“I don’t look at my phone anymore. I spent all my time seeing everybody else’s life, and I forgot that my own was right in front of me.” — Billie Eilish said this after winning multiple Grammy’s.

Billie Eilish didn’t quit her phone — she quit using social media apps to live through everyone else’s life.

She realized endless doom-scrolling was stealing her focus, her energy, her presence — so she chose something better: living her own moments fully.

The goal isn’t to ditch your phone.

It’s to make your real life too good, too vivid, and too real to want to trade for anyone else’s.

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Learned this weekend that the mother of Pittsburgh Steelers first-round NFL draft pick Derrick Harmon died Thursday night shortly after her son was selected by the team.

Tiffany Saine was on life support in the hospital after suffering a stroke in 2022.

Derrick used some of his NIL money (financial compensation athletes receive in college) to buy his mom a wheelchair accessible van and he said she took him to many practices then went on to work.

The story is touching but the motivating part is what Derrick learned from his mom:

“If I’m tired, I’m injured, whatever it is, why can’t I keep going if she can get up and she keep going after brain surgery.”

“Why can’t I keep going if she can get up and she keep going after brain surgery”.

Life is tough, some people are tougher and all of us can always find good in bad.

Please share if you’d like.

I’ll admit, I am a college music business professor and I’ve had a love affair with music all my life – we know the curative effects of music – now I have discovered this which I am going to share with my students this week before the semester wraps up (and you now).

Singing for 14 minutes a day could have the same positive effect on the heart rate variability (HRV) as light exercise according to a Medical College of Wisconsin study.

HRV, the variation in the time between heartbeats – is one of the key features of cardio health. A high HRV says our bodies are more resilient and adaptable to stress. 

Singing with friends may be even better and group singing promotes emotional health because of social connection. 

My friends Tom and Sharan Taylor love singing in groups.

Music may be the new penicillin.

Feel free to pass this one along.

Removing obstacles to confidence, oddly enough, starts with eliminating anger.  That’s not a common view but a powerful one.

“Forgiveness is a choice that you make to give up anger and resentment, even while acknowledging that misconduct happened.

Forgiveness is choosing a higher path. Forgiveness is for you, not for the forgiven.

Forgiveness is your gift to others, even those who are undeserving of your kindness” according to Dr. Amit Sood.

Confidence grows when you release anger through forgiveness, choosing peace and personal strength over resentment.

Feel free to share.

I’m teaching a class on performance anxiety and imposter syndrome this week and in preparation discovered that 80% of us – not just performers and entertainers – experience it in our lives.

Barbra Streisand famously said “The only way I could perform was to believe I had something important to say.  If I thought about the audience judging me, I’d freeze.  But if I focused on the message in the music — I could sing.”

Lizzo:  “I used to get nervous before every show, thinking I had to prove myself.  Now I remind myself: I’m not here to be perfect — I’m here to be present.”

World renown violinist Hilary Hahn said “Performance anxiety never fully goes away — but I’ve learned to welcome it. It means I care.  I don’t try to fight it anymore; I work with it, like a partner.”

I’ll save you the tuition of taking the course to hearing the answer to performance anxiety that is so rampant in our world today – and it’s so simple but true.

Keep going.

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Getting down on yourself is a dangerous flirtation.

Bad feelings can emerge.  Loss of self-worth can start pretty quickly.  And depression can take you off course.

My NYU Stress Class students struggle with rejection, criticism and negative thoughts which is a form of self-sabotage that can be stopped in its tracks.  How?

Do good, not just focus on it.  Actually, make a difference in some outcome.  It doesn’t have to be life changing just small or even insignificant compared to earth shattering.

The size of good doesn’t matter because the feeling you get is the same – that you are capable of positivity.  It’s lots of little rehearsals for the big thing that may – no, will come along.

Do good, feel good – banish negative thoughts that are useless.

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Perhaps you’ve heard about “The Four Agreements”?

Authors Don Miguel Ruiz and Janet Mills make the most sense of a haunting issue of our time – judging, made easier through instant communication and social media.

They ask you to imagine living your life without the fear of being judged by others.

What others say no longer influences you or patterns of your life.

You’re not accountable for someone’s opinion.

You’re done with controlling anyone and no one gets to control you.

That’s living your life without judging others.

True freedom comes from releasing the fear of judgment and the need to control others.  When we stop worrying about what people think and let go of judgments, we can live authentically, forgive easily, and experience inner peace.

I love this, from Miguel Ruiz:  “Don’t take anything personally. What others say about you is a reflection of their own reality, their own dream.”

Feel free to share.

… its default setting would be tuned to ‘threat channel.’

You have to consciously change the station to find peace.

That’s the wisdom of Global Center for Resilience and Wellbeing’s Dr. Amit Sood who reminds us in a way relatable to my entertainment industry readers and for that matter anyone in the audience for the need for intentional mental shifts.

To “change the station” is to interrupt those automatic threat-based patterns and intentionally focus your mind elsewhere:  Gratitude, connection, present-moment awareness and joy, beauty, or creativity.

This doesn’t happen passively. You have to decide to guide your attention toward peace — because the brain won’t land there by itself.

If we can turn the channel on a radio, choose from thousands of podcasts on our phone or build a playlist from millions of choices on Spotify, we can surely take charge of our attitude.

This topic of the hidden power within is so motivational because everyone has it even if they don’t know it.

“The greatest power you have is the power to choose. The moment you decide to change your thinking, you begin to change your life.”

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In our NYU stress class we discover something so important that it can be life-changing.

That our brain is not programmed for happiness!  It’s been functioning in humans since the beginning of time for safety – to protect and warn us.

And, by the way, how social media pings us tends to trigger warnings not happiness is not nothing – it’s teasing the brain.

It’s almost a relief for some young people to discover this fact because it helps to reassure us that we are not doing something wrong if we wake up on a sunny day and don’t feel sunny.

So, the trick is to stop feeling bad about not feeling good.

There are workarounds – move on to something else, focus on someone different or simply just understand that your brain is doing its job and your job is to tap into the things in life that bring you happiness and pursue them.

Our brain’s #1 mission is survival—not mood optimization.

Your mind is a problem-solving machine.  But you are not a problem to be solved as psychologist Steven Hayes reminds us.

Such a powerful line — our brains scan for threats like we’re broken, when we’re just human.

I feel better already.

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“Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward,” says philosopher  Søren Kierkegaard.

It means that we often make sense of our choices, struggles, and turning points — only in hindsight.  Looking back, we can see patterns, understand consequences, and gain clarity about who we are and how we’ve changed.

But we can’t live in reverse.  We’re always moving into an uncertain future, making decisions without knowing exactly how they’ll turn out.

Our challenge is learning to live with purpose and courage even when we don’t yet understand the meaning of our path.  In other words, life is an adventure.

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