Last year, I gave a (virtual) speech. It was the speech I’ve give more often than any other. I always title it the same name as my book, “Six Simple Rules for a Better Life,” but the organizers (one of whom had seen the speech the prior year) titled it…
A slightly early happy and healthy New Year! This has again been a very challenging year for all the reasons I don't need to list here. Nonetheless, as I have done for quite a few years, here are some of the experiences I enjoyed this past year: what I listened…
In 2019, I wrote a post about an article I read in the New York Times that caught my eye with its summary: “For lifelong heart health, start exercising early in life and keep exercising often. But even if you have neglected to exercise and are now middle-aged, it is…
I've written a few times about the value of letting go of anger. I've told stories of people I know who lost their money to the Madoff scam and people I know who had anger over terrible customer service experiences (I've had anger about that kind of thing for sure!).…
With Thanksgiving coming soon, writing about gratitude quickly comes to mind. I, and countless other people, have written many times about gratitude as a happiness strategy. (In fact, I just tallied it—approximately one out of seven of my posts over the past 10 years have made reference to gratitude.) A…
About 20 years ago, I read one of my all-time favorite books, The Children, by David Halberstam, about a group of young people, including the late Congressman John Lewis, who put themselves in harm’s way to advance the civil rights movement of the early 1960s. In that book, I read…
The last couple of years have been challenging, to say the least. I write a lot about health and wellness, most often focusing on the importance of exercise and eating well. I also espouse what I call “Proactive Positivity.” In posts and speeches, I explain the way negativity tends to…
I recently stumbled on a piece on WebMD on sugar addiction. The piece provides information about sugar cravings and excellent advice on how to tame your sweet tooth. I recommend the entire piece. Here are some highlights: Your Brain on Sugar Your brain...sees sugar as a reward, which makes you…
A recent post, “Lessons from Mimi,” about inspiration from my mother-in-law, who passed away this year at 95, resulted in more feedback than most of my posts. The notes I received were inspirational themselves and I am sharing excerpts from some of them here. I am 69, and have been…
As I have written countless times, New Year’s Resolutions fail because we make too many, or ones that are too big. Instead, breaking down our goals into small pieces, and tackling one at a time for the 21 days it takes to create a habit, is the way to go…
Ten year ago, I published my book, Six Simple Rules for a Better Life. It’s been an eventful decade for me in many ways, and the book has been a very nice part of it. While the book didn’t become a bestseller (and I didn’t expect it would), it sold…
My mother-in-law (who my kids and I called Mimi) passed away this year. It was not from COVID. She was 95 (and would have turned 96 this month). Her body simply gave out. Incredibly, her mind was at 100% for about 94 of those years, and she wasn’t too far…