You were educated to be one of the people who makes it possible for other people to get rich. You can change that. — Do you want to be in debt, forced to work a job just for the regular paycheck so you can pay off your new living room set? Is that the freedom you dreamed of when you were younger? No, they told you that if you worked hard, you would one…

The number one belief that keeps you from being happy and successful and what to do about it. — You believe that creating your ideal life means deciding what will make you happy in the future and then going out and getting it. Sounds straightforward, so it must be right. …

A frightening midnight phone call leads a young surgeon to reconsider how he approaches his career — Originally Published on Doximity.com “I know where you live. And I’m gonna to find you and when I do, I’m gonna hurt you and the people you love.” That is the PG-rated gist of how a middle-of-the-night phone call from a patient’s family ended, and it left me cold. The family member called about a patient admitted to me who was also serving a life sentence at the state prison. As one of the…

How you think about death drives how you live. Avoid thinking about death, and you avoid living. — “Death may be the greatest of all human blessings” — Socrates You are going to die. There, I said it. I know it’s not polite. …

The dark side of goal setting. Are your goals holding you back? — “Goals Gone Wild” was the title of a paper I read in the Harvard Business Review and I knew I need to read more. I wasn’t disappointed. In this paper by Lisa D. Ordóñez (Dean of the Rady School of Management at UC San Diego) and collages, the authors argue…

What self-assembly furniture can teach about living a happier and more successful life. — You already have everything you need. You may not believe that is true, but it is. Allow me to illustrate the point with a thought experiment. A Brief Story Imagine visiting IKEA and buying a piece of furniture to self-assemble. …

Or, when you fight reality, reality always wins. — You live in a prison of your own design. A prison so ingeniously conceived and subtly constructed that you can’t see the walls enclosing you. But you can feel their presence in your life. …

In our world flooded with information, facts matter less than ever in your decision-making. — Facts don’t matter. Why? Because people make decisions based on their emotions. After choosing, they seek “facts” and “reasoning” to support conclusions they reached without using either. That is no surprise to you. I’m sure you can readily think of examples of other people who do this unconsciously. Here is…

An important lesson on where to focus for best results. — Originally published on Doximity.com. “Good enough is good enough.” I was shocked to hear those words from an attending surgeon I respected for his great dexterity in the OR. I was a junior surgical resident and had just completed a vascular anastomosis that, despite my great care, had turned out…