The Art of Manliness

We all have things we’ve always wanted to know how to do, but have never gotten around to learning. Speak a foreign language. Play an instrument. Write a book. Take up surfing. Maybe you’ve even started one of these...

When people are faced with problems and complexity, our instinct is to add instead of subtract. As a result, we have a tendency to make our work and our lives more and more complex, and less and less effective and...

When Mark Hertling learned he was deploying for Operation Desert Storm, he decided to start a journal. Back then, Mark was an Army major and cavalry officer with two young sons. His unit would be out in front of the...

Professor of psychology Angela Duckworth is famous for her work on grit — the combination of passion and perseverance that leads to high achievement. But she’s come to an increasing appreciation for the fact that...

The ancient Greeks believed the human soul had three parts: reason, appetite, and something called thumos . Thumos is difficult to translate into English. It encompasses anger, noble spiritedness, pride, ambition, a...

People are told their whole lives how important it is to find their purpose. But many find the search frustrating. They feel there's one true calling or one grand goal they're supposed to be pursuing, but they can't...

With the release of Christopher Nolan's adaptation of the Odyssey, it seems like everyone's been talking about a 3,000-year-old epic again. But my guest thinks this ancient tale offers a framework for understanding our...

When most people think of negotiation, they picture big, high-stakes moments: haggling over the price of a house, negotiating a starting salary, or hammering out the terms of a business deal. But negotiation is also...

Most people assume that if a goal is hard to achieve, getting there has to feel hard too. We tend to believe that extraordinary results require extraordinary suffering. But my guest says the secret to success isn't...

Many of us grow up believing that midlife is when things start going downhill. Your body's breaking down, your best work is behind you, and you may fall into a full-blown existential crisis. But a lot of what we think...

George Washington is perhaps the most familiar figure in American history. But most people really only know the image of him they see in marble statues and patriotic paintings. Behind those symbols was a real man...

The modern idea of retirement was built on a bet that turned out to be wrong. It assumed people would spend most of their lives working and only a relatively short period of time retired. Instead, many Americans now...

We all want two things that can seem at odds with each other: to be our own person and to belong. We want to stand apart from the crowd, but we also want to be connected to it. When that balance gets out of whack, we...

Life rarely unfolds according to plan. A relationship implodes. A move or job change doesn't work out. Or you simply fail in a goal you've set for yourself. My guest has spent almost two decades researching and...

Walking is one of the most powerful health tools we have. It improves cardiovascular fitness, boosts mood, sharpens cognition, and can even be a predictor of how well you'll age. But all those benefits depend on...