Doing What Works

We love to read and watch stories about people who suffer, and still prevail. So why do we often become indignant at having to suffer ourselves? It’s a question worth pondering in this edition of Doing What Works.

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Whimsy is the nagging sensation life could be magical if we were willing to take a few risks.

A hero, by definition, suffers.

Uncertain waits seem longer than known, finite waits.

Easy choices, hard life. Hard choices, easy life.

“Language is a spectacularly rudimentary way of trying to communicate what is happening inside, and I think for a lot of us what happens inside is something we’ll never fully be able to put into words.” ~ That’s our very own Katie Anderson!

“Failure’s like a muscle. You have to keep it strong. You need to have small failures constantly to keep you in shape for the big ol’ whopper that comes along once in a while.” ~ Sally Hogshead

A hack from Dan Harris on making workouts suck a little bit less.

Tell yourself you’re going to have fun and learn a lot, almost no matter what the experience, and guess what? You likely will. That’s the case we make in this edition of Doing What Works.

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When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

Jerry Seinfeld is in the business of funny.

Whimsy is the nagging sensation life could be magical if we were willing to take a few risks.

Find something to be surprised by every day.

Do you see the field?

There’s more to life than speeding it up. So much more! And in this edition of Doing What Works we’ll give you a list of inaction items.

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Humanity isn’t a hack.

Silence is the only true religion.

Erma Bombeck wrote a lot of clipworthy columns.

Katie never hits the snooze button. Ever. It’s one of her rules of thumb, and in this edition of Doing What Works we’ll share some of our other favorites.

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What, exactly, is a rule of thumb?

“An embarrassment to paychecks” is from The Family Man.

“Choose the bigger life” is from Gretchen Rubin.

Easy choices, hard life. Hard choices, easy life.

Sometimes the way to help people feel better is to encourage them to feel even worse. For a while, at least. They can’t process their sadness, after all, without being sad. This encore edition of Doing What Works is one of our favorites, because we don’t pretend it’s easy -- but we do show our work.

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Staying the Course: A Runner’s Toughest Race taught me what it means to be a writer.

Donna Mills says aging is not for sissies!

Phil Stutz says he doesn’t think about his Parkinson’s so much as all the work he still wants to do.

Katie and I fancy ourselves the enlightened sort, who only occasionally let our egos get in the way of doing the right thing. When really, those egos get in the way constantly. Now what? Katie thinks I did a great job of answering that question in this encore edition of Doing What Works, but we’ll let you be the judge!

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We contain multitudes.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

The capacity for joy directly related to capacity for pain.

Does telling yourself you live a charmed life work? Does feeling lucky bring on more of that? Katie doesn’t think it’s useful metric, and in this edition of Doing What Works she explains why.

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We got the idea for a show about luck from George Mack.

There’s a podcast about Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”

A What Color Is Your Parachute? workshop was a class on making a life transition.

The Law of Attraction was the basis for The Secret.

Is the Universe hostile or friendly? Albert Einstein thought that’s the most important question.

Jordan Ellenberg is the author of How Not to Be Wrong.

Thomas Jefferson is quoted as saying the harder he works, the luckier he gets.

Earl Nightingale is quoted as saying luck is what happens when preparedness meets opportunity.

Alex Lickerman talks about indestructible happiness in his book, The Undefeated Mind.

Sometimes it isn’t our job to be the star. Sometimes we’re in a supporting role, and in this edition of Doing What Works we’ll be your cheerleader as you learn how to…be a good cheerleader.

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“The bad stuff is easier to believe.”

If you read What Color Is Your Parachute? you’ll learn that, for example, resumes are mostly used to screen you out.

Barbara Sher was never a fan of self-help books or motivational speeches. Better, she said, to identify your obstacles as specifically as you can -- and find people to help you scale those hurdles.

Someone tries to shame Katie and me for stepping over her aisle seat in a movie theater to use the bathroom before the previews start. Someone else tries to shame Darrell after he checked for spare change from a coin-cashing machine. It didn’t work in either case, and in this edition of Doing What Works we tell you why we risked those confrontations. We also share many more times we let something go.

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The Good Place examines what it means to be a good person.

A commencement address by David Foster Wallace will help you have compassion for strangers.

Don’t hit the snooze button. Do make the bed. Don’t put off the laundry. Little things? Hardly! They help you build momentum. They help turn you into a person who accepts what she can’t change -- like a date that won’t end in marriage -- and enjoys a lovely evening with someone who might become a good friend. The spotlight’s on little glimmers in this edition of Doing What Works.

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“Everyone is a storyteller dying for lack of an audience.” That’s Dick Bolles.

“If the world was about to end, I’d take notes.” That’s from Sara Davidson. I think!

Intermittent fasting is popular in blue zones.

Beware of the sunk cost fallacy.