My brother, Robbie, who passed away in 1999, was a connoisseur of many things, including chocolate. And he would eat chocolate in threes, three pieces at a time. His reasoning was that if you’re only going to limit yourself to one piece of chocolate, you might as well not even bother. The first piece just […]
chocolate, discipline, eating, eating chocolate
We all know that when we’re happy, that can make us smile. But can simply smiling make you happy? And the answer, according to many researchers, is an emphatic YES. The reason is that when you smile, it sends a signal back to the brain that there is humor happening. So simply smiling can set […]
emotion, happy, research, smiling
One of the great minds in psychology, Sigmund Freud said,” the tasks of healthy adulthood are to work and to love, but a lot of people don’t love where they work, they are in jobs where they feel stuck in a bad situation and don’t know what to do about it.” If that describes you, […]
career, job situation, stuck
In his 1958 short story called “Murke’s Collected Silences”, the German author, Heinrich Boll, writes about a sound engineer named Murke who works in a recording studio. His job is to record talks and speeches by famous people, and as part of that job he has to edit out the pauses that they take during […]
recording studio, silence, silences
My Aunt Sonia was going to get her car washed and someone told her that there was rain in the forecast. Without missing a beat, Aunt Sonia said,” Well it’s going to rain on a clean car.” She was well known for having the courage of her convictions on matters great and small, including getting […]
advice, car wash, positivity
There was an article in the New York Times about making bagels. (You can read it here) One of the comments they made in the article was that because there are only five ingredients in a bagel, people commonly have this misconception that they’re relatively easy to make, but there are a lot of factors […]
article, bagels, making bagels, NYT
One of my favorite pieces of writing is the Sonia Sanchez haiku… “Let me wear the day Well so when it reaches you You will enjoy it.” It’s always been powerful to me and I think there are two reasons why. The first is the idea that we have control over the day. We can […]
advice, haiku, wear the day, writing piece
There are messages all around us in the universe and I believe it’s our job to make meaning out of what those messages are. For example, I have a friend named coffee and coffee often has a little message for me on the side of the container. In this case, it’s a Pete’s Coffee Decaffeinated […]
balance, coffee, easy to love, lively
The legendary founder of Wendy’s restaurants, Dave Thomas, was known for many things including his entrepreneurial spirit and being the humble pitch man for his restaurant chain. Something not so well known is that he dropped out of high school at the age of 15 so that he could work full time. Years later he […]
dream, goal, Motivation, motivational, wendys
I was reminded the other day of an old commercial for Hershey’s Kisses, where a famous actor ties one of his shoes and very satisfied with that accomplishment, says,” I deserve a Hershey’s kiss.” And he ties his other shoe and he rewards himself with another Hershey’s kiss. It’s a reminder of something simple that […]
acknowledge, chocolate, reward