Everything is your fault. That’s what you tell yourself. The argument with your partner, your fault. Your colleague’s bad mood, your fault. Your friend’s disappointment, your fault. The weather’s ruined the party, somehow, also your fault. You go through life saying sorry for things you didn’t do, taking responsibility for events you couldn’t control, and…
We talked about failure in the last chapter, this lesson is about the other F word and that is Fear. Fear is that primitive, hardwired drive that’s been keeping humans alive since before we had language to describe it. Fear is one of the most powerful emotions you have. It sharpens your senses, floods your…
“How do I tell my wife?” That’s what he asked me. Not “Am I going to die?” Not “How do we beat this?” Not “What do I do now?” Just “How do I tell my wife?” I’d just told him he had cancer. He was a man’s man. The one everyone leaned on. The provider….
Most difficult people aren’t villains. They’re just difficult, for reasons of their own that usually have very little to do with you. That distinction matters, because the strategy for handling a genuinely dangerous person (which we covered a few lessons back) is quite different from the strategy for handling someone who’s simply hard to deal…