Marty Nemko's Blog, page 396

19 Important Questions to Ask Yourself

Most of us don’t take much time to reflect. My PsychologyToday.com article today offers 19 central questions about you and your life. HERE is the link.

Career Counseling ISIS’s Caliph

As someone who has spent his life helping people change, I can’t quite accept that it’s impossible to change someone, even ISIS’s self-proclaimed caliph: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

At the risk of unmatched naïveté, my PsychologyToday.com article today consists of a thought experiment: What might a successful few-minute first career counseling session with ISIS’s caliph look like. 

Of course, I’m not hubristic enough to think this would work but perhaps the thought experiment embeds useful principles for all of us, as I argue at the end of the article. 

HERE is the link. 

The Fight to be Right: When to insist and when and how to let it go.

In an argument, people love to get the other person to admit they're wrong. Alas, they may win the battle but lose the war.
My PsychologyToday.com article explores when to insist you're right and when and how to let it go. HERE is the link

Career Dialogues Between High School Students and Me

I was asked to come to a high school class to do what I do on the radio: Workovers: a few-minute exchange to help a person decide what career s/he might want to explore.


While simple and terse, I believe the exchanges embed career lessons useful whether you’re a teen, much older, or you want to provide career guidance for someone you care about.  The transcript of those Workovers is my PsychologyToday.com article today. HERE is the link.

Dialogues Between High School Students and Me

I was asked to come to a high school class to do what I do on the radio: Workovers: a few-minute exchange to help a person decide what career s/he might want to explore.

While simple and terse, I believe the exchanges embed career lessons useful whether you’re a teen, much older, or you want to provide career guidance for someone you care about.  The transcript of those Workovers is my PsychologyToday.com article today. HERE is the link.

What if Your Child is Gifted, High-Ability, an Advanced Learner?

Especially below the high school level, programs for high-ability children have been cut, often to non-existent. As I wrote in an earlier PsychologyToday.com article, advanced learners too often sit stultified in a class for hours each day, for a decade. They may be America’s most underserved kids. What’s a parent to do?
To address that question, I interviewed one of the nation’s leading experts on gifted students. That's my PsychologyToday.com article. HERE is the link.

Should I Eat That?: An internal debate on whether it’s worth the calories

Core to losing weight is how we resolve the internal debate: It is it worth the calories? 

My PsychologyToday.com article offers the internal dialogue I’d have with myself as I was deciding whether to go out for an Indian buffet or stay home and have a prudent dinner. HERE is the link.

“I Don’t Care About Anything:' A dialogue between a hopeless person and a cheerleader.

At some point, most people ask themselves, “What’s it all mean?” And sometimes, their answer is, “Not much.”

My PsychologyToday.com article today is a dialogue between two hypothetical people. One believes that nearly anyone can have a meaningful life. I’ll call that person “Max.” The other believes life has minimal meaning. I’ll call that person “Minnie.”

Perhaps their exchange might help you in your search for meaning or accepting life’s limitations. 

HERE is the link. 

Should Atheists Criticize Religious People?

It’s tempting to try to shake religious people’s faith. After all, religion is irrational--How could anyone find comfort in a God that would allow billions of people, including infants, to die in agony of diseases like cancer. And religion has caused so much prejudice and death--from the Crusades to Radical Islam. Plus, religion often urges disempowerment: Don’t act; wait for God. Trust God above reason. For example, consider these exhortations from the Bible: 
“Be not wise in your own eyes. God shall supply all your need.” Philippians 4:19. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.” Proverbs 3:1.If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” Matthew 17:20. But my PsychologyToday.com article argues that, in many cases, it's wrong, even malevolent to try to to disabuse religious people of their faith. 

HERE is the link.  

Questions to Ask Yourself About Your Worklife

We’re often too busy to reflect, even on something as important as our worklife. My PsychologyToday.com article today asks questions to make it easier. HERE is the link.