That’s what the Journal of Health Psychology says we humans make every day.

• We’re so used to it that we don’t even realize that we are constantly living with this onslaught of decision-making.
• Add this to all the distractions we face and you can see why we are being overwhelmed and victims of overthinking.
• Since we’re not conscious of the majority of these split-second triggers, concentrating on the ones we are aware of can be a gamechanger.

For the big ones:  get the facts, weigh the facts then plunge forward.

It’s anxiety, social media, the violent times we’re living in are prompting teens to ask their parents to “Track Their Phones and Monitor Their Every Move” according to a recent poll highlighted in The Wall Street Journal.

• 11-to-26 year-olds report that they use family location-sharing apps to foster a sense of security.
• Apple has a popular tracking app with no shortage of other ways to monitor help.
• Some college students check in with a parent before and/or after class – gladly so.
• The app Life360 is a very popular way for young people to stay connected with parents.
• Helicoptering is understandable but it does not promote building resilience, the missing ingredient to the next generation.

Can’t blame parents for caring or young people for being concerned but resilience is what prepares a person for life in 2024.

In sports betting which is becoming increasingly popular, you can place a bet on almost anything in real time to gain a payoff – it’s addictive.

• In life, we can bet on ourselves to succeed at almost anything in real time but we usually harbor doubts that can get in the way.
• What if we placed a bet on ourselves when we are (for example) preparing a presentation while we’re doing it, or in the midst of a big decision to make or problem to solve?

If we can believe that we will win a bet in the middle of a live game, imagine what we could do when we place that bet on ourselves as we are working.

My longtime friend and brilliant management consultant John Parikhal reminds me that research done in the 1960s demonstrates that communication is 55% body language, 38% tone and only 7% words.

• The phone gives tone which is why it is more communicative. You also have to pay more attention when someone is speaking or you don’t know what they say.
• The tricky place is body language — in theory, Zoom should give us lots of that. But since most people sit still, and you only see them from the shoulders up, we rarely get good body language on Zoom so it isn’t such a great form of communication either.

It’s not just one thing – texts don’t do it, Zoom fails the test and even talking on the phone is only one aspect of effective communication.

According to Amit Sood, MD research shows that the spoken word sounds more polite than sending an email.

• Emails are brief and miss body language, eye contact, emphasis, inflection and pauses – details that often convey greater meaning than the words themselves.
• The mind often fills in missing information with negative assumptions.
• Emoticons help, but they only go so far.

If there is something that you really want, what are you willing to do to achieve it?

• Fail, get up, try again, fail, get up, try again – the math works like this, the more times you keep trying, the closer your dream comes to reality.
• Be bold, do something you have never done and do it with confidence – that’s the ticket to punch for transcending the norm.
• Postpone immediate gratification for achieving your actual goal.

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All of us are guilty of getting so caught up in our phones that we miss the good that happens.

• My young NYU students are impressed by the metric that indicates that out of 100 things that will happen to us only 4 could be considered bad.
• YET our minds treat every concern as bad and we pay an emotional price for thinking that way.
• We own our phones — they don’t own us – no one every died from missing a message.
• According to research by nurses, those who have entered hospice in advance of their death had regrets that they didn’t spend more time with the people who mattered most in their lives.

Students get to grade their teachers for better or worse – here’s a topic that pops up a lot on their report card about me:

• Thank you for not letting us use our phones during class – it helps us to focus (I get that a lot)
• Often young people are critical of their parents for using their phones all day long and wishing they would put their phones down and pay more attention to them – it’s not about duration, it’s all focus.
• It’s only been a little more than a decade since the smartphone and social media apps changed life as we know it – phase two is living a less distracted life with the many benefits of digital life.

Many of us try hard not to be judgmental of others, but we often bold ourselves to a different standard.

• The only thing you want to compare yourself to is yourself yesterday.
• Everything else is meaningless.
• Avoid the comparison trap because the goal is to feel good about yourself not how you stack up to someone else which is totally irrelevant.
• Admire the positive and admirable traits of others without feeling envy or low self-confidence in comparison.

Avoid inflating others by putting yourself down.

As a radio program director one of my favorite on-air promotions was “Christmas Wish” where listeners told the station what would make their holiday dreams come true and a few were picked at random on-air and offered prize packages.

• A military wife might have asked for a trip overseas to see her husband and when chosen by the station received a roundtrip ticket, pocket cash and a present to take along. You get the idea.
• But Christmas Wish can be done without any monetary consideration and without having to be the lucky winner chosen by a radio station.
• Think about the one thing that someone special in your life wants that is not driven by cash considerations alone and be the one to give that gift.

The best gifts can be the ones when you become Santa Claus by discovering the inner wishes and dreams of those that matter most.

Have a Happy Holiday – we will return to start the new year on a positive note.

The actress is no helicopter mom.  She wants her children to suffer a little “benign neglect”:

• Letting kids be bored and figure out what to do.
• Trying things without a parent hovering over them.
• Building resilience by letting them fail but giving them a helping hand to get up and try again.
• Being 100% present when focused on time together or absent for they can get involved in something else.
• Be ready to step in immediately on matters of bullying and safety.

Once again, you gain control by letting go in all types of relationships including a little “benign neglect”.

My NYU students were talking about iPad babies during a discussion on immersive technology and the music business.

• One said, “they (parents) just hand a 3-year old an iPad and expect them to go play”.
• Parents set important examples in many ways including negative ones where they choose to be on their digital devices instead of engaging with their children.
• One of the toughest addictions to break is relying on smartphones for fear of missing out on something – when young people try it (usually against their will), they often discover that they have the power to control their devices not the other way around.

In the digital age, phones are adult pacifiers just like iPads for toddlers – balance comes from taking control of digital usage not waiting until it feels right.

That’s what it is right now – down from 75 seconds in 2012 according to CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

• Commercials have decreased to match the fading attention span from what was once the common 60 second spot, to 30 seconds, then 15 and now it’ not unusual to see 6-second commercials.
• “There’s a fine line between attention and distraction” as almost everyone of all ages find themselves challenged to stay focused on what they are doing.
• The key is to be both engaged and challenged and know when your best time is to focus says Dr. Gupta.

Multitasking is what we all do but it makes matter worse – doing multiple things simultaneously causes more anxiety and less productivity so the answer is prioritize that which is important and try to stay engaged while you make doing the task more challenging.

Isolation can be as damaging as smoking 15 cigarettes a day and is a greater risk than being sedentary or obese according to the surgeon general.

• The pandemic lockdown didn’t make things better, it promoted more loneliness.
• BUT, there are ways to ease the loneliness – one is to rely less on the bubble we find ourselves in when on digital devices – engage more with those around us.
• And the number of people we know doesn’t necessarily mean an end to loneliness – we can have many friends and be lonely.
• It’s who you spend time with, how you engage them in the present and share a part of you.

“If you feel lonely, don’t be just with other lonely people … That’s not going to be productive.” – Ruth Westheimer, New York State Honorary Ambassador to Loneliness.

She’s got to be everyone’s favorite Dallas Cowboys cheerleader – with exception of Eagles fans, perhaps.

• She stole the show when she did the halftime entertainment dressed in a Cowboys cheerleader’s outfit – the only thought most people had was how cool she was.
• Former player and football analyst Tony Romo couldn’t stop talking about her.
• So how did she bridge the generation gap and carry it off?
• Dolly Parton carries so much goodwill, kindness and authenticity that there is little that she cannot do which underscores the importance to making a lifetime of good deeds to win the long-term goodwill of others.
• Here is her performance in case you missed it.

Inspiring work associates or family to greater heights works best when we see things through their point of view:

• The great Notre Dame football coach Ara Parseghian got the best out of his football players by showing them the future not the present.
• “A good coach will make his players see what they can be rather than what they are”.

The carrot at the end of the stick is not the status quo, it’s looking ahead to unlocking your potential.

Sports teams dine out a lot and when the check arrives everyone throws their credit cards into a hat and the waiter pulls out the “winner” who will pay for  everyone’s meal.

• Having fun is dessert – no one complains.
• I’ve been sharing that in one of my NYU classes, I award a FREE PASS certificate to the class member left standing for the final of 20 questions – yes, they each get a lifeline and the amazing part is that everyone has fun while the main tenets of the course are getting engrained in their minds with new ones added weekly.

Adding fun to life is something we can all do with the knowledge that almost everyone appreciates it.

It’s just as important to think of how you’re going to use the benefits of flexible working hours as it is to just have them.

• That connecting with family, friends and loved ones is based on not the number of hours spent in their company, but the quality of time focused on them without external distractions.
• That humans have a way of filling up “free time” with other tasks and responsibilities – be warned.
• And that replacing “saved time” such as commuting can be squandered on your phone and social media instead of living it in the present.

Steve Jobs in 1996 at a high school commencement:

“If you don’t have any of these feelings, called dreams, then you’re in trouble. Before you “spend” four or more years of your life going in a direction your heart may or may not want you to go, you need to recapture them”.

• Dreams are not just a luxury; they are the sparks that ignite our future lives.
• Take a moment to continue dreaming so that your future success will have meaning beyond only monetary rewards.

Here’s a way to lighten our load:

• As sure as you awaken each morning, you will be the recipient of a new problem or burden.
• Few people say “hey, I’ve got another problem to deal with, which one of the other problems I’m wrestling with can I let go of”.
• Instead, we keep allowing ourselves to pile them on as quickly as they come.
• Trading in an old problem that cannot be solved right now for a newer one is the ultimate act of letting go of anxiety.

All of us can handle a given number of problems, but none of us can be burdened with everything that comes along so introducing this act of choice makes a difference worth trying.