1: Getting better at getting better is what RiseWithDrew is all about.
Monday through Thursday, we explore ideas from authors, thought leaders, and exemplary organizations. On Fridays or over the weekend, I try to share some wisdom or something I’m thinking about or working on.
May 4th will mark seven years of writing RiseWithDrew every weekday. Haven’t missed a day except for holidays.
For the last several years, I’ve done … continue reading
1: “It’s always the same list,” Oliver Burkeman writes in Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts.
How to live a fulfilling life. It’s always the same list.
“Nurture our relationships, pursue challenging goals, spend time in nature, and make room for fun,” Oliver notes.
But we knew that already.
“If following a list was all it took, we’d have solved … continue reading
1: Feeling anxious or overwhelmed? Or, perhaps, a bit too full of ourselves?
The stoic Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius has some advice for us:
“Often think of the rapidity with which things pass by and disappear. . . For substance is like a river in continual flow, and the activities of things are in constant change, and the causes work in infinite varieties; and there is hardly anything which stands … continue reading
Author Oliver Burkeman and his family recently moved from Brooklyn to the North York Moors in northern England.
“Which means that very often in the early mornings, carrying a flask of hot coffee, I get to stroll along a lane with spectacular views across a valley to the heather-topped ridge beyond,” he writes in Meditations for Mortals.
“In winter, the pink light of sunrise pours itself slowly over fields … continue reading
1: Question: What’s the best way to boost the confidence of young scholars suffering from imposter syndrome?
It’s not what we might think.
When sociologists Jessica Collett and Jade Avelis paired entry-level academic women with experienced, inspirational mentors, they discovered an unwelcome irony: The younger scholars felt “more insecure and inadequate, through negative comparison with their uber-accomplished elders,” Oliver Burkeman writes in Meditations for Mortals.
One of the … continue reading
1: Author Oliver Burkeman believes there are two basic orientations towards life.
We can either strive toward sanity.
Alternatively, we can operate from a position of sanity.
“The signature behavior of the striver-towards-sanity is ‘clearing the decks'”, Oliver writes in Meditations for Mortals
The striver-towards-sanity attempts “to deal with all the minor tasks tugging at our attention,” he notes, “in an effort to arrive at the point when we finally … continue reading
1: We’re all likely familiar with the “marshmallow experiments.”
“Social psychologist Walter Mischel and his colleagues presented children with a single marshmallow and offered them a choice: They could eat it, or wait alone in the room with it for ten minutes, in which case they’d get one more,” Oliver Burkeman writes in Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts… continue reading
1: “Suppose it’s 4.10 pm, on a day when it’s not my turn for school pickup,” Oliver Burkeman writes in Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts.
“I’m focusing hard in my office at home,” Oliver notes, “when my son bursts in, to tell me excitedly of his preparations for the school play.”
Here is one of those moments of wonderful … continue reading
1: We stare at the screen.
“Slowly and painstakingly formulating half a sentence, reading it over, deeming it to be inadequate, deleting it, staring at the screen some more, then trying again,” Oliver Burkeman writes in Meditations for Mortals.
The writing coach Stephen Lloyd Webber once noted that it’s ironic that we call this activity “writing,” since much of our time is spent not writing, not deleting what we’ve … continue reading
“Almost everything that happens is either a good time or a good story.”
1: It was the weekend. The family drove into the countryside for a picnic.
“Just as they’d laid an impressive lunch spread on the blanket,” Oliver Burkeman writes in Meditations for Mortals, “the heavens opened, but on this occasion, the parents let the kids eat anyway, in a pandemonium of wet sandwiches and laughter.”
This experience … continue reading
