#235 – What happens when they don't like your work?Have you ever felt like you did something wrong because someone didn't like your work?I have. August, 2003, Pan-European Voice Conference in Graz, Austria. I'd memorized my speaking notes for th...
#234 – If not praise, what is worth working for?There's a question creators ask one another often – what is it for?Although it's a fair question, which can bring depth to any creative endeavor, I believe it's often misunderstood. It's easy to make th...
#233 – How can praise stunt your creative progress?People who do creative work tend to fear criticism: what if they don't like it, we think.But there's something more dangerous than audiences disliking our work – their enthusiastic praise.In 2003 I s...
#232 – What signal does patience send your brain?As defined by the Cambridge Dictionary, patience is"the ability to wait, or to continue doing something despite difficulties, or to suffer without complaining&nb...
#231 – What's the source of your indecision?"If you have more than one reason to do something (choose a doctor or veterinarian, hire a gardener or an employee, marry a person, go on a trip), just don’t do it. It does not mean that one reason is bette...
#230 – Has "feeling good" become a tyranny?A few years ago, I met a woman in an online community whose husband had died unexpectedly. She wrote that, when learning the news, she'd dropped to her knees, in disbelief and unfathomable pain.Then, she sai...
#229 – Is self-victimization keeping you stuck in guilt?The Ghost of Misplaced Guilt (GoMG) had been gnawing at my ear every Monday since I started my weekend job selling coffee machines at a mall, with a commute of at least 90 minutes each way. "You...
#228 – What does openness give you that hope doesn't?The act of hoping is, in itself, a judgment.Hoping implies categorizing some life events as intrinsically, objectively "desirable," and others as "undesirable."But is that true? Desirable according...
#227 – What's wrong with clinging to hope?Since I mentioned Pema Chödrön's "anti-hope" teachings ("When we give up hope, that is the beginning of the beginning," in When Things Fall Apart), a few weeks back, I've been seeing more and more how hope is...
#226 – How are you resisting life by "trusting?"I used to believe that the ultimate act of surrender was total trust –– like riding the roller coaster hands off. But that's not accurate. Like hope, trust has a hidden agenda: a specific outcome that y...