Adversity -> Fuel

One of the most powerful skills we can develop is turning adversity into fuel.

Fear of public speaking is a perfect example. "Nervousness" is physiologically very similar to excitement. The feeling doesn't change. The meaning we assign to it does.

We think of resilience as enduring hardship. But a more useful definition might be: Convert pressure into power.

Feedback You Can Use

I've created, analyzed, and collected feedback from hundreds of thousands of survey responses throughout my career. One lesson stands out:

If you genuinely care about the feedback and intend to act on it, make it very brief and actionable.

For my performance-based activities like keynote speeches, music, presentations, and workshops, these two questions consistently produce the most valuable, actionable insights:

What resonated most?

What would you change to improve it?

Others Have it Worse

It's one thing to acknowledge how incredibly lucky most of us are. If you're reading this, it's likely that you are living a better life than the King of France did a hundred years ago.

But feeling guilty about your physical or emotional pain because others have it worse is like having guilt over the joy you feel because others have it much better than you.

Whatever difficulty that's happening in your life is, it's still the center of your well-being and it's okay to acknowledge it.