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 »
I’ve been fighting a head cold all week. That means I’ve had various Queen personas: the Nap Queen, the Cough Queen, and the Sneezing Queen. I hope I am in my final iteration of being a Cough Queen because I have things I want to accomplish. That feeling of being pulled away from my objectives
How Can We Find Ways to Escape Our Various Undertows? Read More »
This is Johanna Rothman’s April 2025 Create an Adaptable Life Newsletter. The Unsubscribe link is at the bottom of this newsletter. The world is in chaos. In the past, I’ve tried some small probes to find a transforming idea and then see if that idea will work. Those probes are one way of gathering more
How Can We Change Our Bias for Action to Gathering More Information? Read More »
Do you feel as if the world is so complex that you need to somehow make it simpler—just to decide what to do next? If so, you are not alone. However, making things simpler is often not enough. Instead, we need to bring more critical thinking skills to bear on the various problems. We have
How Can We Embrace Complexity Thinking Instead of Wishing for Simple Solutions? 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 »
This is Johanna Rothman’s March 2025 Create an Adaptable Life Newsletter. The Unsubscribe link is at the bottom of this newsletter. Dave (not his real name) asked me this question: “How do you know when you have to quit? Or retire? Is it when you’re no longer on the top of your game?” (Being at
How Do You Know When You’re No Longer On Top of Your Game? 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 »
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 »
I’m slightly obsessed with making the most of my days. I have grand ambitions and goals that each require enough time to fulfill. Mine include books to write, places to go, and interesting people to work with. While I have no family “goals,” I want to spend enough time with them that they enjoy me—and
How Can We Know When the Direct Path will Take Longer and Be Less Effective? Read More »
We moved into this house ten years ago, so Things Are Breaking. Our garage door sounded sick a couple of months ago, but I’ve learned to wait until the spring breaks before fixing it. The Last Responsible Moment for fixing occurs after the spring breaks. (Very few garage door people will replace the spring before
When Do We Realize the Last Responsible Moment Whooshed By? Read More »