Curt Rosengren at The M.A.P. Maker blog has developed an interesting take on self improvement. (The M, A and P in the blog name, by the way, refer to Meaning, Abundance and Passion in your life.
In an article titled “Create a Better Life with 30-Day Experiments” Rosengren observes that it’s hard getting himself to do [...]

Remember how the gurus all recommend spending your time in the company of successful people so that their success mindset will rub off on you?
This is good advice, and it’s worth going out of your way to do.
But the other day I discovered that this principle also applies to another important area of your life.
Last [...]

A quick heads-up — a delightful new self help website has just been opened called Self Help Collective. It’s by my friend Steve M. Nash, an unassuming guy who likes to have fun with everything he does (meaning he’s not all puffed up with self importance). And this new website reflects his personality perfectly.
Furthermore, Steve [...]

Do you practice what you preach? Walk the talk? Treat others exactly as you want to be treated? Think deeply before you answer, because it’s easy to get this one very wrong.
I’m not talking about your actions in the shadow of privacy, when no one is watching, although that’s important, too. No, I mean the [...]

Michael was depressed — again… “No matter how I struggle and try to control my mind, I can’t seem to make it obey me.”
A student of self-help for years, Michael had bookshelves filled with more than a hundred self improvement books. Most of them he had actually read and taken notes on. Scattered [...]

No relationship is exclusively one-way. When any two people interact, the influences flow in both directions.
So if there’s someone who consistently irritates you, peeves you, and just generally gets under your skin, know this: you are almost certainly part of your problem.
Guest columnist Peter Vajda returns this time with some very practical suggestions to help [...]

Once in a while I get an email that really makes me think more deeply than usual. This one came this morning from from Mark (not his real name), who is reading my book Command More Luck. He said:
I am currently focusing my mind on riches in order to manifest them. Although I do believe [...]

Although the details vary, there’s really only one way to influence the future — the active and vivid imagining of events.
If we’re imagining desirable events, we call this attraction work, doing affirmations, praying, doing requests or programming our minds.
Whichever term you use, this is the method you’ve been trying to master for some time now.
But [...]

My offbeat sale (the Hacking Revenge Celebration Sale) is now easing into its last day of fun.
If this were a regular sale, right about now all the “marketing gurus” would have me pouring on the pressure, piling on additional bonuses, and bludgeoning you with a river of urgent, last-minute emails to order, order, order before [...]

A reader recently told me:
I don’t want to change anything… except the results I’m getting
She went on to say, “I don’t dislike myself or have any areas I particularly want to change. I just want some of the things that happen in my life to be different.”
What she doesn’t get [...]

Ever lose your temper? Hey, it happens sometimes, you know. We’re all human, right?
But even though it can seem impossible sometimes to rein in your tongue and control the things you say to others (and to yourself), there are those who learn to do it.
Notice I say they LEARN to do it — it’s [...]

Today I received a batch of emails offering yet another new business opportunity, all pre-packaged and ready for me to “make a fortune.” Some of the messages boasted: “We’ve already done the planning and thinking for you.”
Made my skin crawl. Growing up, I observed that being thoughtless was not a particularly good thing.
Don’t you also [...]

Are you getting what you expect? And if not, do you pout when you’re disappointed?
My wife and I have just moved to Thailand, and while I’ve eaten and enjoyed Thai food for years, being in the source-country of all that goodness has brought me a few surprises.
Take milk for example. At the grocery yesterday I [...]

Only five more days in sunny Japan, then my wife and I will be living in Thailand. As I wrote earlier, we’ll be flying out of Osaka airport on Thursday the 14th of February.
Valentine’s Day.
And talk about synchronicity! Things have fallen in our favor again and again. The latest “coincidence” was when a [...]

Do you consider peace to be a state of not-this or non-that? Maybe an empty place where no demands are ever placed on you?

Most would define inner peace as a state of non-struggle, non-tension, non-conflict against something. And while a part of gaining peace involves releasing your “stuff,” the act of release is definitely not [...]

Mike had run into a stubborn little glitch with his affirmations. “When I say the word ‘productive’,” he told me, “I get a little spike of self-doubt.”
Each time Mike affirmed that he was productive, it stirred up in him a deep feeling of mis-match — what psychologists call cognitive dissonance. This basically means he was [...]

When tempers flare, logic, reason and self-control are the first victims. Getting angry is a non-reasoning way to defend your safety, your position or your sense of self worth.A person who gets angry more than most people is demonstrating to the world that they feel uncommonly insecure, weak and inadequate. They think they need to [...]

Many people have swallowed the myth that each person comes into this world with one unique ability, and they must discover what that ability is, or else suffer total disappointment throughout their life.
Now, that may be true in a few cases, but for most of us, it just ain’t so. Forget that stuff.

Coming back to the U.S. after living so many years abroad is always a bit jarring culturally.
There are the obvious things, of course, such as driving on the other side of the road and using different money.
On the plus side, talking with others is pleasantly effortless. It doesn’t require the extra half-oomph of concentration that [...]

Went back to high school today — the old school I attended nearly 50 years ago.
It’s still standing, still serving the community well, and its students are, unlike the kids in my day, incredibly young for their age… or so it seemed to this old geezer. And that goes double for the teachers.
It was nice [...]