Is the advice “Follow your passion” harmful or, at best, ill-advised? We commonly think of passion as an essential and beneficial emotion that leads to success and fulfillment in life and career. Yet we often find that the same drive, enthusiasm, and zeal that fuels breakthroughs — whether in sports…

Rather than choice, chance, or genetic predetermination, it is childhood adversity that creates the susceptibility for addiction. In early childhood, research on the biology of stress shows how major adversity, such as abandonment, neglect, or abuse (emotional, physical, or sexual), can weaken the architecture of the developing brain and place…

On a typical day, we interact with a wide range of casual acquaintances and strangers (more than a dozen per day), such as neighbors, the barista we run into each morning, the mail carrier, the person checking us out at the grocery store, a fellow dog walker, and other people…

“It takes courage to confront our actions, peel back the layers of trauma in our lives, and expose the raw truth of our past. But this is where the healing begins.” — Oprah Winfrey Most of us revisit the past with reluctance and tend to blame it on other people…

Most people with “severe childhood adversity” are chronically dysregulated When traumatic experiences push us out of balance, our brain activates our body’s stress-response systems to help us. This results in a variety of physiological reactions, including increased heart rate, blood pressure and stress hormones such as cortisol. Most people who…

The founding fathers believed that freedom was one of the three fundamental rights of God, along with life and the pursuit of happiness. These three rights are interrelated: not only does freedom, of course, depend on life, but the pursuit of happiness also depends on freedom. In fact, it is…

“Change is the only constant in life.” — Heraclitus The COVID-19 pandemic is disrupting and reshaping our lives in ways where uncertainty is becoming the new normal. Primary changes include the social and physical disconnection from others, the shifting lines between our professional and personal lives, and the changing nature…

“Delaying adulthood is not new and it is not harmful — if used safely and well” — Adam Gamoran, Ph.D., President, William T. Grant Foundation In recent years, experts and the general public have blamed Millennials and Gen Zers for being uniquely reluctant to grow up. They believe that today’s…

The use of data has now become the world’s greatest business. Approximately $1.4 trillion of Alphabet’s (Google’s owner) and Facebook’s combined market value of $1.9 trillion is generated from users’ data and firms’ mining of it, net of cash, physical and intangible assets and accumulated research and development. They are…