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When someone is going through hell, saying, “I’m with you,” is the most powerful thing you can do. Be the “darkest-hour friend” to those you love.
Record a video interview with your parents. Ask them questions and have them tell stories about their childhoods, adventures, hopes, dreams, and fears.
Stop trying to be interesting and focus on being interested. Interested people give their deep attention to something to learn more about it. They open up to the world; they ask great questions and observe. Being interested is how you become interesting.
Is the relationship supportive, ambivalent, or demeaning? Is the relationship interaction frequent or infrequent?
Criticism: While articulating a complaint is fair game and necessary for a healthy relationship, Dr. Gottman defined criticism as an ad hominem attack on the other person. Defensiveness: In response to criticism, most people will try to protect themselves through defensive strategies with excuses. When we are defensive, we fail to be accountable for our failures and actions. Contempt: Treating the partner with disrespect, attacking the person’s character and core. Dr. Gottman’s research revealed contempt to be the single greatest predictor of divorce. Stonewalling: In response to contempt, one
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Criticism antidote (the gentle start-up): Focus on a complaint without blame by avoiding the word you and focusing on the word I. This reframe avoids blame and focuses instead on what you feel or need from your partner. Defensiveness antidote (take responsibility): Acknowledge and accept your partner’s perspective and offer an apology for actions or behaviors that created the perspective. Contempt antidote (build a culture of appreciation): Create a regular reminder of your partner’s positive traits, actions, or behaviors and ground yourself in gratitude for those features. Stonewalling
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Never keep score in love. Scoreboards are for sports games, not marriages. Maintain interests and passions separate from your partner’s. Marriage should not be the end of individuality. It can’t always be fifty-fifty. Sometimes it will be ninety-ten; sometimes it will be ten-ninety. All that matters is that it adds up to one hundred. One man said, “Never stop dating. I’m ninety-nine and still courting my wife!” Marriages don’t get boring; you stop trying. No one has ever argued their way to a happy marriage. When facing a challenge, face it together. You cannot take care of your partner if you
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You’ll forget about it, but they won’t. Your spouse should always take priority over your birth family. Remember that when the two feel in conflict. Complementarity is just as important as compatibility. Allow each other the space to lead within different domains in your relationship. Your love is yours. Forget the approval of others. You won’t be able to make everyone happy. Accept that and embrace each other. I’ll close by repeating the beautiful line from the ninety-four-year-old woman who took part in the birthday exercise I mentioned in the beginning of the book: “When in doubt, love. The
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The solution: A fixed monthly date to sit down for a meal with your partner to reflect on personal, professional, and relationship progress, challenges, and goals. The Life Dinner is a thoughtful way to keep your relationship thriving despite the time constraints and stresses of daily life.
When someone you love comes to you with a problem, ask, “Do you want to be helped, heard, or hugged?”
Stop-sign question: Where did you get married? Doorknob question: How did you decide on the wedding venue? The stop-sign version likely leads to a conversational stop when the person responds with a location. The doorknob version likely leads to a story.
Conversation starters: What are you most excited about right now, personally or professionally? What was your favorite (or least favorite) thing about your hometown? What’s the origin of your name? Why did your parents give you that name? What is the most interesting thing you’ve read or learned recently? What is the best movie or show you’ve seen recently? What made it so compelling to you? What’s been making you smile recently? If you had an entire day to yourself with zero responsibilities, how would you spend it?
Conversation developers: What do you remember as some of the more formative moments of your life? What made them so formative? What have you changed your mind about recently? If you could have dinner with three to five people from any point in history, who would you choose and why? What is something you’ve purchased for a little money that has made a big difference in your life? How do you escape or unwind? What is the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you?
point here is that you can increase your odds of meeting people with whom you will connect by putting yourself in the rooms where several levels of filtering have already occurred before you even arrive.
What’s your connection to [insert current place or event]? What are you most excited about currently? What’s lighting you up outside of work? What’s your favorite book you’ve read recently?
Putting It All Together These nine strategies will work wonders for your public speaking: Study the Best: Use YouTube to study speakers you admire. Create Clear Structure: Be deliberate about the storytelling arc. Build Your Lego Blocks: Relentlessly practice the opening, transitions, and key lines, but avoid rote memorization. Address the Spotlight: Ask “So what?” about your worst fears and stop suffering in your imagination. Get into Character: Turn your ideal character on prior to the start.
Eliminate Stress: Use the physiological sigh to eliminate stress. Cut the Tension: Find a way to cut the tension early with a joke or self-deprecating remark to get the audience on your side. Play the Lava Game: Use big, confident gestures and avoid touching your pockets or torso. Move Purposefully: Take slow, methodical, purposeful steps.
The Bought-Status Test Would I buy this thing if I could not show it to anyone or tell anyone about it?
Mental Wealth is about building on the foundation of curiosity that encourages you to search, explore, question, and learn. It is through curiosity that you go on the journey to uncover and live by your purpose, unlock new insights and lifelong growth, and seek out the space necessary to think, reset, wrestle with questions, and recharge. It’s difficult to determine how, but
The CEOs who credit their long-term successes to a regular “Think Day” (a day off to freely contemplate the biggest challenges facing the business)
Some people die at twenty-five and aren’t buried until seventy-five.
for life”—a driver of their daily vigor. Ikigai can be visualized as four overlapping circles: (1) what you love, (2) what you are good at, (3) what the world needs, and (4) what you can be paid for. The area where the four circles overlap represents your ikigai.
These forces threaten to knock you off your path, to confine you to a life lived by default. Only you can be the hero of your story—it’s time you start acting like it.
Ultimately, this is what it means to build a life of Mental Wealth: to live according to your own purpose, to believe in your own ability to grow, change, learn, and develop, and to find your definition of peace, calm, and solitude in a fast-moving world.
late-thirties single man identified his defining purpose as building his fledgling start-up to eventually influence a billion lives.
The growth mindset, which assumes ability, intelligence, and character are dynamic
The growth mindset, however, is grounded in the central belief that everything about who you are as an individual is malleable—that sincere effort can cultivate change, growth, and continuous improvement. The growth mindset creates a focus on intrinsic motivation, inputs, and process, an embrace of failure as learning, and a fundamental belief that starting circumstances do not determine final outcomes.
Paraphrasing a quote of unknown origin often attributed to Viktor Frankl, your power is in the space that exists between stimulus and response. This idea—of creating and leveraging space—is how you can unlock your own monk-like mindfulness.
mountains. Space is as simple as finding your version of Rockefeller’s garden—an escape where you can slow down and breathe new air in your life. Space is personal and can take many
Neuroplasticity suggests that experiences can fundamentally alter the structure and function of your brain. Your actions and movements can shape your physical, mental, and spiritual reality. You have that power within you. If you want to get better at anything, do it for thirty minutes per day for thirty straight days. It’s easy to over-engineer progress; a little dedicated effort each day is all you need. Nine hundred
The act of teaching is the most powerful form of learning.
Stop trying to remember things and just write everything down. Use your phone notes app—or, better yet, carry a small pocket notebook and pen. The old-fashioned way still works wonders.
Turn whatever pain you can’t get rid of into your creative offering.
You may read thousands of books in your life, but there will be only a few that deeply change you. Reread them every single year. Your experience with the book will change as you do—you’ll get new perspectives. And doing this will remind you of how you can fall in love with the same thing (or person) over and over again.
On a blank sheet of paper, write down your answers to the following questions: What you love: What activities or responsibilities create joy in your life? What were you doing in the moments when you felt the most natural happiness? Make a list of the activities that are life-giving. What you are good at: What feels effortless to you that may be difficult for others? Where do your natural and acquired skills stand out? What do other people seem to recognize as your attributes or skills? Make a list of the activities that you have unique competency in. What the world needs: What activities does
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My solution: I focus on energy, not interests or passions. Follow your energy, because it is the truly scarce resource. When you have energy for something, you go deep on it, you push to grow, you gain life from it. It fuels you.
Step 1: Create Your Map The pursuit map is a blank two-by-two matrix with competency level (from low to high competency) on the x-axis and energy (from energy-draining to energy-creating) on the y-axis.
Energy-creating: A pursuit that creates energy in your life; these activities leave you feeling energized—they fill your cup.
Energy-draining: A pursuit that drains energy from your life; these activities leave you feeling drained—they empty your cup. High competency: A pursuit at which you are skilled; these activities feel effortless. Low competency: A pursuit at which you are a novice; these activities feel challenging.
Zone of Genius: In his 2010 book The Big Leap, author Gay Hendricks proposed the novel idea of the Zone of Genius, defined as the range of pursuits where you have excellent
Most of your time is spent on pursuits in your Zone of Genius. Your remaining time is spent on pursuits in your Zone of Hobby. Minimize the time spent on pursuits in your Zone of Danger. Eliminate the time spent on pursuits in the dead zone (with
Socratic questioning (or the Socratic method) is a process of asking and answering questions that stimulate critical thinking to expose and vet underlying assumptions and logic.
To put it into action, follow this general structure: Start with open-ended questions. Propose ideas based on these questions. Probe these ideas with progressive questioning. Repeat until the best ideas are developed.
The Think Day was my adaptation. Pick one day each month to step back from all of your day-to-day professional demands:
Seclude yourself (mentally or physically). Put up an out-of-office response. Shut off all your devices.
The goal: Spend the entire day reading, learning, journaling, and thinking. By doing this, you create the free time to zoom out, open your mind, and think creatively about the bigger picture. The essential tools for Think Day: Journal and pen Books/articles you’ve been wanting to read Secluded location (at home, rental, or outside) Thinking prompts to spark your mind Eight thinking prompts I have found partic...
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If people observed my actions for a week, what would they say my priorities are? If I were the main character in a movie of my life, what would the audience be screaming at me to do right now? Am I hunting antelope (big important problems) or field mice (small urgent problems)? How can I do less but better? What are my strongest beliefs? What would it take for me to change my mind on them? What are a few things I know now that I wish I’d known five years ago? What actions did...
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Initiate power-down: Create a mental trigger for the completion of the power-down ritual. Cal Newport had his own magic phrase (“Schedule shutdown, complete”), but you can create your own less nerdy version if you like.
One win from the day One point of tension, anxiety, or stress One point of gratitude
The Big Question: What would your ten-year-old self say to you today? The three pillars of Mental Wealth: Purpose: The clarity of defining a unique vision and focus that creates meaning and aligns short- and long-term decision making; the unwillingness to live someone else’s life
