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Browse published articles attributed to H. Les Brown, with full-archive search.
In the middle of his chapter on his first habit ("Be Proactive"), Dr. Stephen R. Covey, in his famous Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, lays out two circles: the outer circle being your circle of concern, the inner circle representing your circle of influence. His point is that we are ...
This is an era of ever-tightening budgets and precarious performance in students' basic skills. It's an era of 'No Child Left Behind', although very many still are. Many inner-city schools are in disrepair, school supplies are hard to come by, and teachers are generally ridiculously under-paid ...
I want to open by complementing you on your sense of responsibility. I know that I'm talking to the right person, because anyone who is conce ed enough about midlife issues to be reading about it has to have a well-developed sense of responsibility and conce for their own (and their loved ...
Emily Dickinson wrote, "Remorse is cureless, the disease not even God can heal." 'Remorse' arises as a sorrow for past decisions that you've made, while 'regret' serves as a broader, more useful term, describing a wish that you'd made other choices in the past: choices either to avoid doing ...
Yesterday evening, I was working away at my desk, prepping for my Thursday evening internet radio program, when up pops an e-mail announcing that I had been befriended by someone over at BlogCatalog.com. Curious (I have few friends over there, since I'm a recent member), I stopped by to view ...
I do spend some time with what I call the 'Education Section' of the Washington Post every morning. Everyone else may refer to it as the 'Style Section', but to me it'll always be the 'Education Section.' That's where I get my daily dose of wisdom from the comics (don't be mistaken: they're not, ...
As if the emotional, social, cultural and hormonal changes that overtake a man during the midlife transition aren't severe enough, he also has to factor in a biologically-based uphill battle that he has to fight to maintain his place in the world. Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen from Cambridge University ...
Are you noticing that the signs of menopause are starting to show up? Can you feel the changes happening in your body? Is it one of the topics of conversation when you and your closest friends get together? Have you already started discussing it with your doctor? How are you feeling about these ...
Each of us begins his or her life at the center of a perfect 3-pronged conspiracy. Born into an established environment, you immediately commence your cultural formation. After the initial explosion of neural and synaptic formations, for the first three years of your life, your environment plays ...
One of the most difficult virtues to attain is wisdom. Nobody becomes wise through an accident of birth or by osmosis. As has often been said, wisdom derives from good judgment, which, in turn, derives from bad judgment — and an awful lot of it. Jesus told his disciples, "By their fruits you ...
What an absolutely amazing time to be a 'Boomer! If you're a person who likes a challenge, you'll absolutely love 2009! There's nothing quite like the fear of financial insecurity to stress every system in your life (your career, your relationships and your health) to within an inch of its ...
I've been away . . . yes I have. But all that's behind me now, and this month is shaping up to be a transitional one. I'm needing to take my business from a disappointing conclusion with the end of 2008 into something even more dynamic and transformational as we move more deeply into 2009. ...
Our local Giant supermarket has introduced hand scanners so that you can just walk up and down the aisles, collecting your groceries, while scanning them and bagging them right in your cart. Checkout involves downloading the inventory from the hand scanner into a self-serve checkout station. ...
You have competency. That's not enough. You have experience. So do a lot of other people. You have long-term loyalty. That's not relevant. You have a family, a mortgage, car payments, expenses, tuition. It's not even a consideration. You're over fifty; it's too late to start over for crying out ...
You may or may not recognize the 'drop,' depending on your age and what are of the country or the world you may be inhabiting. The 'drop' is that cataclysmic moment when the executioner pulls the lever, the trap door flops down, and the condemned plummets earthward . . . to an extent. Many ...
I keep asking the same sorts of questions whenever I write: "How's 2009 working out for you?" If you're a 'boomer, you're in or beyond midlife, and what's going on in the world markets today are doubtless having a really negative impact on you, your family, and — evidently — your plans. Chances ...
Let's assume for the sake of argument that you're going to pass through a number of careers in your lifetime (because you are). Let's also assume that retirement isn't in the picture for you (because it's not). That means that, sooner or later, you're going to be asking yourself some difficult ...
Several years ago, my friend, Dr. Jed Diamond explained how masculine acculturation was creating a huge obstacle for men in the workforce: both young and old. As the world moves from an industrial model to a "post-industrial" (or knowledge-based) economy, the skill sets most in demand evolve ...
I want to begin my article series for 2010 with the seemingly incongruous topic of 'death' for a number of very good reasons, the first of which would be having experienced the unexpected death of a favorite aunt only a few days ago on New Year's eve. We certainly had not planned on ringing in a new decade with the rituals of mou ing. However, life's vagrancies pay no attention to our expectations. Not ever. Yet, as a culture, we seem to be obsessed with the denial of death.
...and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. There's not a person in our Western culture alive today who wasn't brought up hearing or reading Clement Clark Moore's poem from 1823, "A Visit from Saint Nicholas." Regardless of your religious beliefs and ...
It sure seems like when a guy hits middle age, it all hits the fan — and all at once. You know what they say: 'feelings aren't facts', but it certainly seems that way, doesn't it? At the same time, many people don't count on how statistics conspire together to make you the target of ...
One day my father, as a young man, came home from work to find the apartment cleaned out of furniture and swept clean. His wive (not my mother) was gone. Needless to say, reconciliation wasn't an option. I also know of a woman who was so alienated from her husband that, from time to time, he'd ...
Wow! It's been a long time (almost a week) since I've been able to write about all things midlife! Sometimes, events conspire to take your attention off the duties of the day-to-day world and force you to focus on what's more pressing and immediate. That's one of the great stressors of life: ...
In October of this year, the American Psychological Association issued a report on stress by gender. Here is some of what they said: In June 2008, more people reported physical and emotional symptoms due to stress than they did in 2007, and nearly half (47 percent) of adults reported that their ...
Never fear: this is not a political exposé. Instead, it's a reflection on a fascinating conversation that I had with Dr. Jed Diamond last night on my internet radio program. As you may know, Dr. Jed is the author of the best-selling books, Male Menopause and The Irritable Male Syndrome. ...
Last Friday, I had an unsettling experience. I've been spending the past few months scouring the web, looking for places where men leave — and find — wisdom-droppings. You know what I mean by 'wisdom-droppings' don't you? They're those little sayings or stories or insights that you ...
As a coach, I know very well how important goal-setting is. Also, as a coach, I know that goals aren't all that they're often cracked up to be. As critical a competency as goal-setting is, if misused, sometimes it can have some very unfortunate consequences. I want to take some time in this ...
I wanted to write an article that somehow relates the midlife transition with the Thanksgiving Holiday (as I'm writing this, it's the day before US Thanksgiving). The answer that came to me was surprisingly simple: all that would be necessary would be for me to point out that you can't be angry ...
For the past few days, I've been reading Dr. Jed Diamond's newest book, The Irritable Male Syndrome with rapt attention (in advance of interviewing him on my upcoming internet radio program). In my estimation, this book is required reading for anyone in the helping professions. It explores a ...
Here's to a new beginning. You're off to a fresh start. You have new hope, new prospects, new horizons, a new vision. Your life is half over, you're dissatisfied with what you've accomplished, and here's your chance to get moving. No time like the present, you say. You look at what your boss ...
Just because I've made it "over the hill" doesn't necessarily mean that it's smooth sailing from now on. As a matter of fact, think back to when you were a teenager still walking riding your bike everywhere you wanted to go. Couldn't you just taste the freedom and all the possibilities that were ...
Well . . . to be honest with you, the end is near whether or not you choose to repent: the end of the year 2008, that is. We humans have a particular affinity for the ending of things: like graduations and funerals (not that there's any other similarity between the two). Yet, we mark transitions ...
If I didn't know better (but I'm not sure that I do), I'd say the world was having a midlife crisis. Whether it's about half-way through it's life span, I don't know; but I do think that it's behaving just like a middle-aged guy. As I read my morning Washington Post today — with one eye ...
The year has changed . . . how about you? What changes are facing you in 2009? If you're a man in midlife, change has probably caught you like the incoming tide and is carrying you along with its often-understated power. Now, the question remains: what are you going to do about it? Your ...
As I was considering a title for this article, I wanted to find a verb that would express what's on the 'other side' of the midlife transition. I guess that I'm in quite a good mental state right now, because before I knew it, I had found the perfect word: ravished. It's a word that touches a ...
Have you ever been traveling from one city to another, and you're in the airport at the gate, waiting for your flight to load? You look out the wall of glass at the workers moving around on the ramp, unloading and loading baggage while the plane disgorges its complement of arriving passengers. ...
"I just know I'm the only one in the world who feels this way!" Somehow, the feelings of guilt over your (real or imagined) failures, the confusion and fears that haunt you over decisions (big or small), the barely-controllable urges to run away or get drunk or high or just go wild, all conspire ...
One of the 'features' of entering into the midlife transition happens to be the dawning realization of just how tenuous our connection to this plane of existence really is. I fondly remember evenings as a student in Ottawa, Ontario spent at the Colonel Bye lounge enjoying the comedy of ...
I think that one of the biggest differences between the way women approach the midlife transition and the way men do derives from the very strong tendency that men have toward avoidance of significant midlife issues. It's also one of the biggest dangers that men face going into midlife, because ...
Here's a double spoiler for you, first for the 1983 movie, War Games, then for this article: as the computer, Joshua, comments at the end of this picture: "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play." It works as well for global thermonuclear war as it does for the age-old conflict ...
When people think of the midlife transition, most often their minds go straight to the infamous midlife crisis and the radical changes that go along with it. People change their looks, they change their jobs and — way more than is necessary — they change partners. In fact, I ...
You see all those fancy letters after my name? The 'MA' (at least one of them) is the result of my fascination with Western (Greek) philosophy. These ancient brilliant minds, after all, laid the foundation for our entire cultural perspective. What to us 'sophisticated' contemporary thinkers ...
I have a confession to make: as I get older, taking care of myself becomes more and more of a chore. Additionally, as andropause continues to take its toll, bodily maintenance keeps looking more and more like an uphill (and losing) battle. Add that to the cultural expectations that tell us men ...
Do you remember a time when your work was fun? Do you remember when you looked forward to going to wok? (If you don't remember these things, then you'd better start taking a closer look at the career you've chosen for yourself!) When you remember these good times, see if you can make a list ...
There's a qualitative difference between the male ego and the female ego. I've never heard of anyone demanding of any female that she prove that she's a 'real women.' It's just assumed. It's taken for granted. A woman is born a woman. That's exactly the opposite condition from the one that all ...
The downward spiral that does the most damage to men (and women) at midlife shows itself as a tailspin deeper and deeper into aggravation. It begins with the everyday frustrations of life. These seeds of midlife crisis begin to germinate under the combination of physical (hormonal) changes that ...
Once more, the Grim Reaper is coming up the pathway to visit the old year, 2008. The economic forces that were put in motion over the last ten years have finally tipped the scales, particularly over the last six months. Huge corporations are dropping like flies or are begging to be propped up by ...
Thinking of retiring? If pundits are right (and it certainly looks that way from here), the concept of 'retirement' has been put to rest — permanently. Take a look at the recent history of employee benefits. Pensions were the first to go. They relied on a continuous growth model that has ...
According to the news today, marital fidelity in males has a genetic component. About 40 percent of the men studied exhibited a genetic makeup that made it more difficult for them to establish intimate, long-term relationships and strong family ties. The other 60% (who lacked that particular ...
Over the past number of years, there has been an explosion of advertising around pharmaceuticals that are designed to alleviate problems with ED [erectile dysfunction] in men (for the drug companies and advertising agencies, the embarrassment of ED has apparently replaced the heartbreak of ...