In honor of Presidents’ Day next week, I’m going to share several posts on Abraham Lincoln this week.

1: “Because he has become more myth than man, most people are unaware that  Abraham Lincoln battled crippling depression his entire life,” writes  Ryan Holiday in The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph.

“Known at the time as melancholy, his depression was often debilitating and profound—nearly … continue reading

1: “My most searing encounter with depression came when the illness hit my oldest friend, Peter Marks,” David Brooks writes in his book How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen.

“Severe depression was revealed to me as an unimagined abyss,” David writes. “I learned that those of us lucky enough never to have experienced serious depression cannot understand what it is … continue reading

1: The default mode for peak performers is not recovery, rest, and relaxation. 

“If momentum matters most, sitting still feels like laziness,” Steven Kotler writes in The Art of Impossible: A Peak Performance Primer.  “And the more aligned with passion and purpose we become, the more ‘wasteful’ time off starts to feel.”

Yet, we need to prioritize recovery to avoid burnout.

“Burnout is identified by three symptoms: exhaustion, depression, … continue reading

“In the meantime, cling tooth and nail to the following rule: not to give in to adversity, not to trust prosperity, and always take full note of fortune’s habit of behaving just as she pleases.” -Seneca

1: “Because he has become more myth than man, most people are unaware that Abraham Lincoln battled crippling depression his entire life,” writes Ryan Holiday in The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art … continue reading