Life will test you — with setbacks, unexpected detours, and moments that feel like dead ends. But roadblocks aren’t the end of your journey only a pause, a chance to regroup and come back stronger.

When adversity hits feel the frustration, then shift your focus to what you can control. Every setback carries a lesson — find it, own it, and use it.

Break big challenges into small steps, celebrate progress, and keep moving forward.

Resilience isn’t about avoiding obstacles — it’s about rising every time you fall. Trust that every roadblock is shaping you for something greater.

“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.” — Maya Angelou

I needed that reminder, if you know someone who does, pass it along.

Unexpected disappointments hit hard because they catch us off guard.

But disappointment is proof we care — And that’s not a weakness.

It’s a sign that we’re engaged, invested, and striving for something better.

Your story doesn’t end with one setback. Disappointment isn’t defeat—it’s just a detour. Keep going.

Feel free to pass this along to someone who might like this reassurance.

Dr. Amit Sood, a physician and neuroscientist, often talks about how the brain is wired for survival, not happiness. My NYU college students always seem very relieved to hear this.

Our brain’s default mode is to scan for threats, anticipate problems, and dwell on the negative because, from an evolutionary perspective, this kept us alive.

Happiness, on the other hand, is not automatic.

It requires intentional effort to train our brains to focus on joy, gratitude, and meaning rather than just threats and worries.

It’s not us!  We’re not born this way — we’re born THAT way. Our default isn’t unhappiness.  But we can train the brain for it.

Go ahead and pass it along if you wish.

A great way to get out of bed feeling motivated in the digital age is to reframe your mindset from “I have to get up” to “I get to get up.”

Maybe focusing on one thing that you are legitimately looking forward to doing this day or how to take a small step toward your goal.

These are tough times and we’re more connected than ever so it’s easy to think that getting out of bed to start the day could seem like a drag.

“I get to get up” is how most of us feel anyway so the trick is to start with that thought and change the way we look at our day.

These are “day starters” so starting the day is a big deal, pass it along if you’d like.

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the constant pressure to succeed, stay ahead, and keep up with the noise around us.

Anxiety often feels like an invisible weight, pressing down on us as we try to juggle everything life throws our way. But remember this: you don’t have to have it all figured out right now.

Life is a journey, not a race. Embrace the moments of stillness, no matter how small, and allow yourself the space to breathe, reflect, and recalibrate. Every step forward, no matter how slow, is progress.

You have the power to quiet the noise and reclaim your peace. By focusing on what’s within your control—your thoughts, your actions, your response to life—you can break free from the cycle of anxiety.

I hope you liked this – if you did, pass it on, no problem.

Every day is an opportunity to take another step toward the life you want. It’s never too late to build new skills, embrace change, and pursue what truly matters to you.

Big projects, large goals – these are not necessary to advance your life.  Smaller goals feel just as good and train the brain to create positive thinking.

Your next chapter can start today!

Share with someone, they will appreciate it.

Katharine Whitehorn said it best – “the best careers advice to give to the young is ‘Find out what you like doing best and get someone to pay you for doing it’”.

In the meantime, author Meg Jay who writes about The Defining Decade (your 20’s) says your first job isn’t just about earning a paycheck—it’s a chance to develop skills, build professional relationships, and create a reputation that can carry you forward.

It almost seems once you start working, it’s easy to get caught up to keep working, pay the bills, support the family so if you missed the chance to do that one thing you really wanted to do before you got into life’s treadmill, think about a way to fit it in now.

Maybe someone you know might appreciate this message so feel free to pass it along.

The comedian George Carlin said, “I put a dollar in one of those change machines.  Nothing changed”.

•  As Viktor Frankl put it: “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves”.
• Don’t solve problems immediately, just try to deal with them.
• Use your personal gifts to battle adversity every day.
• Be grateful for that which you have.
• Some problems can be handled right away.  Others take longer – sometimes considerably  And some can never be resolved requiring us to accept them and move on.
• Line up the adversity that befalls you and deal with it sustained by the knowledge that what makes it tolerable is to focus on gratitude.

If you liked this pass it on to others.

One of artificial intelligence’s goals is to replace people with machines.

Covid put a damper on young people socializing and now we get this:

Teens spend a quarter of their days in school on their smartphones based on

A Seattle Children’s Research Institute study.  They spent an average of an hour and a half  on their phones during an approximate 6-hour school day.  And what were they doing instead of learning:   messaging, Instagram, video streaming, audio, and email.

But my experience with college students is that they love to do things in person.  In our classes, we devote time at the start of class to getting to know others they may not have met.  It gets loud and happy and one graduate reminded me that he met his “best friend in college” in class.

Phones are good for some things.  Face-to-face engagement still rules.

If you liked this pass it on to others.

Author Amit Sood puts it like this:  “Do not postpone joy waiting for a day when life will be perfect and all your stressors will be gone”.

Our minds tend to push away joy and keep you logged off from life.

“I have never had a day when my boat was fully secure in the harbor, the water was a deep blue, the winds were quiet, and the sun was bright and shining in the sky.  Waiting for such a day would be a very long wait.  So, I need to admit the reality and find fulfillment in the present moment accepting all its imperfections”.

If you liked this pass it on to others.

British teacher James Nottingham’s concept of “The Learning Pit” was born after he observed that students like to play it safe in class raising their hands only when they are sure of the answers.

Journalist Jenny Anderson noted that “In Japan teachers spent 44% of their time giving students material they don’t know and challenging them to figure it out.”  U.S. teachers tried this approach 1% of the time.  Struggling to solve a problem was actually good. This does not mean that offering help is not good or intervening when panic sets in is not appropriate.

The same appears to be true for adults.  The more we struggle, the more we learn.  Sometimes failing has its advantages and helps us succeed later.  I wrote a book about this topic that we use in my college stress classes – Out of Bad Comes Good – the Advantages of Disadvantages – how people as diverse as Steve Jobs to Mother Teresa turned failure into success.

Fear of failure is the enemy of resilience.

If you liked this pass it on to others.

The author Melody Beattie says:

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.  It turns what we have into enough and more.  It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity … it turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing and mistakes into important events.  Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.”

If you liked this pass it on to others.

Useful friends with whom we have transactional relations.

Amusing friends with whom we share pleasure and games.

Those rare friends that Roman statesman Cicero calls “another self” with whom we share soul secrets and deepest feelings.

The most important aspect of friendship is trust. Without trust, a friendship lacks the foundation needed for emotional support, honesty, and reliability. A true friend is someone you can count on, confide in, and be yourself without fear of judgment. Hold them close. Feel free to share

Why is it that people are so optimistic about winning the lottery yet pessimistic about other things in life — and they’re willing to bet money to have all that optimism by buying tickets to dreams that are likely never going to pay off on the scale they hope.  On the other hand, you always win when you bet on yourself.  Feel free to share

In a world of makeovers, start overs and resets the one thing that does not need changing is you.  Maybe an awakening or discovering a quality you didn’t know you had.  We are always so focused on improving but it is useless to devote so much emotional energy to improving until we can like what we already are.  Feel free to share

Just setting 10-15 minutes a day to engage others in interaction can be life changing for all involved according to a group of new studies.

Becoming more focused does not require hours, but it does mean putting phones and digital devices away – it’s quality over quantity.

When a dad or mom puts the world on hold and directs it to their child it builds a sense of value greater than almost anything we can do.

Putting aside time for chats can promote a feeling of safety and it can also lessen depression in adolescents (as published in The Journal of Abnormal Psychology).

This focused one-on-one time works for adults, too – conveying positive feelings that the line of communication is more important than life’s distractions.

If you know someone who would like this, please share.

For years I have been driving 200 miles round trip to New York City to teach my NYU music business classes which I love.

I use CarPlay to access Waze to check traffic, estimate time of arrival and tell me where the Jersey state troopers are looking for speeders.

Somehow the drive has been more nerve wracking than it needed to be and I’m going to share what it is – the tone of voice of my Waze sidekick navigating my trip was not very relaxing for two hours each way.

So, from a long list of options I changed Waze’s robotic voice to a laid back, over-chilled Australian “voice” named Matilda and to my surprise just hearing a calm voice in heavy traffic made all the difference.

When she said “accident up ahead”, it was so soothing, not alarming.

Got me to thinking how important it is for us to sound reassuring and calming to those around us in our everyday life because the tone of our voice matters.

If you liked this pass it on to others.

In the late 70’s Eastern Airlines introduced the slogan “We have to earn our wings every day” – the commercial worked, the company failed and was sold off.

The concept of earning what you want to accomplish every day may be generational but it is a way to never lose sight of your goals.

Good fortune doesn’t just happen, luck is a residue of design.

Staying focused on our strengths makes it easier to keep them strong.

The superpower of the shy is that they usually do more listening than talking.

Loudness is not confidence.

Fast talk is not good talk.

Assertiveness is not better than stick-to-itiveness.

Shy people often make unrealistic social comparisons, pitting themselves against the most vibrant or outgoing individuals. Believing that others are constantly evaluating them poorly, shy people abandon new social opportunities—which, in turn, prevents them from improving their social skills.

Better listeners, more thoughtful, intelligent and being more likely to think before speaking – real superpowers.

Know someone who would appreciate this, feel free to share.

“A lot of my stress and anxiety comes from me feeling like I’m not good enough or I am always doing something wrong”.

This is an actual student comment from my mental health for musicians class at NYU.

First, we’re all good enough.

Why are we always trying to be better when the first order of business is to accept and celebrate the good person and things we are.

Trying to get better while harboring the feeling of never being good enough is trying to improve on nothing.

You’re good enough.

If you liked this, pass it on for others.