1: “There’s nothing in the world I hate more than asking for help,” Alex Goldman said.

Alex is a public radio producer in New York City who loves cycling.

“In the summer of 2011, he suffered a terrible accident when he was knocked off his bike and run over by a car,” Jane McGonigal writes in her book SuperBetter: The Power of Living Gamefully.

“I had multiple fractures in … continue reading

1: You’ve got it all wrong.

You’ve been taught that stress is bad for you.

This belief is harmful, Kelly McGonigal argues in The Upside of Stress.

“The best way to manage stress isn’t to reduce or avoid it, but rather to rethink and even embrace it.”

The fight-or-flight survival instinct is part of your stress response.  When something major happens, your sympathetic nervous system mobilizes your entire body.… continue reading

1: In 1998, thirty thousand adults in the United States were asked a series of questions about stress.

How much stress had they experienced in the past year?  Do you believe stress is harmful to your health?

“Eight years later, the researchers scoured public records to find out who among the thirty thousand participants had died,” Kelly McGonigal writes in her terrific book The Upside of Stress.

As predicted, … continue reading

1: On July 2nd, 1776, the Second Continental Congress voted unanimously to declare independence from Britain.

“That these United Colonies are, and of a right ought to be, free and independent states, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved,” so read the motion.

But “there was … continue reading

1: Imagine you were to experience back pain and disability after an acute back injury.

Turns out you will likely fall into one of two distinct groups.

“Researchers have known for years that some people who experience acute back pain recover successfully and lead full lives, while others experience ongoing pain that eventually leads to disability,” Jane McGonigal writes in her book SuperBetter: The Power of Living Gamefully.

What … continue reading

1: Ready for an interesting fact about games?

When we play them, we almost never feel hopeless.

“It’s true,” Jane McGonigal writes in her book SuperBetter: The Power of Living Gamefully.

“Psychologists have studied the top emotions during game play, and genuine anxiety and pessimism are extremely rare,” Jane notes. “Even when we’re losing or struggling, we’re vastly more likely to feel determined and optimistic than panicked or powerless.”… continue reading

“Games are not just a source of entertainment. They are a model of how to become the best version of ourselves,” game designer and researcher  Jane McGonigal writes in her book SuperBetter: The Power of Living Gamefully.

Last week, we explored how Jane created a game (later called SuperBetter) to help her recovery from a concussion. Following her injury, she was plagued by suicidal thoughts. As a PhD … continue reading

1: “There’s wind and then there’s a typhoon, there are waves and then there’s a tsunami,” Andy Grove writes in Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company.

The same is true in business.

“There are competitive forces and then there are supercompetitive forces,” he notes.

Andy calls it a “10X” change.

2: Harvard Professor Michael Porter identified the various forces that determine … continue reading

1: “We managers like to talk about change, so much that embracing change has become a cliché of management,” Andy Grove writes in Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company.

But not all changes are the same.

What Andy calls “a strategic inflection point is not just any change,” he notes. “It compares to change the way Class VI rapids on a … continue reading

1: “We had lost our bearings. We were wandering in the valley of death,” Andy Grove writes in his book Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company.

The year was 1984, a pivotal moment for Intel.

The company had been founded 16 years earlier.  “Every start-up has some kind of a core idea,” Andy notes.

“Ours was simple. Semiconductor technology had … continue reading