Too busy to read?

As I write this paragraph, my wife and our good friends are wondering why I'm selfishly lagging behind and not meeting them for an afternoon of sitting in the sun. I'll get there soon. And when I do, I'll feel energized and satisfied and be far more fun to be around. No one will think worse of me in the long run for being thirty minutes behind for a full day of fun that they have already started. But everyone will appreciate that I'm in a better mood when I show up. That's the trade-off. Like capitalism, some forms of selfishness are enlightened.

You should also try to figure out which people are thing people and which ones are people people. Thing people enjoy hearing about new technology and other clever tools and possessions. They also enjoy discussions of processes and systems, including politics. People people enjoy only conversations that involve humans doing interesting things. They get bored in a second when the conversation turns to things. Once you know whether you are dealing with a thing person or a people person, you can craft your conversation to his or her sweet spot. It makes a big difference in how people react to you, and that in turn will make you more confident and less shy.

So while writing takes me away from my friends and family for a bit, it makes me a better person when I'm with them. I'm happier and more satisfied with my life. The energy metric helps make my choices easier.

you should avoid exposure to too much news of the depressing type. It's a good idea to avoid music, books, and movies that are downers. __Show me someone who you think is always in a good mood and I'll show you a person who (probably) avoids overexposure to sad forms of entertainment__. The easiest way to manage your attitude is to consume as much feel-good entertainment as you can.

"If you see something that impresses you, a decent respect to humanity insists you voice your praise."

I'm here to tell you that the primary culprit in your bad moods is a deficit in one of the big five: flexible schedule, imagination, sleep, diet, and exercise.

For our purposes, let's agree that goals are a reach-it-and-be-done situation, whereas a system is something you do on a regular basis with a reasonable expectation that doing so will get you to a better place in your life. Systems have no deadlines, and on any given day you probably can't tell if they're moving you in the right direction.

The simple rule for "I" versus "me" is that the sentence has to make sense if you remove the other person mentioned in the sentence. For example, if you say, "Bob and I went to a movie," it would still make sense if you removed "Bob and" and said, "I went to a movie." If the sentence is "Please give the documents to Bob and me," you can remove "Bob and" and it still makes sense as "Please give the documents to me." You'll often hear smart people get this rule wrong, so don't be fooled by how many times you hear it incorrectly.

Setup There's only one important rule for a story setup: Keep it brief. And I mean really brief, as in "So, I took my car in for a brake job ..." That's it. Don't tell us the problem with the brakes. Don't tell us what made you think you had a brake problem, unless for some reason it is relevant. Try to keep your setup to one sentence, two at most. Pattern Establish a pattern that your story will violate. For example, you could say, "Whenever I take my car for any kind of service, I'm always amazed how expensive it is." That establishes the pattern. Now we know that what follows will be a violation of the pattern. And we call that hint of things to come ... Foreshadowing Foreshadowing means you leave some clues about where the story is going. The foreshadowing can happen as early as the setup, as in "My in-laws in Arkansas have something they call the 'fraidy hole' that everyone climbs into in case of tornadoes. It's meant to hold no more than four people." That's the setup with the foreshadowing built in. The Characters Every story involves characters, and you might be one of them. For people who know all of your foibles, defects, and preferences, no elaboration is required. But if you are talking to strangers or talking about unfamiliar others, fill in the story with some character traits that will be relevant. For example, "Our friend Bob has been borrowing our power tools for years because he's too cheap to buy his own." That sort of brief character profile is essential to any story that involves people. All good stories are about personalities. Relatability There is one topic that people care more about than any other: themselves. Pick story topics that your listeners will relate to. If your story is about dealing with a stubborn bureaucrat, most adults can relate to it no matter the bureaucracy involved. But if your story is about the inner workings of competitive quilting, you'd better make it short and extra witty. People drift off when you stop talking about stuff that isn't, well, them. The Twist Your story isn't a story unless something unexpected or unusual happens. That's the plot twist. If you don't have a twist, it's not a story. It's just a regurgitation of your day. That's fine for catching up with a spouse, but it won't make you the life of a party.

Coffee costs money, takes time, gives you coffee breath, and makes you pee too often. It can also make you jittery and nervous if you have too much. But if success is your dream and operating at peak mental performance is something you want, coffee is a good bet. I highly recommend it. In fact, I recommend it so strongly that I literally feel sorry for anyone who hasn't developed the habit.

If the situation involves communication with others, simplification is almost always the right answer. If the task is something you can do all by yourself, or with a partner who is on your wavelength, optimizing might be a better path if you can control most variables in the situation. And realistically, sometimes you simply have to get three hours of tasks completed in two hours, so we don't always have the luxury of being able to choose simple paths.

I waited for the applause to stop. And when it did, I waited a little longer, as I had learned. When you stand in front of an audience, your sensation of time is distorted. That's why inexperienced presenters speak too rapidly. I mentally adjusted my internal clock to match the audience's sense of timing. I also wanted them to wait in silence for a beat or two, to engage their curiosity. I knew from experience that audience members often wonder what the creator of Dilbert will sound like. That day, I wondered the same thing.

the process of tackling any new and complicated problem. There's one step you will always do first if it's available to you: You'll ask a smart friend how he or she tackled the same problem. A smart friend can save you loads of time and effort.

Insanity In most groups the craziest person is in control. It starts because no one wants the problems that come from pissing off a crazy person. It's just smarter and easier sometimes to let the crazy person have his or her way.

After a chance encounter with an experienced restaurant manager, I agreed to partner with her to create a new restaurant in Pleasanton, California. We named the place Stacey's Cafe because I figured she would work harder if her name was over the door.

That brings me to the next important mechanism for happiness. __Happiness has more to do with where you're heading than where you are__. A person who is worth two billion dollars will feel sad if he suddenly loses one billion because he's moving in the wrong direction, even if the change has no impact on his ability to buy what he wants. But a street person will celebrate discovering a new Dumpster behind an upscale restaurant because it means good eating ahead. We tend to feel happy when things are moving in the right direction and unhappy when things are trending bad. __The directional nature of happiness is one reason it's a good idea to have a sport or hobby that leaves you plenty of room to improve every year__. Tennis and golf are two perfect examples.

My observation and best guess is that experts are right about 98 percent of the time on the easy stuff but only right 50 percent of the time on anything that is unusually complicated, mysterious, or even new.

he told me he was CEO of a company that made screws. Then he offered me some career advice. He said that every time he got a new job, he immediately started looking for a better one. For him, job seeking was not something one did when necessary. It was an ongoing process. This makes perfect sense if you do the math. Chances are the best job for you won't become available at precisely the time you declare yourself ready. Your best bet, he explained, was to always be looking for the better deal. The better deal has its own schedule. I believe the way he explained it is that your job is not your job; your job is to find a better job.

Coffee also allows you to manage your energy levels so you have the most when you need it. My experience is that coffee drinkers have higher highs and lower lows, energywise, than non-coffee drinkers, but that trade-off works. I can guarantee that my best thinking goes into my job, while saving my dull-brain hours for household chores and other simple tasks.

Thanks to my experience with these exceedingly minor successes, I have a realistic understanding of how many hours it takes to be good at something. That keeps me from bailing out of things too soon. But more important, I know what winning feels like (great!) and it energizes me to seek more of it. In that sense I'm like any trained animal seeking a treat. A great strategy for success in life is to become good at something, anything, and let that feeling propel you to new and better victories. Success can be habit-forming.

Athletes are known to stop shaving for the duration of a tournament or to wear socks they deem lucky. These superstitions probably help in some small way to bolster their confidence, which in turn can influence success. It's irrelevant that lucky socks aren't a real thing. The socks can still improve an athlete's performance, even if the wearer has a flawed idea of why.

I'm not too proud to admit that given a choice between saying what's true and saying what's funny, I'll take the path with the greatest entertainment value.

This Is Just Between You and Me Research shows that people will automatically label you a friend if you share a secret.3 Sharing a confidence is a fast-track way to cause people to like and trust you. The trick is to reveal a secret that isn't a dangerous one. Wrong: "I buried my boss in the backyard." Right: "I probably shouldn't admit this, but every time Jane serves her dip I only pretend to like it because everyone else says it's to die for." The right approach to sharing a secret is to start small. Make sure the small secrets stay secret before you try anything riskier. One way to judge your risk is to be alert for other people's secrets that are being relayed to you. Someone who is bad at keeping one kind of secret is probably bad at keeping all secrets. You won't be exempt.

I credit one of my college friends with teaching me the secret of overcoming shyness by imagining you are acting instead of interacting. And by that I mean literally acting. It turns out that a shy person can act like someone else more easily than he can act like himself. That makes some sense because shyness is caused by an internal feeling that you are not worthy to be in the conversation. Acting like someone else gets you out of that way of thinking.

If you want to make a habit of something, the worst thing you can do is pick and choose which days of the week you do it and which ones you don't. Exercise becomes a habit when you do it every day without fail. Taking rest days between exercise days breaks up the pattern that creates habits. It also makes it too easy to say today is one of your nonexercise days, and maybe tomorrow too.

The Six Filters for Truth Personal experience (Human perceptions are iffy.) Experience of people you know (Even more unreliable.) Experts (They work for money, not truth.) Scientific studies (Correlation is not causation.) Common sense (A good way to be mistaken with complete confidence.) Pattern recognition (Patterns, coincidence, and personal bias look alike.)

The model for success I described here looks roughly like this: Focus on your diet first and get that right so you have enough energy to want to exercise. Exercise will further improve your energy, and that in turn will make you more productive, more creative, more positive, more socially desirable, and more able to handle life's little bumps.

Science has demonstrated that humans have a limited supply of willpower.3 If you use up your supply resisting one temptation, it limits your ability to resist others. Struggling to do anything has a steep price because you don't want to use up your willpower and energy on something as unimportant as staying away from the candy drawer. You might need your willpower later for something more substantial. What you need is a diet system that doesn't rely on willpower. And that means reprogramming your food preferences so willpower is less necessary. I'll explain how to do that in a minute.

Likewise, it's a good idea to dedicate certain sitting positions and certain work spaces to work and other spaces to relaxation or play. That makes your physical environment a sort of user interface for your brain, and it becomes a way to manipulate your energy levels and concentration. To change how you feel, and how you think, you can simply change where you are sitting.

Exercise has two very different benefits that are hard to untangle. The exercise itself releases natural pain-relieving substances, endorphins,3 and that gives you a direct feeling of well-being. But exercise is also a mental escape from whatever was stressing you before you laced your athletic shoes. That's why I recommend forms of exercises that occupy your mind at the same time as your muscles.

If your view of the world is that people use reason for their important decisions, you are setting yourself up for a life of frustration and confusion. You'll find yourself continually debating people and never winning except in your own mind. Few things are as destructive and limiting as a worldview that assumes people are mostly rational.

In our messy, flawed lives, the nearest we can get to truth is consistency. Consistency is the bedrock of the scientific method. Scientists creep up on the truth by performing controlled experiments and attempting to observe consistent results. In your everyday, nonscientist life you do the same thing, but it's not as impressive, nor as reliable. For example, if every time you eat popcorn, one hour later you fart so hard that it inflates your socks, you can reasonably assume popcorn makes you gassy. It's not science, but it's still an entirely useful pattern. Consistency is the best marker of truth that we have, imperfect though it may be.

People who appear outgoing are usually employing a learned social skill that you think is somehow natural. It probably isn't, at least not entirely. Outgoing people usually come from families with at least one outgoing parent. They observe and imitate. Being outgoing is partly genetic, but you still need to know what to say when. That part is learned. And the good news is that you can learn it too. Observe outgoing people and steal their little tricks if you can. I've been doing that for years. It works great.

Another possible reason that affirmations appear to work is that optimists tend to notice opportunities that pessimists miss.1 A person who diligently writes affirmations day after day is the very definition of an optimist, even if only by actions. Any form of positive thinking, prayer, or the like, would presumably put a person in a more optimistic mind-set. And because optimists have been shown in studies to notice more opportunities than pessimists, the result can look like luck.

One of the best pieces of advice I've ever heard goes something like this: If you want success, figure out the price, then pay it. It sounds trivial and obvious, but if you unpack the idea it has extraordinary power.

If you take a human from a remote tribe where no one has ever heard of a thing called swimming, and you throw him in the ocean, he'll probably panic and drown. Swimming isn't entirely natural to humans. We need to learn it. Luckily, we humans learn to swim fairly easily with a little practice.

I Just Wanted to Clarify ... Sometimes you hear statements that are so mind-numbingly stupid, evil, or mean that you know a direct frontal assault would only start a fight. People tend to double down when challenged, no matter how wrong they are. A more effective way to approach a dangerous social or business situation is sideways, by asking a question that starts with "I just wanted to clarify ..." That approach might look like this: "I just wanted to clarify: Are you saying you're okay with an 80 percent chance of going to jail, or did I hear your plan wrong?"

Let's start by defining happiness and agreeing on what causes it. My definition of happiness is that it's a feeling you get when your body chemistry is producing pleasant sensations in your mind. That definition is compatible with the science of happiness. ... The big part--the 80 percent of happiness--is nothing but a chemistry experiment. And it's hugely helpful to think of it that way. You can't always quickly fix whatever is wrong in your environment, and you can't prevent negative thoughts from drifting into your head. But you can easily control your body chemistry through lifestyle, and that in turn will cause your thoughts to turn positive, while making the bumps in your path feel less important. Let's get to the mechanics of manipulating your body chemistry.

Books about success can be somewhat useful. But for marketing reasons, a typical book is focused on a single topic to make it easier to sell and packed with filler to get the page count up. No one has time to sort through that much filler.

When you take a photograph, you can use the same concept. Instead of centering the person in the pictures, adjust your field until the person is one side of the L and the ground is the bottom. The less-busy quadrant might be some landscape or the sunset. When you design a PowerPoint slide or a Web page, it's the same idea. You leave one quadrant less busy than the rest. Skim through any well-designed magazine and you'll see the L design in 80 percent of the art and photography. The other 20 percent will be some special cases that I won't go into here. I'm only trying to convince you of the importance of design and the ease with which you can pick up the main idea. Learn just a few design tricks and people will think you're smarter without knowing exactly why.

All of this was possible because I had access to a smart friend who told me how to find the simple entry point into the speaking circuit. All I needed to do was overprice myself and see what happened. As simple as that sounds in retrospect, I doubt I would have taken that path on my own. I think I would have politely declined the invitation.

The biggest component of luck is timing. When the universe and I have been on a compatible schedule--entirely by chance--things have worked out swimmingly. When my timing has been off, no amount of hard work or talent has mattered.

For example, scientists know that your brain triggers the hunger sensation and hunger hormones like leptin and ghrelin when you don't get enough sleep.6 The next time you have one of those days when you can't eat enough to satisfy your hunger, ask yourself how much sleep you got the night before. You'll be surprised at how often a bad night of sleep leads to nonstop eating.

Cleaning and organizing your space is boring work, and you might never see it as a priority. One trick I've learned is that I automatically generate enthusiasm about tidying up if I know someone is stopping by. That's why it's a good idea to invite people over on a regular basis. It will inspire you to keep your space straightened up, and that might in turn cause your mind to have a bit more energy.

Here's what I do when I know I should exercise but I feel too tired and droopy to imagine doing a vigorous workout. Instead of doing what I feel I can't do, I do what I can do--which is put on my exercise clothes and lace my sneakers. (You might call them tennis shoes or running shoes where you live.) Central to my method is that I grant myself 100 percent permission to not exercise, even after getting suited up for it. This is important because I know I won't take the first step of donning my exercise clothes if I feel it will commit me to something that just seems impossible in my current frame of mind.

If you look at your life from some distance, you can see that today is a lot like yesterday, and tomorrow won't be that different either. Our lives stay roughly the same, while our moods can swing wildly. My proposition, which I invite you to be skeptical about, is that one of the primary factors in determining your energy level, and therefore your mood, is what you've eaten recently.

I'll paraphrase the Dale Carnegie question stack as best I remember it. It goes something like this: What's your name? Where do you live? Do you have a family? What do you do for a living? Do you have any hobbies/sports? Do you have any travel plans?

Business writing also teaches that brains are wired to better understand concepts that are presented in a certain order. For example, your brain processes "The boy hit the ball" more easily than "The ball was hit by the boy." In editors' jargon, the first sentence is direct writing and the second is passive. It's a tiny difference, but over the course of an entire document, passive writing adds up and causes reader fatigue.

Passion can also be a simple marker for talent. We humans tend to enjoy doing things we are good at, while not enjoying things we suck at. We're also fairly good at predicting what we might be good at before we try. I was passionate about tennis the first day I picked up a racket, and I've played all my life. But I also knew in an instant that it was the type of thing I could be good at, unlike basketball or football. So sometimes passion is simply a by-product of knowing you will be good at something.

food-is-mood

Simplifying is generally the strategy of people who view the world in terms of systems. The best systems are simple, and for good reason.

The second thing I learned on that flight--or confirmed, really--is that appearance matters. By the end of the flight, the CEO had handed me his card and almost guaranteed me a job at his company if I wanted it. Had I boarded the flight wearing my ratty jeans, threadbare T-shirt, and worn-out sneakers, things would have gone differently.

Theory Versus Hypothesis Nonscientists often use the word "theory" when they should say "hypothesis." Without getting too technical, a theory is a scientific explanation of reality that is so well tested that it is as good as a fact. The correct term for an unproven and untested explanation is "hypothesis." For example, I think it is possible that humans are the result of aliens seeding Earth with life that evolved over millions of years. I have no evidence for that idea, so it's merely a hypothesis. In conversations with friends I might call it a theory. If I blog about it, I'll play it safe and try to remember to call it a hypothesis. I've probably had more complaints about my inappropriate use of the word "theory" than any other thing I've done to anger the public, and that's a long list.

For our purposes, let's say a goal is a specific objective that you either achieve or don't sometime in the future. A system is something you do on a regular basis that increases your odds of happiness in the long run. If you do something every day, it's a system. If you're waiting to achieve it someday in the future, it's a goal.

Persuasive Words and Phrases Because Would you mind ... ? I'm not interested. I don't do that. I have a rule ... I just wanted to clarify ... Is there anything you can do for me? Thank you This is just between you and me.

Is There Anything You Can Do for Me? We all find ourselves in situations where an organization or person is preventing us from achieving whatever it is that we perceive as just and fair. Perhaps a retail store is refusing to take a return item, or you purchased the wrong model and the one you want is out of stock. You need to persuade someone to go above and beyond the rules to make you happy.

I don't trust the science behind the vegetarian movement because the believers have agendas beyond nutrition. Some vegetarians are in the lifestyle to protect animals, some want to address climate change, and all are partially blinded by the cognitive dissonance that comes automatically with any lifestyle choice.

If you've read my blog, you know I'm fascinated by the possibility that we humans are nothing but holograms living in a computer simulation. It sounds ludicrous when you first hear the idea, but the math is oddly compelling. Consider what we humans would do a thousand years from now if we knew an asteroid was heading our way and there was no escape. I think we'd upload our personalities to computers, perhaps with our DNA information as part of the code, and launch the computers into space so our culture, memories, and minds could live forever. Now for the math: If you pick any point in time, there will be infinitely more time transpiring after that time than before, assuming the big bang marks the start of time. So if you believe humans will someday be on the brink of extinction for any reason, there is a vastly greater chance we are already the simulations left behind.

There are several things to learn from that story. The most important is the transformative power of praise versus the corrosive impact of criticism. I've had a number of occasions since then to test the powers of praise, and I find it an amazing force, especially for adults. Children are accustomed to a continual stream of criticisms and praise, but adults can go weeks without a compliment while enduring criticism both at work and at home. Adults are starved for a kind word. When you understand the power of honest praise (as opposed to bullshitting, flattery, and sucking up), you realize that withholding it borders on immoral. If you see something that impresses you, a decent respect to humanity insists you voice your praise.

I'm delighted to admit that I've failed at more challenges than anyone I know. There's a nonzero chance that reading this book will set you on the path of your own magnificent screwups and cavernous disappointments. You're welcome! And if I forgot to mention it earlier, that's exactly where you want to be: steeped to your eyebrows in failure. It's a good place to be because failure is where success likes to hide in plain sight. Everything you want out of life is in that huge, bubbling vat of failure. The trick is to get the good stuff out.

I think everyone should learn how to tell a funny story. I don't think people realize that storytelling is a learnable skill and not a genetic gift. Once you know the parts that compose any good story, you have all you need to sculpt your own out of your everyday experiences. The most important key to good storytelling is preparation. You don't want to figure out your story as you tell it. If something story-worthy happens to you, spend some time developing the story structure in your head--a structure I will explain in a minute--and practice telling the story in your head until you have it down.

Public speaking Psychology Business writing Accounting Design (the basics) Conversation Overcoming shyness Second language Golf Proper grammar Persuasion Technology (hobby level) Proper voice technique

"Wow. That was brave," is the best and cleanest example I've seen in which looking at something in a different way changes everything. When the instructor switched our focus from the student's poor speaking performance to her bravery, everything changed. Positivity is far more than a mental preference. It changes your brain, literally, and it changes the people around you. It's the nearest thing we have to magic.

And so I was the first person in the world to cure a focal dystonia, at least as far as I know. It's entirely possible that I'm wrong about that, since I can't know what everyone else is doing or what worked for them. Still, it was an unlikely result. I went back to drawing right-handed, paced myself, and didn't have a problem again for years. My hand doctor said I'm part of the literature on this topic now, although my name is not mentioned.

There are several flavors of Dale Carnegie courses.

Find me a normal person and I'll show you someone you don't know that well. It helps to remind yourself that your own flaws aren't that bad compared with everyone else's.

When writing a resume, a handy trick you'll learn from experts is to ask yourself if there are any words in your first draft that you would be willing to remove for one hundred dollars each. Here's the simple formula: Each Unnecessary Word = $100 When you apply the formula to your resume, you surprise yourself by how well the formula helps you prune your writing to its most essential form.

Sleep experts will tell you that the worst place to watch television is in bed. If you do it often enough, you won't be able to fall asleep without watching television first. Watching a thought-provoking or emotion-grabbing television show is a bad way to relax into your evening snooze. A better approach is to use your bed for sex and sleeping and nothing else.

If you find yourself in a state of continual failure in your personal or business life, you might be blaming it on fate or karma or animal spirits or some other form of magic when the answer is simple math. There's usually a pattern, but it might be subtle. Don't stop looking just because you don't see the pattern in the first seven years.

For me, shopping is an energy killer. The moment I walk into a busy store, I feel the energy drain from my body. The exhaustion starts as a mental thing, but within minutes I feel as if my body had been through a marathon. Shopping is simply exhausting for me. Your situation might be different. For some people, shopping is a high. It boosts energy. So using my example, a person like me should seek to minimize shopping (and I do), while a person who gets a buzz from it should indulge, so long as it doesn't take too much away from other priorities in life.

Once exercise becomes habitual, you won't need willpower to keep going because your body and brain will simply prefer it to being a couch spud. And your natural inclination for variety will drive you to do more stuff over time.

Today when I look at a pile of mashed potatoes, I automatically associate it with feeling crappy in an hour. And if that isn't enough to keep the fork out of my hand, I give myself permission to eat as much as I want of good food instead. The diversion usually works.

also prepare pasta and keep it in the refrigerator, along with veggies steamed in the microwave. When I want something warm and filling, I just mix the veggies and pasta, add some butter, microwave the dish for two minutes, and add pepper and Parmesan cheese. I've learned to use my own laziness in a positive way.

Everything in life is a calculated risk, and I've decided that using salt as much as I want allows me to thoroughly enjoy some healthy foods that I wouldn't otherwise eat. For example, a salted carrot is delicious but an unsalted carrot is like chewing on a stick. Steamed and salted brussels sprouts are one of my favorite foods, but plain brussels sprouts hold no appeal.

Good + Good > Excellent

The system-versus-goals model can be applied to most human endeavors. In the world of dieting, losing twenty pounds is a goal, but eating right is a system. In the exercise realm, running a marathon in under four hours is a goal, but exercising daily is a system. In business, making a million dollars is a goal, but being a serial entrepreneur is a system.

Most important, understand that goals are for losers and systems are for winners. People who seem to have good luck are often the people who have a system that allows luck to find them. I've laid out some systems in this book that seem to work for me. Your experience will differ, but it always helps to be thinking in terms of systems and not goals.

Goal-oriented people exist in a state of continuous presuccess failure at best, and permanent failure at worst if things never work out. Systems people succeed every time they apply their systems, in the sense that they did what they intended to do.

The Success Formula: Every Skill You Acquire Doubles Your Odds of Success

"Hopefully" Most people misuse the word "hopefully." It's bad grammar to say, "Hopefully, she will bring the dessert." "Hopefully" should be an adverb. Say instead, "We waited hopefully for dessert." In the latter case, "hopefully" is correctly modifying the verb "waited." In the first example, hopefully just sits there like the wrong word choice.

Avoid career traps such as pursuing jobs that require you to sell your limited supply of time while preparing you for nothing better.

goals are for losers anyway. It's smarter to see your big-idea projects as part of a system to improve your energy, contacts, and skills. From that viewpoint, if you have a big, interesting project in the works, you're a winner every time you wake up.

Your tastes will differ, so this is just a template to make the point about how many flavors you can enjoy in a healthy diet. Vegetarian Flavors Soy sauce Cilantro Lemon Salt Pepper Butter (or butter substitute) Garlic Onion Curry Cheese Tomato sauce Salsa Vegetable broth Honey Salad dressings Balsamic vinegar Black-bean sauce Hot sauce

We Prefer You Healthy I've never known a man who would prefer an unhealthy-looking woman with movie-star hair over a fit woman with a ponytail. And if I ever do meet that guy, I'll try to avoid him because he sounds like a creep.

I can eat as much as I want of the foods on this list, which I quite enjoy, and I won't gain a pound as long as I stay active. Bananas Protein bars Peanuts Mixed nuts Cheese Whole wheat pasta Edamame (soybeans) Broccoli Cauliflower Brussels sprouts Fish Lettuce Tomatoes Apples Pears Carrots Radishes Cucumbers Quinoa Brown rice Berries

You'll notice that salt and butter are on my list, and you probably associate both of those things with a bad diet. I'd like to make an argument in favor of including copious amounts of both salt and butter in your diet, so long as you're adding them to otherwise healthy food. Here I'll remind you again--because I can't say it too often--to be wary of health ideas from cartoonists. Check with your doctor before you install a salt lick in your living room or start eating butter by the stick.

But sales in the western United States were comatose. I later learned that the salesperson for that region wasn't a fan of Dilbert. So when he went on sales calls he kept the Dilbert sales packet in his briefcase and showed other comics. Then the universe got involved: The salesman had a heart attack and died in a hotel room on the road. His replacement, John Matthews, identified Dilbert as the most sellable comic in United Media's stable. And sell it he did, to every newspaper he visited. John is the best salesman I've ever seen. Had he not been available for the job, or had the original salesman lived, Dilbert might have been a small comic that ran in the Northeast for a few years before fading to obscurity.

The Healthy Eating Summary The Simple, No-Willpower Diet System Pay attention to your energy level after eating certain foods. Find your pattern. Remove unhealthy, energy-draining food from your home. Stock up on convenient healthy food (e.g., apples, nuts, bananas) and let laziness be your copilot in eating right. Stop eating foods that create feelings of addiction: white rice, white potatoes, desserts, white bread, fried foods. Eat as much healthy food as you want, whenever you want. Get enough sleep, because tiredness creates the illusion of hunger. If your hunger is caused by tiredness, try healthy foods with fat, such as nuts, avocados, protein bars, and cheese, to suppress the hungry feeling. If you're eating for social reasons only, choose the healthiest options with low calories. Learn how to season your healthy-yet-bland foods.