Four-time Grand Slam Tennis champion Naomi Osaka is taking a lot of heat personally and professionally because she is dealing with mental health problems.

She withdrew from the French Open in May and has been lying low ever since.

She was fired for not fulfilling her media commitments by Roland Garros, merchandise dealer.

Mental health is a serious issue today and everyone is entitled to privacy and empathy.

Personal symptoms are private – not to be shared without permission

Mental breaks should be welcomed not criticized or punished 

It doesn’t matter who believes you – what matters is that YOU believe YOU.

Today, postpone even thinking about anything new that worries you.

Tuck it away for 24 hours.

In fact, pick an exact time on Tuesday when you will deal with it.

Problems don’t solve themselves – at least it’s rare and every day all of us are hit with many opportunities to worry about something additional.

By postponing worry until a set time – say 24 hours later – it is step one in reducing anxiety because anxiety worsens as we add additional worries in our daily lives.

After that, we come to realize that we have some control over our anxiety.

We may never be able to change some things but we will always be able to change the way we look at them.

No is the magic word for bullies

No, I won’t do it

No, I’m not interested

No, I won’t hear of it

No, if you don’t stop, I’ll push back

And no, I’m not afraid

When faced with “no” bullies look elsewhere.

Anxiety is worry about worry.

Once we hit anxiety overload, we panic.

When we panic, we run.

Here’s how I faced down anxiety that bordered on panic.

I have a violent reaction to MSG.

I unknowingly ingested it in salad dressing on a flight to a radio convention.

Within minutes my face was red, my heart was palpitating out of control and I was very aware that I was stuck in a tube called an airplane with no ability to get any help.

I knew many people on that flight from Philly to Las Vegas making my anxiety worse.

Do you know what worked for me?

I repeated to myself “I can handle this” over and over.

Almost immediately although the symptoms were still going strong, I felt less anxious and then the symptoms eventually let up.

Reminding yourself that you can handle anxiety is when the help arrives.

In pre-historic days surviving was the main goal.

Over time a negativity bias creeped into humans where we focus on negatives in order to go after the positives.

Our brains wander.

We forget about the good things in life.

That leaves us walking around with what Mayo Clinic Dr. Amit Sood calls “a fatigued brain”.

Rest the brain – multitasking exists but it is not good for us emotionally.

Stress is not related to any weakness in the body, it’s due to how the brain works. 

Out of the 100 events that are affecting us every day, 4 are bad and 96 are good – focus on the good.

It’s normal to have butterflies in the stomach when facing challenges like public speaking or taking the lead on a project.

Get butterflies to fly in formation.

You are in control of them not the other way around 

Butterflies are a good thing – they remind you that you care and that you are committed to doing a good job

It’s a waste of time to try to relive the past.

Invest the emotional power that is being wasted on yesterday on that which can make you happier today

The past is a file, the future is a blueprint – the only thing that matters is the present

The happiest person I know has the ability to put the past in a mental file with few regrets.  She looks at the present with eager anticipation.

She is 96 years young.

Letting go is how you gain control over life’s ups and downs

Don’t try to win anyone to your way of thinking – it doesn’t work.

Look for areas of disagreement and actually go there

Show them your heart – facts rarely win people over until the heart is touched

The prize goes to the best listener – not the best or fastest talker

When people feel they are being heard, you’ve done more than anything you can say.

Black musician Daryl Davis hangs out with Ku Klux Klan members and neo-Nazi’s – they’ve given him their robes and hoods and Davis has persuaded many of them to give up the Klan as documented in a recent Nicholas Kristof article here.

The more you make people like you the more you won’t like yourself.

Some are gifted at being ingratiating.

Some avoid disagreements and confrontations.

Some use power or money to gain approval of others.

When you worry more about liking who you truly are, the more people are attracted to you.

It takes about 23 minutes to return to an original task once work is interrupted by a digital distraction.

We let others know we’re working every time we send an email or message, take care to send it when both parties are likely to be available 

Use social media to let people know when you are taking time off and when you’ll be back on the grid 

Working from home may require setting an alarm to go off at the end of your work day so that you can leave the work behind physically and mentally (from Irresistible:  The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked by NYU marketing professor Adam Alter)

Take a day off from being connected 

No one who ever took a day of rest regretted it – do it more often.

Michael Jordan thought of himself as a failure in many ways.

Missed over 9,000 shots.

Blown over 20 “game winning” shots.

Everyone obsesses about the negatives even when there are so many positives.

Take personal credit for something well done to balance thinking about shortcomings

Use what you consider “failures” to think about what to do next time

Then let go of mistakes and focus on doing your best

Ever notice when someone whispers, we lean in to hear them?

Volume has little to do with being heard.

Listeners remember only approximately 30% of what they hear on the radio and 50% of what they see and hear on TV – at best – even when THEY control the volume.

There is a better way to be heard.

Speak from conviction.

Show empathy toward others in your comments

Something interesting needs no amplification

Use examples that include action verbs and colorful words.

Passion comes from the heart not from the lungs – nobody can resist a whisper.

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They say a great hockey goaltender is the athlete who can forget about being scored upon immediately after it happens.

But that’s not how most of us recover from a series of setbacks that can ruin a day – we often let disturbing things marinate in our heads.

Cultivate a short memory for things that irritate

Focus on someone else – helping, talking or even just listening

We “restart” many times a day on our digital devices, don’t we deserve at least one restart when we’re having a challenging day.

If all else fails, write your top 3 irritating problems out and if that doesn’t do it remember that when people are asked to trade their problems for someone else’s they always prefer their own. 

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Most people are not motivated to give us what we want which is why so much time and effort is spent on convincing others.

The sure way to get what you want is to give the other person something that they want, too.

They’ll tell you if you ask.

They’ll likely do it if you can say it back to them. 

Getting what you want is a trade-off not a demand.

Question:  what would you give to get what you want? 

Prevailing without giving something important to the other person is an exercise in futility – waste of time, money and damaging to relationships. 

What are you willing to do to get what you want without being insincere and manipulative – that is the essence of getting to yes.

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We pick up a lot of negativity from other people’s actions and words.

And when something goes wrong we often blame ourselves.

The trick is to fix it before the damage is done.

Assume you have what it takes 

Bet on you — you can’t begin to ask others to believe in you if you don’t believe in yourself 

No one is 100% sure of anything – it’s faith that gets you closer

For every doubt, add two positive thoughts 

For every doubter in your life, add a believer

Doubt is self-sabotage  – why do that to yourself? 

Avoid helping doubters in your life make one out of you

Don’t look to others, look within you to overcome doubt 

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The thing no one ever talks about is that we acquire worries and rarely let them go.

Once we accept them, we add them to a collection of previous fears that have not been resolved.

My mother was like that.

I can never remember her letting go of a worry to replace it with a new one – she kept them all.

And today we have a mental health crisis especially among young people under 25 who are connected constantly.

The human brain was designed to be on edge for survival of our cave dwelling predecessors fearing their safety not 24/7 social connection.

Constant stimulation overload takes its toll slowly because fears keep piling on top of each other.

41% of adults say they have more anxiety today than they did in the early days of the pandemic.

Half say they will never fully recover from it even after it’s over.

Fear is useless – trust yourself to discard things that make you anxious.

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The more we focus on ourselves and our needs, the more stressed we become — isn’t that interesting?

The reason anxiety and depression are exponentially growing is that we’re faced with more problems, trying hard to deal with them and not being able to limit the number of concerns we have at any given time.

It is why Dale Carnegie warned us to talk in terms of the other person’s interests, ask questions rather than make statements and learn to become a good listener.

Even though he taught public speaking, happiness was a focus of not talking about yourself.

Have you seen In Treatment on HBO?

Compelling half hour shows about people who are essentially in a therapy session – it’s a hit perhaps because we love to talk about our problems.

You’ll never hear anyone thinking of others, focus on the needs of someone other than themselves or become skilled at using their ears more than their mouth.

Step one is get the focus off you and direct it to others to start feeling less overwhelmed.

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Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman wants you to check these three things off before you listen to your gut feeling:

1. Is this an area where patterns actually exist to make a judgment?
2. Do you have long experience of the subject?
3. Have you tested your understanding of it against reality previously?

That’s 3 yeses to reassure yourself that your gut feeling is more than a reckless impulse. 

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Living someone else’s dream is like driving another person’s car.

It gets you to your destination, but you don’t own it.

I always wanted to be a dj and I didn’t want to go to college.  My father insisted saying “you’ll be the smartest dj”.  I listened and got my college education but never gave up my dream.

Be the person you want to be.

Take control of your own dreams.

Make them bold and adventurous.

And there’s no time limit – you can even start today.

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Pick a number, say 20.

The first 20 people you meet today, smile at them.

No need to engage in conversation, a smile will work just fine.

Most people will smile back, a few won’t – some won’t make eye contact because they are distracted.

By the time you’ve counted 20 people in a row you can smile at, you’ve programmed your happy mood for the day.

If you still have doubt, what happens when you carry your burdens in facial expression – most people know to avoid you and you’ve pretty much set the wrong tone for your day.

The brain likes to be programmed and 20 smiles can do it.

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