This is Johanna Rothman’s September 2025 Create an Adaptable Life Newsletter. The unsubscribe link is at the bottom of this email. Do you like uncertainty? I don’t, and I’m not alone. That’s because uncertainty feels as if it’s an unmanageable risk. We even have sayings such as, “Don’t rock the boat,” to explain why we […]
How Would You Act if You Optimized for Uncertainty to Gain More Resilience? Read More »
This week, two things occurred that made me wonder about resilience and how that can help us be more effective. The first was a conversation with academics about the state of the 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds in college. Because of the pandemic, they spent a couple of formative years isolated at home. The academics claim
How Can We See Where More Resilience Can Help Us Be More Effective? Read More »
I recently learned about three kinds of fun on a scale: Type 1 Fun, where the thing you do, this current experience, is fun right now. Type 2 Fun, where you thought this thing would be fun, but you get frustrated and possibly miserable as you go through it. Only in retrospect, when you see
How Can More Type 2 Fun Offer You More Resilience? Read More »
Every day, my inbox is overflowing with people who want to sell me something. I suspect you have the same problem. These sellers do not realize that the relationship comes first, then the sale. Worse, without the relationship, I will never buy from them. Do they realize that? I suspect not. Regardless of what you
How Early in a New Relationship Can You Offer Useful Value? Read More »
By the time we start school, most of us have heard the word “no” a lot. Parents tell children not to do unsafe things—a form of rejection. Most of us learn from these rejections and decide what to do next. In school, we experience a ton of rejection. As a short child with zero athletic
When Can Rejection Help Us Create a Better Life? Read More »
In last week’s question, How Do You Manage to Want to Keep Learning?, my last option was to sleep on the learning to reinforce what we learned. So an eagle-eyed reader asked this question: How do you force yourself to take that rest? (No one can continue to burn the candle at both ends—that’s not
How Do You Manage to Force Yourself to Take a Rest? Read More »
Warning: This is not my normal question of the week. This post is all about swearing. And I will link to NSFW media. Proceed at your own risk. Now, for the good stuff—swearing. I have rules about swearing: never in front of a microphone and preferably in private when I’m alone. I do have an
At Least Three Ways Swearing Is Actually Good For You Read More »
Regardless of where you are on the political spectrum, the US appears to be in chaos. I’m not even going to try to list everything, because that list would be out of date even before I publish this post. Let’s agree on this: Life is full of change. Sometimes, it’s change we want. Sometimes, it’s
How Do You Manage When “Everything” Is In Chaos? Read More »
This is Johanna Rothman’s January 2025 Create an Adaptable Life Newsletter. The unsubscribe link is at the bottom of this email. In general, I like structure in much of my life. I eat the same (or very similar) breakfasts and lunches every day. I extend that structure to my clothing. If you watch my YouTube
How Do Rules or Structure Help You Decide Which Decisions to Make? Read More »
We’ve all had terrible disappointments in our lives, personal, professional, and societal. Somehow, most of us find ways to live with the personal disappointments. I’m not going to discuss those because I’m not a therapist. Professionally, I’ve experienced several project-based disappointments. We either didn’t deliver what the customer wanted or we didn’t deliver it when
How to Acknowledge Our Disappointment and Decide How to Restart Read More »