1: “Have you ever looked up at the clock after working intensely on a project and been amazed at how quickly the time has flown by?” Jeremie Kubicek and Steve Cockram ask in their book The 5 Gears: How to Be Present and Productive When There is Never Enough Time.

“That is 5th gear,” they note.

Also called “in the zone” or “in flow,” 5th gear is your ability … continue reading

1: This was no ordinary rental car.

Jeremie Kubicek sat on the right side of the car, staring at the steering wheel in front of him.

An American raised in Oklahoma, Jeremie had just moved to England, making every aspect of daily life—including driving—a new adventure.

“Learning to drive on what the English call the correct side of the road is one thing,” he writes in The 5 Gears: How … continue reading

1: What’s the difference between waking up early and being an early riser?

Or, eating a healthy meal and being a healthy eater?

What about getting some work done and being a productive person?

Waking up early, eating a healthy meal, and getting some work done are good things.  Certainly.

These are things you do.

Describing yourself as an early riser, a healthy eater, or a productive person shifts focus … continue reading

This week, we’ve focused on the accelerating breakthroughs transforming health and medicine.

“Within the next 10 years the world will rocket into new norms of aging, new population increases, new life spans, and new ways of living,”  Dr. Michael Roizen, Peter Linneman and Albert Ratner write in The Great Age Reboot.

Dr. Mike is the Chief Wellness Officer Emeritus at the Cleveland Clinic.

To benefit from what … continue reading

1: “We’ll tell you a familiar story,” Michael Roizen, the Chief Wellness Officer Emeritus at the Cleveland Clinic, and his co-authors Peter Linneman and Albert Ratner write in The Great Age Reboot: Cracking the Longevity Code for a Younger Tomorrow.

Picture someone receiving a tough medical diagnosis. Their loved ones gather to support them, feeling helpless as they try to help.

“But then something happens. The person … continue reading

“100 years ago, most people couldn’t imagine a world with antibiotics or immunizations. Let alone MRI-guided robotic surgery performed on a patient in Cleveland, Tennessee, by a surgeon in Cleveland, Ohio,” Michael Roizen, the Chief Wellness Officer Emeritus at the Cleveland Clinic, and his co-authors Peter Linneman and Albert Ratner write in The Great Age Reboot: Cracking the Longevity Code for a Younger Tomorrow.

“But these breakthroughs … continue reading

1: So what exactly is a habit?

Yes, it is an outfit a nun wears, Tynan writes in Superhuman by Habit: A Guide to Becoming the Best Possible Version of Yourself, One Tiny Habit at a Time.

But, more importantly, “it’s an action that you take on a repeated basis with little or no required effort or thought,” he writes.

The key part of the definition? The second half … continue reading

1: The year was 1975.

Psychologists Edwin Locke and Gary Latham measured how fast forty-five of the fastest typists at a large company were able to generate text.

“The typists knew they were among the best in the company, but they had never measured how quickly they typed,” Charles Duhigg writes in Smarter Faster Better.

On average, each typist generated ninety-five lines of output per hour, setting a clear … continue reading

1: Why do some teams succeed and others fail?

The People Analytics team at Google had spent two years attempting to answer this question.

The initiative was code-named “Project Aristotle.”  The team gathered survey data, conducted hundreds of interviews, analyzed a mountain of data and statistics, ran regression models, and built software programs.

There were no clear patterns or trends on what makes teams perform at the highest … continue reading

1: What makes a great team great?

Is it simply a matter of intelligence? Do teams with the smartest people perform the best?

Is “group intelligence nothing more than the intelligence of the individuals making up the team?” Charles Duhigg asks in Smarter Faster Better: The Transformative Power of Real Productivity.

Actually, no.

In 2008, psychologists from Carnegie Mellon and MIT recruited 699 people and divided them into 152 … continue reading