On George Floyd, and the meaning of the word “Mama”: What does it mean that his last words were to call out for his mother? It means that he was desperate, that he needed her; this is what many of us do with our last breaths, whether we’re soldiers in…

This post is very personal, but it has a larger point too. My father was a gastroenterologist and medical school professor in New York City. …

“How did your mother teach you to dream, and how do you hope to teach your children to dream?” For Mother’s Day, Whitney Johnson, a venture capitalist and popular Harvard Business Reviewblogger, challenged me to answer these questions. …

Isn’t it strange how deeply we mistrust quiet these days even though silence and solitude are widely held values in most mythological and spiritual traditions? Here’s one of my favorite examples: the biblical story of Elijah. Elijah the Prophet is running for his life. He’s just destroyed a cult run…

I met some really incredible people at TED conferences I attended, and Rabbi David Wolpe was one of them. Here he is on the power of solitude: When he was a child, the Seer of Lublin (later a famous Hasidic master) used to go off into the woods by himself…

The following is a guest post from Jessica Tom, author of the novel FOOD WHORE: A Novel of Dining & Deceit. Here she writes about the challenge of creating an introverted protagonist. Jessica describes herself as a non-anxious introvert. Find her at www.jessicatom.com and on Twitter @jessica_tom. In so many…

Hi everyone! Here’s a guest post from the insightful Ben Dattner, of Dattner Consulting, and author ofThe Blame Game — a book on how organizations can harness the strengths of their introverted employees. Do you have other ideas to add? I would love to hear them. In the meantime, here’s…

Have you ever wished you could eradicate the ums and ahs right out of your conversation and especially your public presentations? Turns out those verbal fillers may play an important role in establishing trust, according to this Slate magazine article by Michael Erard: “…’uh’ and ‘um’ don’t deserve eradication; there’s…

One of the steps in my Year of Speaking Dangerously was to make an appointment with the lovely Gina Barnett, a respected consultant who works with many CEOs and TED speakers. Gina is a former actor and playwright, whose goal is to teach non-actors what actors know about the body…