When it comes to success in today’s world, being the kind of person others like outranks all of the fashionable traits like competitiveness, willingness to work harder then anyone else, piling up qualifications, or blind obedience to the demands of the people at the top. Pleasant, likable people have the best chances of being hired…

Two of the greatest influences on management thinking and practice have been the militaristic politics of the Roman Empire (via the Roman Catholic Church—a masterpiece of top-down, centralized, hierarchical control) and the world’s armies. Look at the words we use: “command and control,” “stuck in the trenches,” “didn’t have the firepower.” We “attack the issues head-on.”…

In the days of Ancient Greece, when the Greek army was trying to destroy Troy, there lived a young woman called Cassandra. She was a special person. As well as being beautiful and one of the daughters of the king of Troy, she was an accomplished prophetess. Not surprisingly, such a combination of beauty, social status…

Today is Columbus Day in the USA and Thanksgiving in Canada. We have commemorative days for famous people, famous events and (in many parts of the world) religious festivals. I want to suggest that you establish a special day specially for yourself: for allowing yourself time and space to be who you are—and to look…

My friend Stefan Hagemann has observed that so many students on a college campus seem to be elsewhere. As I walk around my university’s campus, I understand what he means: phone conversations, text-messaging, and iPod management can take precedence over attention to one’s surroundings. Even without the distractions of a gadget, the sidewalks and quads…

Here’s how to improve your fortune Are you one of those people who are always suffering setbacks? Does little ever seem to go right for you? Are you dogged by constant instances of sheer bad luck? Do you sometimes feel that the universe is out to get you? Let me let you into a secret: your luck…

“Now hast thou but one bare hour to live, And then thou must be damned perpetually. Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven, That time may cease, and midnight never come.”                 Christopher Marlowe: Doctor Faustus You’re on the beach of your dreams, under a sunset that flares with every color you can call to mind, plus a few you can’t…

Simple ways of discovering the hidden, inner drivers that twist and control your life When someone asks any of us to make a decision, we bring all our prejudices, opinions, likes, dislikes, fears, hopes, antagonisms, and bits of knowledge along. The human mind is like a committee—and a pretty bad tempered and cantankerous one too! Like…

Got that Monday (and every other work-day) morning feeling? Here’s how to begin each new day as if you can’t wait to get started. This is my 100th article for Lifehack.org. That set my mind thinking about beginnings and endings. Last week, I wrote about how to leave work gracefully, so it seems natural to follow…

The keys to going home gracefully It’s a myth that you will one day be able to go home from a clear desk. It’s never going to happen. The plain truth is that there will always be work undone at the end of the day. This gives you three options: 1) Go home, but take the…

“The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice…it is conformity.”                  ~ Rollo May, Man’s Search for Himself. There will never be anyone else like you in the future of the universe. There has never been anyone exactly like you since human life began. That’s why being yourself is more important than…

When it comes to reading, lifehacking tends to focus on speed — more words, fewer minutes. That might be fine if reading is understood as a matter of moving information with maximum efficiency from the page to the brain. The faster the connection, so to speak, the better. But there are other kinds of reading. No…

Mettle 1. n. courage, fortitude, pluck, ardor, verve. 2. on one’s mettle, in the position of being ready to do one’s best. Metal and mettle both rust if neglected. They lose their shine. They become tarnished and weakened. People who have lost their mettle no longer have sufficient courage or enthusiasm to take on…

Always making fully conscious choices is the key to a positive lifeLiving your life consciously isn’t a once-and-for-all action. It’s a way of being that will make everything you do more vibrant, more alive, and more fun. Destiny is made of choices. Most of what will happen to you depends on the choices you make and…

Why finding happiness at work may be less complicated that you think. Everyone wants to be happy at work. Nearly everyone also wants to feel fulfilled by what they do. The Baby Boomer generation thought they could achieve both of these by hard work, long hours, and (hopefully) hard cash. Many people today are not so…