What are the qualities of the most charming people? You know the guy. He’s poised. He’s confident. And when he speaks to people, it’s in a strong, measured voice and a relaxed tone. His words are well-chosen. Even his classy but understated appearance seems to fixate everyone around him. But it’s not what he’s saying […]
Brains rule the world, so it’s important to keep yours healthy. Brains run everything; the stock market, huge corporations, the mom-and-pop shops down the street. Your brain governs everything you do: how you think, how you feel, how you act, how you get along with other people. In my work as a physician, psychiatrist and […]
A story on how to stand up for yourself. The director of a small but busy public library in the Midwest, Marcia Fanning (not her real name) says she was meek and didn’t really stand up for herself for many years: “I let people walk all over me, and I ended up being really unhappy […]
Do you know how to build trust with your body language? People tend to overestimate their ability to read others’ faces or body language when determining if someone is trustworthy, psychologists say. Practiced liars can be experts at genuine-seeming eye contact and gestures. But as unreliable as body language is, it might still be a […]
Are you getting better, smarter, wiser, faster and stronger in your life? If not, why not? When we ask, the answers cause us to strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too. Questioning helps us discover, and then transcend, our human […]
Let’s talk overhead press variations. Everyone talks about “International bench day,” but there’s nothing quite like pressing something heavy overhead. It’s pretty much the most innate display of strength. When little kids want to impress their parents with how strong they’re getting, they lift something overhead. Most lifters should be able to press something relatively […]
By Leo Babauta I’ve been noticing lately how much of our lives is spent wanting to do something, wishing we could do something … but struggling with moving from desire to action. What’s the struggle to make this transition all about? And how can we more consciously make the transition into action? Let’s look at […]
By Leo Babauta A lot of us want to Create Change in Life — whether it’s changing a bad habit like smoking or overeating, creating a new habit like meditation, or simply being less distracted or reactive during the day. Whatever the change, you’re likely to face internal resistance. There is a part of you […]
By Leo Babauta Let’s talk about creating sacred focus. Our focus during the day is almost always muddled. We switch between everything, and at any given 5-minute period, most of us would often be hard-pressed to say what we’re focusing on. That’s not how our minds work most of the time. It’s no wonder we […]
By Leo Babauta The feeling of being overwhelmed is extremely common in the people I talk to, and it’s becoming more and more clear to me that this is the default state for most of us. We’re overwhelmed by it all: all the things we have on our plates, all the interruptions and messages and […]