“We’ve kind of confused what it means to be a man, what it means to be masculine.  You’ve got this trope out there that you’ve got to be tough and angry and lash out to be strong. It’s just the opposite … Strength is how you show your love for people. Strength is how you are for people and how you have their back. And how you stick up for other people and [push back] against bullies.”  — Doug Emhoff

Catherine Price wrote a book about this – a 30-day plan to take your life back by breaking up with your phone.

One of the quick hits worth considering is to put a rubber band around your phone so that every time you pick it up you are reminded to ask yourself if there is a better use for your time at that moment – that’s what she does.

The mission is not to stop using phones or social media that has become an addictive dark hole but to not automatically turn the phone into a compulsive action that robs you of living focused on what is around you.

Leadership has to do with helping others succeed for themselves and for the team while you work in the background.

Leadership is a stealth operation that’s why people who look like leaders and sound like leaders are still primarily pushing themselves out front.

An effective leader today is a coach not a superstar player.

In radio, productive salespeople do not make the best managers when their work is “rewarded” by a promotion to boss.

Wayne Gretzky was truly hockey’s “Great One” but he failed as a coach – in other words he could play the game but not help others up their game.

Coaches have special skills – they are not always the ones who manage from a position of great accomplishment – more so, from a recognition of what it takes for others to be a winner.

Jimmy Kimmel takes the summer off and when he came back in the fall he was offered another three-year contract extension.

What’s this?  Work less, make more?  Not a new concept.

Johnny Carson cut back to working four days at peak popularity, then three and anyone performing at a high level in any profession either takes time off or faces burnout – even college professors take a sabbatical.

Working long and hard is a common element of success but working less so that you can continue to do more helps rewrite the expression to say “even less is more”.

No one thing changes any little thing.

But many little things can bring about one big change.

Incorporating micropractices into daily routines helps rehearse for success – for example, spending less time looking at screens starts with a little less time and endless multitasking eases when we prioritize a few things.

It’s kind of like a to-do list in a way.

The larger tasks sits there while the smaller and usually less significant ones get done because it takes less time or it’s easier.

But the revelation is chopping up big tasks into smaller parts gets the best results.

So it is with micropractices to change habits – nibble away, don’t try to gobble it all up at once.

Multitasking overstimulates the brain and stresses you out and stress feeds more anxiety.

It is a factor in higher levels of depression and anxiety among social media users.

Things are proven to not get done faster by multitasking – the brain is not wired to do any two cognitively demanding things at the same time in spite of how we may feel when we check more things off our task list.

There is an exception to the multitasking rule:  Choose any other thing that doesn’t stimulate the language part of the brain and it works simultaneously, no problem – listen to music, do the laundry.

I ran this past my NYU stress class recently and a few students said they liked how they felt when they multitasked until they considered the science – one thing at a time and then onto the next is the most efficient and mentally healthy way to handle a busy life.

The NFL awarded the New England Patriots multiple compensatory draft picks late in the 2000 draft due to the free agency defections.

One of those was pick No. 199 overall in the sixth round.

The six quarterbacks drafted before (combined) started only 191 games and threw 258 touchdowns.

The Patriots’ pick won 286 games in his career, including seven Super Bowls, and threw 737 touchdowns in the regular season and playoffs combined.

Tom Brady went from last to first.

I like to think about things like this because being underestimated has its advantages – we should use them.

A great deal of our stress comes from others – they feel it, express it and we soak it up like a sponge and carry it around until for our own sanity we have to squeeze it out.

In other words, if you could not absorb the stress that others feel (those close to us, related to us or in our path), we would reduce life’s stressor and have a better chance to deal with our own.

By prioritizing a reasonable number of things that make us anxious and deciding which ones to handle first.

And there are tools – scheduling all worries for one specific hour, one day a week keeping the rest of your life relatively stress-free.

Remembering that 99% of what we worry about never happens and the 1% that does usually doesn’t happen the way we fear.

But the big deal is resisting the stress in our lives generated by others.

“If you’re inclined to report that time is dragging, my life is vanishing, maybe the thing to do is simply try to inject more distinctive or unique experiences into it…then there’s more in your story to tell and it’s not slipping through your fingers.”  — Dr. Ian Phillips of Johns Hopkins

A new Ohio State study confirms acts of kindness toward others has a positive effect on anxiety and depression.

It gets our minds off negative thoughts and keeps us connected with other people.

Doing kind deeds and fixating on the needs of others turns out to be an effective non-medicinal approach compared to focusing on our problems or unhappiness.

An act of kindness is defined as “big or small acts that benefit others or make others happy, typically at some cost to you in terms of time or resources.”

Never, unless you are the head of a company asking others to do so.

Apple CEO Tim Cook who without a doubt makes a ton of money, just asked to have his salary slashed by $35 million – that’s not nothing.

Did I mentioned he asked for the pay cut?

In radio, for example not one CEO has asked for a pay cut even though they routinely conduct layoffs and firings in essence losing the goodwill of the remaining employees.

One CEO, Emmis Communications’ Jeff Smulyan did during extremely hard times and his employees love him for it.

The leader makes the most money so the ones who are willing to make the biggest sacrifice wins the enthusiastic cooperation of those working below them.

I’m sorry.

Not “sorry IF I offended you”

Plus the specific reason why.

And what I will do to make it right.

Recently a CEO of a startup told 35,544 customers he was sorry for badly packaged, late delivery of squeezable bottles of olive oil.

He was thanked for his honesty, some even declined to take advantage of his make-up discount saying they’d buy again at the full price as a result of the apology.

Humans make mistakes, what’s wrong with a heartfelt apology?

But apologizing for the same thing over and over usually backfires even if the apology is perfect.

Scientific studies of the brain show that improving psychological resilience just 5% can lower risk of mental health issues by 15%.

That means even addressing mental health strengthening delivers triple the benefits.

Adults and especially young people are suffering from anxiety, stress and depression at a high rate – in fact, it has become an epidemic.

To get there focus on small victories that offer immediate reward and gratification.

“Positive reframing” – what we do when we remind people to be grateful and look on the bright side may actually be making things worse.

Inspired by a recent article by David Brooks, it’s better to “hear, respect and love the person” – to show you haven’t given up on them or walked away.

That is powerful stuff not only for those suffering from discouragement or even depression but for those of us looking for the right words to a help support a friend.

Those are the words of the losing Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts who led his team to an unlikely storybook season that collapsed in the final half of the Super Bowl when they lost to the Kansas City Chiefs.

“You either win or you learn,” Hurts said. “That’s how I feel. You either win or you learn. Win, lose, I always reflect on the things I could have done better, anything you could have done better to try and take that next step. That’ll be the same process I always have going on.”

The next sweetest victory is the one that comes from how you handle defeat today.

Today, assume everyone you work with will go on to be equally or more successful than you.

Assume you will work for them some day.

This is the formula of mutual respect that brings the best out of people, eliminates needless judging and avoids the urge to dismiss others who have yet to gain prominence.

Think the best about people because it is in your best interest.

“When you’re living for the approval of strangers, and that is where you derive all of your joy and fulfillment, one bad thing can cause everything to crumble…when people decided I was wicked and evil and conniving and not a good person, that was the one I couldn’t bounce back from because my whole life was centered around it” – Taylor Swift

Your life is not an election.

No need to campaign for consensus.

Lead and let others follow.

One billion dollars was the estimated total of betting in states that allow it for this year’s Super Bowl.

State and local lotteries attract almost $30 billion on the chance each year.

The odds of winning the Mega Millions lottery are slightly worse than Powerball at 1 in 302.6 million.

This is not about betting – it’s about how quickly most folks are to defy the odds for a chance to be a winner.

Yet on a personal level, many have a hard time betting on their own chances to succeed in various areas of their lives.

My longtime friend John Parikhal inspired this morning’s thought that I’d like to share.

The great football coach Vince Lombardi went against the grain of coaching of his time.

Most coaches showed players the things they had done wrong in game films – and even today most still do.

Vince Lombardi only showed them what they had done right.

He knew that they would focus on replicating the right moves rather than trying to avoid the wrong ones.

The more we emphasize what’s wrong, the harder it is to get to what’s right.

For decades it was widely thought that it took at least 30 days to create a new habit.

There’s more recent research from a 2009 study that indicates it can take anywhere from 18 to 254 days which is either less time than previously thought or almost the better part of a year.

Here’s a better metric.

If you don’t start now, the time to effect a change will be infinite because change is not possible until a commitment is made to look at things differently, come up with a workable plan and persevere until a new habit is achieved.

In other words, it’s not how long it takes but how much longing you have to change things.