This Is How To Get People To Change: 5 Secrets From Research
ying to help someone change can be sanity-straining. Even when people face serious health scares they often don’t do enough to alter their habits, like they’re stuck on some monorail track of doom. That said, we often go about trying to help in all the wrong ways. We know that lectures probably don’t help -- but we often find ourselves doing it anyway. It’s like the reasons we give them for changing have almost no effect at all… And, actually,…
11 minutes
The Lazy Way To An Awesome Life
e old maxim says that with others you should just “be yourself.” But is that really true? In researching my new book, Plays Well With Others, I went down the rabbit hole to see whether it’s accurate -- and also what we can do to be our best selves. (Never be ashamed of who you are... that's your parents' job.) In the excerpt below we’re going to learn a dead simple way to become more of the person you want to…
11 minutes
This Is The Most Fun Way To Make Your Life Awesome
en you’re young, you gossip about the couples that are having sex. When you’re older, you gossip about the ones that aren’t. Keeping love alive isn’t easy. And when I was researching my new book Plays Well With Others, well, I learned a lot of very harsh truths about the current state of marriage. While I had no desire to write a “Romantic Necronomicon” that would drive readers mad (or just make them mad at me) I do cover a…
8 minutes
This Is How To Win With A Narcissist: 3 Secrets From Research
u know the type. Needlessly cruel and they think they’re better than everyone else. Always one-upping people. If you've been to Timbuktu, they've been to Timbukthree. Some of them almost reach “Talented Mr. Ripley” proportions and exhibit such bad behavior it makes your eyes go wide like a silent movie actor. Calling them a “friend” requires substantial creativity but – sadly -- they’re a part of your life. (No, you can’t kill them with your mind. It doesn’t work. I’ve…
7 minutes
This Is How To Make Emotionally Intelligent Friendships: 2 Secrets From Research
le Carnegie’s “How To Win Friends And Influence People” was wrong. Well, at least one of his principles was. But we’ll get to that in a second… Like you, I spent the pandemic not seeing friends nearly as often – but I was actually writing about friendship at the time. Oh, irony. The second section of my new book Plays Well With Others gives the Mythbusters treatment to the old maxim “Is a friend in need a friend indeed?” Post-pandemic, I…
9 minutes
New Neuroscience Reveals 2 Secrets That Will Make You Emotionally Intelligent
big part of being emotionally intelligent is understanding what's going on in the minds of others. But doing that is really difficult. (So difficult I’ve been worried I broke my mirror neurons – and that’s why I’ve had 7 years of bad luck.) We’re not mind readers. But given the pandemic and its negative impact on our social lives, we need the facts more than ever. So I went all Hardy Boys on this one and dug for the…
8 minutes
This Is How To Be An Emotionally Intelligent Parent: 4 Secrets
Your living room looks like a highlight reel from “Mad Max: Fury Road.” The little ones are screaming the hits from “Frozen” and the teenagers are teenaging all over the place. The whole house needs an exorcism. Keeping things under control seems like an endless game of whac-a-mole when you already…
12 minutes
This Is How To Have Emotionally Intelligent Relationships: 4 Secrets From Research
We all have social situations where we consistently stumble. At certain times, or in certain contexts, often while under stress -- we blow it. And we just don’t know why. We lash out, cling, blame, or withdraw and it hurts our relationships. We try to be better… but then it happens…
11 minutes
