that’s the case, then we all need to understand how to motivate others. I’m reading a book called “Drive” by Daniel Pink, and he presented an interesting thought that I want you to know about as the leader that you are.

There are two types of tasks in life. There are algorithmic tasks, where you follow a set process to achieve a certain result, and there are heuristic tasks, where you need to use your own creativity and problem solving to reach a desired outcome. Although they are often treated the same way by employers and leaders these two different types of tasks respond best to different reward models.

When following the routine work of algorithmic tasks, it is often effective to use conventional, extrinsic rewards like a pay raise, an incentive, or a certificate. For more creative heuristic tasks the same rewards actually decrease  performance. That’s because these tasks require a sense of autonomy and agency, and introducing external rewards actually compromises one’s interest in doing it for more self-motivating reasons. People doing heuristic tasks respond better to more intrinsic rewards, like the pursuit of self-mastery and progress, and minimal intervention by others.

So when you’re trying to motivate someone, it’s important to match the type of task with the type of reward. Algorithmic, routine tasks can be improved by adding new incentives and extrinsic reward. Creative heuristic tasks are better supported by intrinsic rewards.

In the United States we remember an incredible man with a world-changing legacy, Martin Luther King Jr. As a leader of the civil rights movement MLK set an important standard about how to create change in something you believe in. With everything that’s happened in the last year including police brutality, Black Lives Matter, and contested election results, it makes me think - What would MLK have to say about this? What struck me was this very famous quote: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

Our focus should always be on what we stand for. When it comes to the change we wish to see, we must embody the change and make that our focus point. Especially in the face of challenge and obstacles it’s important to keep the end in mind. You must have empathy and think on another level about how your behavior and decisions interact with the issue at hand. Particularly with recent events and how everyone seems to be in their own echo chamber due to social media algorithms and conversations with friends, I would make the following suggestion: Closed-mindedness cannot drive out closed-mindedness, only open-mindedness can do that. 

There are too many things going on in the world right now to keep track of it all, but let’s use MLKs example to remind us about the importance of racial equality. Our generation has inherited a sad and traumatic history, and it’s up to us to be self-aware and recognize how that history is present in our lives. May we move forward with light, love, and open-mindedness.

Let's provide a different perspective on how we can approach challenges. The very nature of something being a challenge means that you need to apply extra effort in order to achieve the end goal. When something is challenging then you make progress at a slower rate, which might not appear to be worth the investment. Oftentimes, we view this pursuit as a struggle. I think that word has a negative label and I want to explore the reason why because I think there’s a lot of power in struggle.

My friend and mentor Daron Roberts puts it best - “No struggle, no progress.” That might seem like it contradicts what I just said, but he’s referring to a different kind of progress, which is within your personal growth. When you are struggling more is being asked of you, you must apply extra effort, and that process facilitates growth. Struggle causes you to strengthen and raise your capacity moving forward.

This thought comes from a number of different angles. In “Grit” Angela Duckworth says applying effort is the mechanism of turning talent into achievement. Anders Ericsson in "Peak" talks about deliberate practice, and how one fundamental element of it is to introduce challenge. Struggle should not solely be viewed as oppression, it should also be viewed as a catalyst.

In fact, some of the great oppressions of history - People of color in America, jews and antisemitism, women in the workplace - Have created some of the strongest and most resilient populations we know. And that’s because struggle is directly related to progress.

This quote is short, sweet, and only two words but it’s some of the best advice you’re ever going to receive. “Be you.”

We get so caught up watching other people and everything they’re up to, admiring them, that sometimes we lose sight of ourselves. We try to mold and shape ourselves to be more like what we see because we think that’s what is expected of us. But what that does is it actually silences the most valuable thing about you which is your uniqueness. 

So if you see things a little differently, good! If you think about something a little differently, good! It is the “you” behind it all that offers and contributes something that no one else can! If we were all  supposed to be the same then we all would be the same. But that’s not how it is, and we should celebrate that diversity.

Of course there are guidelines to fit within. I personally don’t think it’s right to be so over-the-top “you” that it comes at the expense of someone else’s experience. So it’s important that while you dedicate yourself to being the best you that you can be, and honor who that person is, you need to respect and appreciate others as they attempt to be the best them that they can be. 

To wrap it up in a cheesy quote that you’ve probably seen a hundred times in a high school yearbook - “Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.” Be you.

You hear it all the time, grow 1% everyday. It sounds great, but what does that mean, and how do you do it?

Let’s start with doing some math. If you were to truly grow 1% every day, then you calculate the potential for growth in the year as an exponent, 1.01 to the 365th power. I’ll save you the time, that equals 3,800% in one year. That is a pretty insane amount of growth, and I think we’d all agree that would be a good year.

But what if we pick something more reasonable, say .1% every day. At the end of a year you’d experience 44% growth, meaning you’ve expanded your capacity by almost half of what you were previously capable of! That still would be incredible progress. 

.1% every single day is easy. It’s parking in the back of the parking lot to get a little exercise. It’s pausing for 5 seconds before dinner to be grateful. It’s noticing that you're getting lost scrolling on social media, so you put your phone down and move on to a more productive task. It’s little habits, little decisions like this that fuel major growth.

And you’re already doing everything right! You showing up here and reading this is that .1%, because it allows you to reflect on the person you want to be, and helps you generate an awareness for other opportunities to improve in the most subtle ways.

We’re going to talk about the ‘D’ word today, "Disappointment". You can feel a lot of ways toward someone - Angry, upset, frustrated, distant, but for some reason this word disappointment is one that cuts so much deeper.

I think it’s because it’s representative of how someone feels on another level. Being angry and upset is more of a superficial, sporadic emotion, and disappointment is more visceral and enduring. When you disappoint someone, it means you let someone down. It means you didn’t meet expectations in a really important way, and it jeopardizes the trust you’ve developed with someone else. It’s the fact that the relationship has been damaged in a way that is more difficult to recover from, and exists at the level of your character.

We’ve all disappointed someone in that past. Maybe we didn’t do what we said we were going to do, maybe we went back on a commitment we made, or maybe we didn’t speak our truth in the first place. In any of these cases, it’s important to address that disappointment so that you can grow beyond it.

A fundamental piece to managing and overcoming disappointment is acknowledgment. You need to admit the error, get on the same page with yourself and others about what happened, and begin to explain why it happened so that other people can understand. People want to give benefit of the doubt, they don’t want to feel disappointed, and vulnerability is a key element to helping others allow themselves to believe in you again. 

Either way it hurts, the pain of vulnerability and the pain of disappointment, but one is much more constructive and you get to choose which one you lead with.