Leon Smith, a Haverford High School teacher inspired by the teachers who resonated with him as a young boy starts each class by saying “I know you. I believe in you.”  He’s a demanding teacher but with high levels of love and support. He’s looking for talent and ambition that may not be recognized – it’s his way of saying “I see you, now I want to hear you”.

His belief in students accompanies an expectation that they develop their abilities. Encouragement has something behind it: attention to the person and recognition of a strength. Smith uses what he calls morning circles, individualized feedback and lessons that help students find their voices.

Teaching is not just lecturing, testing or writing papers because students remember when they feel capable – they are responding to mentors who make them see a future standing before them.

Your belief in someone may help them see a future they cannot yet see for themselves.

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You can be both scared and ready.

Chrissy Metz, known for This Is Us, admitted that Broadway “scares me to bits” when announcing she would join & Juliet this summer. She took the role anyway.

In a June 17 interview with People, Metz described anxiety and impostor syndrome before her debut. Both of these conditions are common among creatives.  She connected her anxiety to wanting to do a good job—and described preparation as the source of greater confidence and trust in herself.

Chrissy Metz made her Broadway debut as Angélique on June 16, 2026.

Feeling intimidated by a new challenge doesn’t automatically mean you’re unqualified. Metz’s account offers a practical response to self-doubt: prepare enough to give yourself something concrete to trust.

“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

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The brain is designed as an instrument for survival and safety, not peace and happiness. That means to fire up our brain to do other things requires learning micro-practices that can be learned in a month or so but unfortunately phases out without continued repetition.

Take resentment. Former Mayo Clinic physician Amit Sood says “Resentment is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies. You are living in a room full of smoke, waiting for the person who lit the fire to come and put it out.”

The person you resent is likely sleeping soundly while you are losing sleep.

You don’t forgive to help them; you forgive to clear the “smoke” from your own room so you can breathe.  Forgiveness is for you, not for the forgiven.

Forgiveness doesn’t require an apology, reconciliation or renewed trust. You can let go of resentment and still keep the boundary.

“Forgiveness is your gift to others, even those who are undeserving of your kindness.” – Amit Sood, MD.

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When people spent a few minutes each day paying attention to something good in the Big Joy Project, many reported feeling better after a week.

The activities were simple enough to fit into an ordinary day. Participants were prompted to make a gratitude list, celebrate someone else’s good news, plan a kind act, or watch a short video meant to inspire awe. Each activity took about five to ten minutes.

After a 2025 study analyzed 17,598 participants from 169 countries and territories, here’s what it found:  At the end of the seven-day program, participants reported better emotional well-being, more positive emotions, and less stress than they had at the start. They also rated their sleep and physical health slightly better. People who completed more activities tended to report larger changes.

Participants volunteered, and the study had no randomized comparison group. It cannot establish how much of the change came from the activities, whether any one activity worked better than another, or whether the reported gains lasted. Sleep and health were self-rated; researchers did not measure them independently.

People who completed more activities tended to report larger changes.

Study collaborator Elissa Epel concluded that “Micro-acts of joy focus us on what is good about the life in front of us, and how we can make it better.”

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A short daily gratitude practice — listing three good things, texting a thank-you, or writing a brief letter — delivers measurable gains in mood, life satisfaction, and even longevity.
In a world of constant stress, this is one of the simplest, most evidence-backed tools for thriving. It costs nothing, takes minutes, and compounds over weeks.

The common versions are

• Nightly “three good things” list (what went well and why).
• A quick thank you text or email to someone specific.
• A short gratitude letter, even if never sent.

People who stick with it report steadier positive emotion and better sleep within weeks. Expressing thanks to another person usually outperforms private lists alone.

Nearly 50,000 women in the Nurses’ Health Study: those with the highest gratitude scores had a 9% lower risk of death over four years. Multiple meta-analyses of randomized trials show small-to-moderate gains in positive emotion and life satisfaction, plus reductions in depression and anxiety symptoms.

Benefits show up in healthy adults and people already in counseling. Effects often build gradually rather than appearing overnight.

Robert A. Emmons, a leading scientific researcher on gratitude captures the benefit: “Gratitude heals, energizes and changes lives.”

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We tend to have more faith and confidence in our friends than we do with ourselves – a harsh reality of the dangers of comparison in the age of social media.

We believe others will be more successful than us.  That we have more faults and impediments in the way on our journey to accomplishment.  We even talk to ourselves in a way more uncertain than we talk to our friends.  When we treat ourselves the same way we treat those we admire, we are on the right road.  Self-talk is critical so making those words accepting and approving can end the drought of conviction necessary to use our best gifts the way we are, not the way we perceive others.

Researchers identify this as the Self-Compassion Gap that describes the well-documented psychological phenomenon where individuals extend warmth, patience, and encouragement to others facing difficulty, yet react to their own mistakes and setbacks with severe self-criticism.

Dr. Kristin Neff’s core finding is that self-compassion — treating yourself with the same kindness and understanding you would offer a good friend — is far more effective for resilience, motivation, and mental health than self-criticism or relentless self-esteem.

“Quiet the inner critic, and open the door to your own potential. You’ve been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” — Dr. Kristin Neff

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Joe Jones had a one-and-done hit with the lyric “You talk too much, you worry me to death” and all these decades later you could reverse the warning. People may be speaking substantially less than they once did—and disappearing everyday conversations could be costing us meaningful human connection. An article in The Atlantic warned of isolation.

Researchers analyzed ambient recordings from 2,197 people participating in 22 studies between 2005 and 2019. They estimated that daily speech declined about 28% over that period—from roughly 16,600 words to 12,700. People under 25 showed the steepest decline.

The striking part isn’t merely the number of words. It is what those missing words may represent: fewer conversations with coworkers, neighbors, cashiers, friends and strangers.

Research cited by The Atlantic suggests that even brief exchanges with casual acquaintances can improve feelings of connection and well-being. Talking also requires spontaneity, attention and responsiveness in ways that texting does not.

Small talk may not be small.

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Former Apple CEO Tim Cook in his 2017 MIT commencement address (well before generative AI became mainstream) had a predictive warning about machines replacing humans:

“The greater danger is humans adopting the machine’s worst qualities—speed without reflection, efficiency without empathy and decisions without responsibility.”

Cook was not claiming that AI itself poses no danger. His point was that technology has no moral compass unless people supply one. A computer can optimize an outcome; it cannot decide whether that outcome is humane.

As AI makes it easier to automate hiring, firing, music creation, customer service and even personal relationships, efficiency can become an excuse for removing judgment and compassion.

We should worry less about whether machines become human—and more about whether humans become mechanical.

Intelligence without humanity is not progress.

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I can tell you my music industry students are concerned about AI replacing songwriters, artists and production while also realizing that some things AI does helps indie artists manage their careers.

Then this:  Watching musicians perform in the same room produced a stronger emotional response than watching the identical performance on a screen, according to a randomized pilot study published in Scientific Reports. Livestreaming can deliver the same notes at the same moment, but this experiment suggests that the physical presence of musicians adds something audiences can feel.

Researchers found the live audience consistently reported greater appreciation, emotional arousal, positive feelings and kama muta—a research measure describing the experience of feeling emotionally moved and connected.

The study does not prove that live concerts improve long-term physical or mental health but this experiment found they were not emotionally interchangeable for these participants.

“The kind that makes your heart race, your body move, and your soul stir with passion.” –Foo Fighter’s founder Dave Grohl, writing about live music in The Atlantic

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When Tim Cook handed the Apple CEO position to John Ternus recently he left with 9 words of advice:  “This place is proof that culture triumphs over everything,” both revealing what made the company so successful and in a way served as a warning that it’s true of bad culture, too.

Your personal culture is what you repeatedly tolerate, reward, practice and expect from yourself. Over time, those patterns don’t just influence what you do; habits can become part of how you define who you are.

Your personal culture eventually triumphs over your intentions.

You can intend to be optimistic, disciplined, generous or courageous. But if your daily culture is complaining, procrastinating, avoiding difficult things or surrounding yourself with negativity, that culture tends to win.

And the reverse is just as powerful. Repeatedly choosing curiosity over cynicism, gratitude over complaint, action over avoidance and kindness over irritation creates an environment in which those behaviors become increasingly characteristic of you.

It’s not just for corporations.  The culture you create inside your own life eventually becomes the person you are.

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Michael J. Fox is returning to acting at 65 and 35 years after being diagnosed with Parkinsons on Shrinking.

Sometimes what interrupts the life you planned becomes the thing that gives your life greater meaning.  Fox didn’t choose Parkinson’s and doesn’t romanticize it. But he turned his diagnosis into the Michael J. Fox Foundation, which has become a major force in Parkinson’s research. And now, decades after that diagnosis—and six years after believing acting was behind him—he’s acting again.

His return is especially meaningful because Fox retired from acting in 2020 after realizing Parkinson’s was making it increasingly difficult for him to reliably remember his lines. That makes the comeback more than symbolic: he’s returning to something the disease itself helped force him to leave.

Maybe resilience is continuing to find a life worth living when the old plan no longer applies.

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We spend a lot of time working on our relationships with spouses, partners, children, friends and coworkers. But there’s one relationship we live with every minute of every day — the one we have with ourselves.

A study combining results from more than 16,000 people found a strong connection between treating yourself with understanding instead of constant criticism and greater well-being.

Becoming less relentlessly self-critical can reduce anxiety, stress and symptoms of depression.  This is not a hall pass to ignore your mistakes or overinflating your self-worth as a response.  The voice you hear more than anyone else’s is your own.

If that voice spends all day reminding you what you did wrong, what you should have done and why you’re not good enough, eventually you pay the price.

Show compassion inward instead of constantly judging yourself.

Treat yourself at least as well as you treat the people you love.

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Dolly Parton was so beloved because she made people feel good about themselves – that’s different from being nice.

She put it like this:  “We’re just people. And we need to be better to one another — and to ourselves.”

Dolly could laugh at herself without the need to demonstrate that she was smarter, richer, more important or morally superior to others. “This dumb blonde ain’t nobody’s fool.” “Hopefully people can see beneath the hair to know there’s a brain, beneath the boobs to know there’s a heart, and behind all the other stuff to know there’s some talent.”

Earlier this year, a UMass/YouGov survey found 70% of Americans viewed Dolly favorably and only 5% unfavorably. In an age when practically every famous person becomes somebody’s enemy, Dolly somehow didn’t.

Her fame never went to her head. Her Imagination Library, a program that mails free books to children from birth to age five grew from her father’s inability to read. When Tennessee families lost their homes to wildfires, she helped them directly. When Vanderbilt needed money for COVID research, she gave $1 million.

Her explanation was wonderfully uncomplicated:

“I just see a need and if I can fill it, then I will.”

That’s the part of Dolly worth stealing.  Make someone else feel more important.

She once said “I never quite understood why we have to let religion and politics and things like that stand in the way of just being good human beings”.

Like Dolly and in our own way, we just need to leave people feeling a little better than we found them.

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One way to feel better is to make someone else feel better.

In a randomized study of 777 people, those assigned to do acts of kindness for others for two weeks ended up not only less depressed but less anxious and lonely. Researchers found increased human connection helped explain the benefit.  Self-kindness generated more positive feelings, while kindness toward others increased people’s sense of connection. That increased social connection helped explain the improvements in depression, anxiety and loneliness.

Not that kindness is the cure for mental health or that we should ignore our own needs.  Helping someone else can interrupt our preoccupation with ourselves while reminding us that we’re connected to other people. And the act of kindness does not have to be earth shattering.  It could be an encouraging text or email, a compliment, helping someone you don’t know, a cup of coffee, touching base with someone who is lonely.

“There isn’t anyone who doesn’t appreciate kindness and compassion. It is necessary to help others, not only in our prayers, but in our daily lives.” — Dalai Lama

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Nine out of ten worries we have will never happen.

A Penn State study published in Behavior Therapy had people with generalized anxiety disorder record their specific worries and then track what actually happened. 91% of their worry predictions did not come true. The median participant had 93.5% of worries fail to materialize, and for seven participants, 100% of their worries didn’t happen.

Better yet when the bad thing does happen, we handle it much better than we thought we would.  A new 2026 randomized controlled trial found participants tracked their worries using a smartphone app; 89% of feared outcomes didn’t happen. And when something they feared did happen, participants reported that they coped better than expected 84.% of the time.

Worry asks us to suffer today over a future that, most of the time, never arrives — and research suggests that even when it does, we’re better at handling it than we predict.

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Over the past week that I was off, I had the chance to work on my NYU classes that start after Labor Day.  One hovering issue is the use of artificial intelligence.  I like to encourage my students to use AI for research and ideas but to submit their own original work that reflects their point of view.  Some of my music business students are concerned that fake AI-generated music will replace live performers.  There’s reason for concern as fake music has made it to the top of Spotify charts faster than Spotify can shut it down.

I always see AI can do a lot of things but not everything – for example, it can predict what you’re going to do next but not know it until you actually do it.  AI is a tool, perhaps an overblown threat in some ways, but I found it fascinating that Fred Rogers (yes, that Mister Rogers) came up with these comforting thoughts long before iPhones and AI.

He said “No matter what the machine may be, it was people who thought it up and made it.”

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Progress not perfection is the goal.  I call it PPP – purposeful positive progression.

No need to wait until you have every answer. Instead, gather the best information available, accept that some uncertainty will always remain, make a thoughtful decision and adjust as you learn. In practical terms, it means asking: “What’s one meaningful step I can take today that moves me forward?”

Making progress in meaningful work is one of the strongest drivers of motivation and having a sense of purpose is associated with better psychological and physical health. Behavioral science shows that small, consistent improvements are more sustainable than waiting for dramatic breakthroughs.

Purposeful positive progression is the practice of taking intentional, meaningful steps that steadily improve your life, work, or relationships—focusing on forward momentum instead of perfection.

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VACATION NOTE:  Cheryl and I are going to take a few days off to recharge our batteries before NYU resumes Fall classes in a few weeks.  This seems like a good time.  Thanks for reading and sharing DayStarters.  See you Monday August 24.