The man who conducted over 50,000 interviews on radio, television and online had no formal education, was not even a high school graduate and was a voracious reader who was famous for not reading books written by guests before he talked with them.

King’s real genius was not talking perhaps the oddest quality for someone in the entertainment industry.

• He said “I never learned anything while I was talking”.
• Was a premiere conversationalist who let the other person have their say.
• If you were ever interviewed by Larry, you found him laser focused looking into your eyes while the distractions of doing a talk show occurred around him.

Larry King’s “unspoken” wisdom was that the art of good conversation is centered around the ears not the mouth – a potent lesson in the age of Twitter, texting and user generated content.

They work in a high stress profession with the lives of thousands of passengers in their hands so they can only effectively focus for short periods.

They work for two hours and then rest for 45 minutes.

The brain tires after two hours, minds wander, we become more forgetful, our error rate goes up.

Many Millennials are already burned out having graduated during a recession and now facing a pandemic, but in spite of your profession or age, a rest after every two hours can make you a dynamo.

Isn’t it remarkable that succeeding often doesn’t come down to how good your plan is but how quickly you get started and how long you persist?

Failure Method:  Need to do more research.  Have to check with a friend.  Haven’t had the time to think things through.

Success Formula:  Here’s what I want to do, let me start now.  I’ll divide things up into small projects.  I’ll stay with it even if nothing happens.

The benefit of failing is it tells you how badly you want something and what price you are willing to pay in persistence to get it.

I can’t

I won’t

If only

Problem (they cause stress)

Someday

Don’t

I hate

Impossible

Fear of failing is understandable – it doesn’t feel good.

Except that the only way to succeed is to learn from failures.

No one wins all the time – some do better than others but not by that much.

• If you’re not failing, you’re not succeeding – you’re playing it safe to protect your feelings.
• Times at bat matter – the more swings you take, the more chances you get to connect.
• Everyone has a number – the number of times it takes to succeed.

Replace the fear of failing with the fear of not trying hard enough because the more lessons learned, the more success is earned.

Thank God 2020 is over and yet the good news is we made it and no matter what we were resilient.

Now off to conquering our iPhones and Androids – taking charge, showing them who the boss is and Axios writer Scott Rosenberg has the plan:

• On an iPhone, go to “Settings” then “Notifications.” (On Android, it’s usually “Settings,” then “Apps & Notifications.”)
• See the long list of apps? Turn every single one of them to “Notifications off.”
• Then, and only then, go through the list a second time and ask yourself, “Do I really need this notification?”
• If you do, turn it back on.

Phones have become so much of life and a pandemic that is conductive to staring at screens more often didn’t make it much better.

Our new digital goal:  Make the phone a tool that you control and not a way of life in which we lose control.

My NYU music business students spend part of their classes with me developing skills on managing fear, worry and anxiety and human relations.

They are already on their way to being successful in the music business, but will they be happy?  That’s a question for all of us to think about.

• Just as winning the lottery has proven again and again it does not live up to the fantasy, earning more money at work doesn’t always bring happiness.
• Isn’t it interesting? We go to college to learn skills that will make us richer but often don’t learn how to handle adversity or to deal with difficult people.

It is just as important to make a life as it is to make a living.

Alan Lakein, the author of personal time management book How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life  

He’s big on planning (“Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.Failing to plan is planning to fail.”)

He lists 61 ways he saves time – here’s a sampling:

• #7 — I remind myself:“There is always enough time for the important things”.  If it’s important I will make the time to do it.
• #16 – I’ve given up forever all “wait time”.If I have to wait, I consider it a “gift of time” to relax, plan or do something I would not otherwise have done.
• #27 – I do first things first.
• #31 – I ask myself, “Would anything terrible happen if I didn’t do this priority item”.If the answer is no, I don’t do it.
• #61 – I’m continually asking myself:“What is the best use of my time right now?”

I love Lakein’s famous quote:

Time = Life, Therefore, waste your time and waste of your life, or master your time and master your life.

Often the things that cause stress just linger and we wind up adding them to our lives.

So, we try everything from meditation to exercise, therapy to medication yet there is one way to make a dent in stress with half the effort and side effects.

People usually can’t recite the major sources of fear and worry in their lives.

They just pile stressors one on top of the other and admit to being stressed out.

• Focusing on a handful of top anxieties actually can make the quickest difference.
• Work getting to you? Work smarter and get more rest.
• Other people’s problems getting YOU down? Put a stop/loss on adding their stress to yours?
• Worried about the future? Stay busy as most of what we worry about never happens.

It’s funny – we know the things we like and try to work them into our routine as much as possible.

Identifying the specific things that are making us miserable allows us to do as few of them as possible.

The word friend has become corrupt in a world of social media likes and follows.

• Does anyone actually have 50 friends, or 100 or thousands? Or are they followers, interlopers, outliers?
• Imagine if you could see your friends in a lineup like the police use to identify suspects. Who would you choose out of that lineup?

Separating friends who you would readily identify keeps things real.

Knowing who deserves your time, interest and love is a big step toward valuing something that has become devalued in the digital age.

Bolstering friendships doesn’t take a police lineup, but it does involve making a choice.

“Better” and “important”.

Politicians, advertisers and just about everyone substitutes the word “change” even when people who want it find that they really don’t like change.

• But everyone loves “better” so not promising change but emphasizing “better” is a universal attention getter. After all, “change” is scary even if we want and need it.  But “better” accomplishes the same thing without the fear.
• Same for “in-depth”. It suggests substance and knowledge but few will stick around long enough to let the in-depth information sink in.  Few read in-depth articles or join discussions that require such an investment in time.
• Better to say “important” because everyone listens when “important” is followed by something that is actually “important”.

Length is not what makes something “important”, it’s the actual value.

Words matter because people respond to some and are repelled by others even if what they reject is the promise of something good.

Here’s a sample of how anxiety from within and from others can pile on top of each other and a way to put it in its place:

• A sickness adds concern for a loved one, bills pile up, a pandemic changes everything, health concerns on top of that, working at home, worries about not being good enough…
• Instead of accumulating things that make you anxious, give one away every time to accept a new one – don’t add more. Managing what’s left by staying busy and being grateful.

Just being aware of how anxiety creeps into our life, can prevent it from multiplying.

Don’t postpone joy until after normal returns.

• You’ll get out of practice
• Joy can be found even during tough times.

Every day is a new opportunity to practice being joyful.

Sports figures, authors and actors aren’t the only ones who can take advantage of their currency to negotiate a new deal or a new beginning.

• As the new year begins, take a long hard look at whether you are happy in your career before continuing on without a plan to change it.
• As in sports, ask “do I want to play another year in this career?” even if you are the business owner.
• Look for alternatives and spend some time to examine and pursue them.
• If what you’re doing now is your best path, continue on – consider it a one-year renewal, a contract with yourself. If not, take steps to find something different.

Always ask, what’s my value:  You are worth considering all options before continuing on to stay the course or seek the road not taken.

It’s useless to bet against someone because there is no upside.

It’s often done out of jealousy.

• When I was studying radio and television in college, I thought no one without a big voice could make it in media. I was wrong. At that moment in time big voices were in but later unique voices were also in demand.
• We wouldn’t place a bet on losing — or wait, it’s done in the stock market all the time. But with people you lose the moment you downplay another person’s chances.

The alternative:  believe in everyone’s ability to succeed and at the least you get satisfaction and at the best you make a connection that might be useful for the future.

• Why do we vividly remember every insult that is directed our way?
• Why do we then go on and believe them?
• And why do we keep repeating such nonsense?

On the other hand …

• Why not recognize positive input about us publicly?
• And use it to confirm the good things we already know are part of us.
• And why not repeat on an endless loop all the good and dismiss all the bad?

There is no law that requires us to participate in dragging ourselves down. 

The one gift you don’t want to forget this year is to love the person you are and stop helping the jealous and arrogant from getting into your head.

Life too often becomes a test instead of a progress report.

A test is a proficiency exam.

But making progress is more important and a better way to judge.

Fumbling with the latest anxiety is an inaccurate way to assess our ability to deal with it.

Any advancement or development toward dealing with anxiety inspires real time growth in handling the challenge.

You can fail every test in life if making progress is the way you grade personal growth.

“Along with the sunshine, there’s gotta be a little rain sometime”
Joe South, Rose Garden lyrics © Sony/atv Songs Llc, Bike Music

Every day, think of a way to remind yourself that there is hope of a better day ahead.

So the quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles is a $100 million backup now after being benched for a lousy season.

It took more than his play to get him a seat on the bench but obviously the quarterback controversy is not going to increase Carson Wentz’ confidence.

His replacement, Jalen Hurts is a rookie who is seizing his chance to build his confidence.

Ironically, both will succeed.

Wentz will either earn his job back or regain his confidence on another team.

What’s important is that confidence never remains strong – it wanes and rises, sometimes slowly, sometimes suddenly.

To think of confidence as permanent is to expect too much from ourselves.

When confidence needs a boost, work toward that.  When it is on autopilot, enjoy the ride.

To judge your self-worth by confidence that by nature ebbs and flows is personal abuse that can be curtailed by looking for another opportunity.

Go back five years and try to remember where you were, what you were doing, who you were with at the time, recall the good and the bad.

Then fast forward to today – who is in your life (are they the same people as five years ago?), did your fears come true all these years later (probably not but if they did, you likely feared the wrong things).

What is surprising about life today that you could not see then – In my life a move from west back east, a new university at which to teach, a health scare from a loved one – you get the idea – all unseen previously.

What bothers us most is fear thoughts – things that will never come true.  To dwell on them is a waste of time and life.

Instead, concentrate on resilience – the ability to recover from difficulties that we can never predict and therefore should not waste time worrying about them.

Become expert at springing back from life’s curve balls not worrying about what will likely never happen.