I'm a big believer in lifelong learning. The fifth of my Six Simple Rules is, "Be a Lifelong Learner." I do a ton of reading (books, magazines, newspapers, and blogs), I listen to podcasts, and I attend classes, workshops, and seminars, among other things. I'm also a strong believer in…
During the time of year when the weather cooperates, I love eating breakfast in my backyard. For many years, I did so while reading the morning newspaper. A couple of years ago, I decided to stop reading while I was eating. I wrote them about that here. But, I allowed…
Explaining “Be Proactive,” the first of Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Covey wrote about pushing the pause button between stimulus and response, in order to respond in a way guided by how you want to live your life, rather than reacting in a way not aligned with…
I’m not the last person who should writing this, but I may be close. I like dogs, and I probably could be someone who loves dogs, but mostly I don’t have much interaction with them. When my siblings and I were kids, we begged our parents for a dog. After…
When I say "Be a Leader" (the third of the Six Simple Rules for a Better Life), the leadership I am talking about is not being a CEO of a company, or being the president of a country. What I am talking about is volunteering at home, at work, and…
This is a guest post by Aryeh Weinstein. I knew he was coming. He had called me earlier in the week and asked me if I could host him and his wife for dinner at our home. After calling the reference he gave me, I told him we’d be happy…
I love reading. And I love books. I haven't switched over to e-books yet, and I'm not sure if I will. Over the years, I've kept bookshelves full of the books I read. There were three reasons why I collected books: I liked how they looked on my bookshelves. I…
Here's another reason it's so hard to eat well. While people are more driven to avoid pain than they are driven to pursue pleasure, the pain of bad health is not immediately visible. So the pleasure of a eating a piece of cake is stronger than the idea of the…
In an episode of the TED Radio Hour, "The Food We Eat," I learned more about why watching our sugar intake is so important. One of the speakers was Robert Lustig, a professor at the University of California at San Francisco. When you consume fruit, such as an orange, you…
I regularly suggest writing things down to make sure they aren’t forgotten. No one is perfect and mistakes happen, but many errors can be easily avoided if you simply make a note—a written reminder to yourself. (When I say written, I mean in any of the ways you can make…
I was playing with words in my head earlier this year, as I often do, and the title of my book, Six Simple Rules for a Better Life, became "Six Better Rules for a Simple Life". (I wrote about it in my monthly newsletter.) Simple things of all types appeal…
My next door neighbor invited me over a few months ago to check out his "Alexa" (the electronic device from Amazon you can ask to do things for you). I had only heard a bit about Alexa at that point. He showed me the way he uses it to control…