These are strange times. On one level, everything is wonderful–better than it ever has been. On another level, almost nobody feels that way. The world seems like it’s falling apart. It does not seem like there is much anyone can do about it. Most of us don’t feel like we’re in much of a position to do much about anything. Sociologists...

The thing about success is that it messes with your brain. It messes with other people’s brains, too. I’m not saying that it gives you amnesia, but it does change how you see yourself and the events that lead you to where you are. Basically, we start to tell ourselves stories about how it happened and why it happened–specifically, why...

People fail for a lot of reasons. People do crazy things for a lot of reasons. But one reason we don’t talk about enough is sleep. I watched this at American Apparel. There were a lot of problems at that company. It borrowed too much money. It had a toxic workplace culture. It was besieged by lawsuits. It opened too many stores. This was all written...

Earlier this month, I gave a talk in Colorado. I got in late, but it was OK because I knew they were putting me up in a really nice hotel, one I remembered staying in before. As I walked to my room, I was struck by how run down the hotel was. The furnishings seemed staid. The walls were scuffed. The decor was tired. Even the electronics in the...

  In 1950, a man grieving his young son who had just died of polio got a letter from Albert Einstein. Now, one might think that as a man of science, Einstein would have had a rather resigned view of the tragic nature of the human condition. We’re born. We’re buffeted by forces beyond our control, beyond our comprehension, and then we die. Often...

There aren’t too many of us who are satisfied with the person we currently are. That is, we know we could be better. We know we should be better. And by better, we don’t mean at our jobs, at lifting weights, or looking better, or having more money. We know we could be better people–that is to say, kinder, more generous, more patient, more...