Anyone can exceed the expectations of others.  It makes you a better friend, person and colleague.

People who somehow do a bit more, a bit sooner than others have that special sauce that makes them look and feel successful.  If you’ve ever wondered why few people meet their deadlines with a slew of excuses and even fewer exceed them, I’m with you.  Under promise, over deliver.

It’s not just college professors who hear excuses – this year’s most popular in my view is food poisoning.  It seems eating off those trucks on Manhattan streets is not conducive to stomach health.

We’re always looking for a way to distinguish ourselves from others in a busy, over-connected world and the answer is right there in front – exceed expectations and win the day.

Or as Atomic Habits author James Clear puts it:  “The best way to stand out is to quietly do more than anyone expects.”

I thought you would be interested in a college classroom discussion I had recently asking students to estimate how much time they spend on screens – four hours was the consensus.

But, upon afterthought, they started revising it – upward.

Then I came across a Statista figure from 2023 –– the average daily time spent with digital media in the United States was approximately 7 hours and 5 minutes and this includes activities such as using smartphones, computers, and other digital devices for various purposes like browsing the internet, using apps, and streaming content.

That’s 7 hours a day not being present — a figure that surprises nearly everyone.

As a result some students decided to shave back their social media time, some deleted Instagram or TikTok but most did not do anything about their constant texting.

We are addicted to screens but to what extent is it up to us and that thought is empowering.

Or as Anne Lamott says “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes… including you.”

In the final class of our NYU semester some seniors were rightfully concerned about finding a job in this economy but they were worrying about worry – they could name all the anxieties that were plaguing them.

In our stress-free living class, we emphasize gratitude as a cure for a lot of the psychological things that ail us.  It’s a different way of looking at things.  Your worries may not be as bad as someone else’s.

At the start of the semester, I asked each person to anonymously write down their three biggest worries – when the cards are shuffled and redistributed to someone else, everyone wants their own worries back (I have never had a time when anyone wanted to do a trade).

This doesn’t mean we like our problems, but it indicates we like them better than someone else’s.  It’s a reality check with benefits.

Pass it along.

Last week while visiting Phoenix I met a delightful Mayo Clinic technician who was so cheerful I had to do this — I asked her why she was so bubbly.  Her response:  I was diagnosed with colon cancer at 36 with three children, a single mom.

The process of facing her treatment and the uncertainty around it turned out to be a freeing thing for her – she says she never worries about a recurrence — she lives each day as if it was going to be her last day.

One benefit that she shared is that she works hard to balance her job as a tech with her role as a mom and her other interests.

It took something bad to bring so much good – just randomly meeting her reminded me that you don’t have to wait for a dire diagnosis to free yourself to live the life you really want.

As broadcaster and journalist John Diamond observed during his battle with throat cancer:

“Cancer is a word, not a sentence. Surviving it doesn’t just let you live — it teaches you how.”

Pass it along.

It takes 6 to 12 weeks of intentional effort to change the way you think and do things – a surprisingly quick time to refresh your attitude.

For anxiety, results can be seen in 4 to 8 weeks and meaningful improvement in 3-6 months.

This is a process not a quick fix.

One way is to schedule worry time – a short, specific day and time each week when fears and worry are dealt with – every other day, every hour other than that time is free and clear of the anxiety producing issues.

We often worry about worry – anxiety that we think about and then worry about and then enhance with another problem all without feeling better.

Writing it down, making a note on your phone and stashing it away until your scheduled worry day and time can relieve the pressure.

Schedule your worry, don’t let it schedule you.

Pass it along.

Ed Sheeran often talks about rejection early in his career and the need for resilience.

He reminds artists that talent matters, but perseverance and self-belief are what carry you through the long, uncertain climb.

He quoted a Japanese proverb that says  “Persistence is key. Fall down seven times, stand up eight.”

Pass it along.

Everyone wants to be happy or even happier as if a book, a podcast, a psychologist can make it happen.  As of 2025, over 100,000 books have been written on the topic of happiness, according to database estimates from Amazon, WorldCat, and Google Books.

And there are thousands of courses on happiness in one form or the other.

A comedian can make us happy or at least laugh like we are happy but in spite of the popularity of pursing happiness, it’s like chasing a butterfly.

There is another approach that we use in the music business department at NYU where young people devote their lives to making other people happy (at least temporarily) by listening to music.

Concentrate on becoming more resilient – getting up again when you’ve been knocked down.

And cultivating a love for giving gratitude that helps others and empowers us.

“Even in the tough times, you have to find a reason to keep going. That’s where joy starts.” — Alicia Keys

Feel free to share.

One of the few humble multi-billionaires announced his retirement.  94-year old Warren Buffett is retiring at the end of the year.

Buffett is the Oracle of Omaha for lots of reasons.  He says successful people have one two-letter word in common.

No.

No is like yes for people who take on too much, have weak boundaries and who get lost in other people’s work.

Buffett goes further.  He says no to almost everything. 

If you liked this pass it on to others.

“I don’t look at my phone anymore. I spent all my time seeing everybody else’s life, and I forgot that my own was right in front of me.” — Billie Eilish said this after winning multiple Grammy’s.

Billie Eilish didn’t quit her phone — she quit using social media apps to live through everyone else’s life.

She realized endless doom-scrolling was stealing her focus, her energy, her presence — so she chose something better: living her own moments fully.

The goal isn’t to ditch your phone.

It’s to make your real life too good, too vivid, and too real to want to trade for anyone else’s.

Feel free to share.

Learned this weekend that the mother of Pittsburgh Steelers first-round NFL draft pick Derrick Harmon died Thursday night shortly after her son was selected by the team.

Tiffany Saine was on life support in the hospital after suffering a stroke in 2022.

Derrick used some of his NIL money (financial compensation athletes receive in college) to buy his mom a wheelchair accessible van and he said she took him to many practices then went on to work.

The story is touching but the motivating part is what Derrick learned from his mom:

“If I’m tired, I’m injured, whatever it is, why can’t I keep going if she can get up and she keep going after brain surgery.”

“Why can’t I keep going if she can get up and she keep going after brain surgery”.

Life is tough, some people are tougher and all of us can always find good in bad.

Please share if you’d like.

I’ll admit, I am a college music business professor and I’ve had a love affair with music all my life – we know the curative effects of music – now I have discovered this which I am going to share with my students this week before the semester wraps up (and you now).

Singing for 14 minutes a day could have the same positive effect on the heart rate variability (HRV) as light exercise according to a Medical College of Wisconsin study.

HRV, the variation in the time between heartbeats – is one of the key features of cardio health. A high HRV says our bodies are more resilient and adaptable to stress. 

Singing with friends may be even better and group singing promotes emotional health because of social connection. 

My friends Tom and Sharan Taylor love singing in groups.

Music may be the new penicillin.

Feel free to pass this one along.

Removing obstacles to confidence, oddly enough, starts with eliminating anger.  That’s not a common view but a powerful one.

“Forgiveness is a choice that you make to give up anger and resentment, even while acknowledging that misconduct happened.

Forgiveness is choosing a higher path. Forgiveness is for you, not for the forgiven.

Forgiveness is your gift to others, even those who are undeserving of your kindness” according to Dr. Amit Sood.

Confidence grows when you release anger through forgiveness, choosing peace and personal strength over resentment.

Feel free to share.

I’m teaching a class on performance anxiety and imposter syndrome this week and in preparation discovered that 80% of us – not just performers and entertainers – experience it in our lives.

Barbra Streisand famously said “The only way I could perform was to believe I had something important to say.  If I thought about the audience judging me, I’d freeze.  But if I focused on the message in the music — I could sing.”

Lizzo:  “I used to get nervous before every show, thinking I had to prove myself.  Now I remind myself: I’m not here to be perfect — I’m here to be present.”

World renown violinist Hilary Hahn said “Performance anxiety never fully goes away — but I’ve learned to welcome it. It means I care.  I don’t try to fight it anymore; I work with it, like a partner.”

I’ll save you the tuition of taking the course to hearing the answer to performance anxiety that is so rampant in our world today – and it’s so simple but true.

Keep going.

Feel free to share.

Getting down on yourself is a dangerous flirtation.

Bad feelings can emerge.  Loss of self-worth can start pretty quickly.  And depression can take you off course.

My NYU Stress Class students struggle with rejection, criticism and negative thoughts which is a form of self-sabotage that can be stopped in its tracks.  How?

Do good, not just focus on it.  Actually, make a difference in some outcome.  It doesn’t have to be life changing just small or even insignificant compared to earth shattering.

The size of good doesn’t matter because the feeling you get is the same – that you are capable of positivity.  It’s lots of little rehearsals for the big thing that may – no, will come along.

Do good, feel good – banish negative thoughts that are useless.

Feel free to share.

Perhaps you’ve heard about “The Four Agreements”?

Authors Don Miguel Ruiz and Janet Mills make the most sense of a haunting issue of our time – judging, made easier through instant communication and social media.

They ask you to imagine living your life without the fear of being judged by others.

What others say no longer influences you or patterns of your life.

You’re not accountable for someone’s opinion.

You’re done with controlling anyone and no one gets to control you.

That’s living your life without judging others.

True freedom comes from releasing the fear of judgment and the need to control others.  When we stop worrying about what people think and let go of judgments, we can live authentically, forgive easily, and experience inner peace.

I love this, from Miguel Ruiz:  “Don’t take anything personally. What others say about you is a reflection of their own reality, their own dream.”

Feel free to share.

… its default setting would be tuned to ‘threat channel.’

You have to consciously change the station to find peace.

That’s the wisdom of Global Center for Resilience and Wellbeing’s Dr. Amit Sood who reminds us in a way relatable to my entertainment industry readers and for that matter anyone in the audience for the need for intentional mental shifts.

To “change the station” is to interrupt those automatic threat-based patterns and intentionally focus your mind elsewhere:  Gratitude, connection, present-moment awareness and joy, beauty, or creativity.

This doesn’t happen passively. You have to decide to guide your attention toward peace — because the brain won’t land there by itself.

If we can turn the channel on a radio, choose from thousands of podcasts on our phone or build a playlist from millions of choices on Spotify, we can surely take charge of our attitude.

This topic of the hidden power within is so motivational because everyone has it even if they don’t know it.

“The greatest power you have is the power to choose. The moment you decide to change your thinking, you begin to change your life.”

Feel free to share.

In our NYU stress class we discover something so important that it can be life-changing.

That our brain is not programmed for happiness!  It’s been functioning in humans since the beginning of time for safety – to protect and warn us.

And, by the way, how social media pings us tends to trigger warnings not happiness is not nothing – it’s teasing the brain.

It’s almost a relief for some young people to discover this fact because it helps to reassure us that we are not doing something wrong if we wake up on a sunny day and don’t feel sunny.

So, the trick is to stop feeling bad about not feeling good.

There are workarounds – move on to something else, focus on someone different or simply just understand that your brain is doing its job and your job is to tap into the things in life that bring you happiness and pursue them.

Our brain’s #1 mission is survival—not mood optimization.

Your mind is a problem-solving machine.  But you are not a problem to be solved as psychologist Steven Hayes reminds us.

Such a powerful line — our brains scan for threats like we’re broken, when we’re just human.

I feel better already.

Feel free to share.

“Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward,” says philosopher  Søren Kierkegaard.

It means that we often make sense of our choices, struggles, and turning points — only in hindsight.  Looking back, we can see patterns, understand consequences, and gain clarity about who we are and how we’ve changed.

But we can’t live in reverse.  We’re always moving into an uncertain future, making decisions without knowing exactly how they’ll turn out.

Our challenge is learning to live with purpose and courage even when we don’t yet understand the meaning of our path.  In other words, life is an adventure.

Feel free to share

I learned something new again last week in my NYU Stress-Free Living and Working in the Music Industry class.

One student suggested in an open class discussion that there is now a new type of shaming that is worrying him – the shame of not having a good enough job and posting it on social media site LinkedIn.  Yes, LinkedIn which is designed to be the antidote to Facebook and Instagram and others that are more superficial.

The other 25 class members almost to a person, chimed in in agreement.  That not having a prestigious enough job (or cool enough) at varying stages of employment can be seen in a negative light – some want to resist it.

You can’t ignore shame even though it’s important to put in perspective that one person’s shame may actually start out as another person’s pride.

Social media has been killing the self-esteem of young people for long enough now for us to understand that it can be lethal.  Whether on social media or not, where we work is part of our narrative.   I’ve accomplished some broadcasting, business and educational goals but I also worked at Sears selling sporting goods as well as parks, recreation working with young people and being fired that led to a phenomenal job.

What matters is not the coolness of a career but where it ultimately fits in to your total journey.

Feel free to share.

Author Meg Jay puts it bluntly when she quotes how young people look at pride:

“My mom goes on and on to me and everybody else about how great I am and how proud she is of me, and I want to say: ‘For what? What exactly stands out about me?’”

And that’s it!  Why are you proud of me and why am I proud of myself?

No reason is not a good enough reason.

The whys and wherefores are just as important as the feelings which often times are well-meant.

So as the day goes on, why not pause and specifically identify why you might be feeling self-pride and should others compliment you, remember the glue that holds pride together is what it is attached to.

Feel free to share