A very useful book by Greg Harden on how to Stay Sane in an Insane World

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a very useful book from 2023 by Greg Harden titled Stay Sane in an Insane World: How to control the controllables and thrive. The book jacket blub says that:

 

Greg Harden is a Peak Performance Coach, motivational speaker, and executive consultant who is best known for his work with seven-time Super Bowl champion quarterback Tom Brady. He also worked with Heisman Trophy and Super Bowl MVP Desmond Howard, and twenty-three time Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps.”

 

One brief chapter is:

 

CHAPTER 32 FACING THE CHALLENGE OF PUBLIC SPEAKING (pages 176 and 177)

 

“What if I told you, you’re going to stand up in front of five hundred people tomorrow, and you’re going to speak to them for twenty minutes?

 

What are you feeling right now?

 

Are you sweating? Are your hands shaking? Do you have to change your pants?

 

The fancy Latin term for fear of public speaking is glossophobia, and I read somewhere that three out of four people suffer from it. So you’re not alone! But at some point in your life, you’re probably going to have to face it. And I have some concrete ideas to make it a lot easier.

 

Leah Robertson, a water polo player at Michigan had maybe the worst case of glossophobia I’ve ever seen. She was tall, attractive, and athletic, mind you – one of the best players on the team and an all-around fantastic person. But the thought of standing up in front of an audience at the end of the season was giving her nightmares.

 

The first thing I told her was that she needed to expect the demons of fear and self-doubt to show up that night. She wouldn’t be human if they didn’t.

 

And because those demons are predictable, they are therefore manageable. (I think you’ve probably heard me say this before.)

 

‘Expect them,’ I said, ‘and in fact embrace them. Shake their hands, tell them they’re a little late, tell them you don’t have time for them no. They can have a seat and you’ll be back with them when you’re done.’

 

Because, of course that’s what real courage is. Not the absence of fear, but proceeding with your business despite fear (‘Chapter 25: Fear, Courage, and ‘Buck Fever’).

 

Ultimately the challenge really has nothing to do with the audience at all. There’s probably nobody out there with a weapon to hurt you. In fact, every single person in that room wants you to do well. The challenge is completely inside your own head.

 

Which mean what?

It’s the one thing you can control.

CONTROL THE CONTROLLABLES.

 

If you need help doing that, here’s the best tip I can give you: Make sure that you have the first two minutes of what you’re going to say completely memorized, forward and backward. Own that first two minutes. Prepare it; learn it; practice it obsessively until it’s a part of you. Until you can recite it standing on your head.

 

Now, when you begin, you’ll have those first two minutes down cold. You’ll be flying on autopilot for 120 seconds. And you’ll see an amazing thing happen during that time:

 

You’ll relax. You’ll ease into yourself. You’ll see that the people in the room are with you, not against you.

 

(And then the next time you get up to speak inn front of a group of people, it’ll get even easier!)

 

Leah Robertson got up in front of that audience at the end of the season and sailed through those first two minutes, and then kept going. She’s a business owner now. She does public speaking all the time and never thinks twice about it.

 

Try this technique the next time you’re faced with the same challenge, and I am confident you’ll nail it!”

 

There is a succinct summary in the next-to-last chapter:

 

“CHAPTER 36  PLEASE REMEMBER THESE SEVEN THINGS (pages 188 and 89)

 

“I read in a psychology textbook that the human mind has just enough short-term memory to easily remember seven things, so as I near the close of this book, I’m going to give you exactly seven things to remember:

 

BECOME THE WORLD’S GREATEST EXPERT ON YOURSELF, so that you can become the very best version of yourself.

 

CONTROL THE CONTROLLABLES. Never forget that you are the only person who has control over your own mind – over your thoughts and ultimately over your feelings.

 

PRACTICE, TRAIN, AND REHEARSE giving 100 percent, 100 percent of the time. Because if you make this your mindset, then on your absolutely worst day, you’re still going to be better than the average person on their best day.

 

COMMIT, IMPROVE, MAINTAIN. Commit, right now, to improving your life. Make the changes, one at a time. Consistently maintain those changes, every single day.

 

STOP BEING AFRAID OF BEING AFRAID. The demons of fear and self-doubt are predictable, therefore manageable. Fear is a part of being human, and courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is facing fear.

 

PRACTICE SELF-LOVE AND SELF-ACCEPTANCE. They are the keys to replacing self-defeating attitudes and behaviors with self-supporting attitudes and behaviors.”

 

BECOME THE VERY BEST FRIEND YOU EVER HAD IN YOUR LIFE, because your very best friend has to be you.”  

 

The cartoon of madness was adapted from OpenClipArt.

 

 

Reaching my limit for meetings

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a Savage Chickens cartoon by Doug Savage on September 4, 2026 titled My Limit and shown above. I previously blogged about two other cartoons of his on meetings: one on November 15, 2024 in a post titled Getting an award for surviving the most boring meeting ever and another on July 14, 2025 in a post titled Please don’t snore when you fall asleep at a meeting.

 

Seriously, there is some advice on meetings given by brief articles at Nonprofit World magazine. One by Erika Oliver on page 21 of the January/February 2012 issue is titled It’s Not Over till It’s Over: Five Strategies to Improve Your Meetings. A second by Steven G. Rogelberg on pages 18 and 19 of the March 2023 issue is titled The Surprising Science of Meetings. A third by Rick Horwath on pages 10 and 11 of the October/November/December 2024 issue is titled Follow These Steps for Better Meetings.

 

 

Whoever tells the best story wins

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a useful 2023 book by Morgan Housel titled Same as Ever: A guide to what never changes. Google Books has a preview through page 18 and pages 21 to 25.

 

The first page about its contents is titled 23 Little Stories about Things That Never Change, and those stories and their starting pages are:

 

Introduction

The Little Laws of Life.  1

 

Hanging by a Thread

If you know where we’ve been you realize we have no idea where we’re going.  5

 

Risk Is What You Don’t See

We are very good at predicting the future, except for the surprises – which tend to be all that matters.  16

 

Expectations and Reality

The first rule of happiness is low expectations.  25

 

Wild Minds

People who think about the world in unique ways you like also think about the world in unique ways you won’t like.  36

 

Wild Numbers

People don’t want accuracy. They want certainty.  44

 

Best Story Wins

Stories are always more powerful than statistics.  56

 

Does Not Compute

The world is driven by forces that cannot be measured.  67

 

Calm Plants the Seeds of Crazy

Crazy doesn’t mean broken. Crazy is normal; beyond the point of crazy is normal.  78

 

Too Much, Too Soon, Too Fast

A good idea on steroids quickly becomes a terrible idea.  88

 

When the Magic Happens

Stress focuses your attention in ways that good times can’t.  96

 

Overnight Tragedies and Long-Term Miracles

Good news comes from compounding, which always takes time, but bad news comes from a loss in confidence or a catastrophic error that can occur in a blink of an eye.  109

 

Tiny and Magnificent

When little things compound into extraordinary things.  115

 

Elation and Despair

Progress requires optimism and pessimism to coexist.  122

 

Casualties of Perfection

There is a huge advantage to being a little imperfect. 129

 

It’s Supposed to Be Hard

Everything worth pursuing comes with a little pain. The trick is not minding that it hurts.  136

 

Keep Running

Most competitive advantages eventually die.  144

 

The Wonders of the Future

It always feels like we’re falling behind, and it’s easy to discount the potential of new technology.  152

 

Harder Than It Looks and Not as Fun as It Seems

‘The grass is always greener on the side that’s fertilized with bullshit.’  159

 

Incentives: The Most Powerful Force in the World

When the incentives are crazy, the behavior is crazy. People can be led to justify and defend nearly anything.  164

 

Now You Get It

Nothing is more persuasive than what you’ve experienced firsthand.  171

 

Time Horizons

Saying ‘I’m in it for the long run’ is a bit like standing at the base of Mount Everest, pointing to the top, and saying, ‘That’s where I’m heading.’ Well, that’s nice. Now comes the test.  178

 

Trying Too Hard

There are no points awarded for difficulty.  184

 

Wounds Heal, Scars Last

What have you experienced that I haven’t that makes you believe what you do? And would I think about the world like you do if I experienced what you have? 192

 

Chapter 6, Best Story Wins, says on page 56:

 

“The best story wins.

 

Not the best idea, or the right idea, or the most rational idea. Just whoever tells a story that catches people’s attention and gets them to nod their heads is the one who tends to be rewarded.

 

Great ideas explained poorly can go nowhere, while old or wrong ideas told compellingly can ignite a revolution. Morgan Freeman can narrate a grocery list and bring people to tears, while an inarticulate scientist might cure a disease and go unnoticed.

 

There is too much information in the world for everyone to calmly sift through the data, looking for the most rational, most correct answer. People are busy and emotional, and a good story is always more powerful and persuasive than ice-cold statistics.

 

If you have the right answer, you may or may not get ahead.

 

If you have the wrong answer, but you’re a good storyteller, you’ll probably get ahead (for a while).

 

If you have the right answer, and you’re a good storyteller, you’ll almost certainly

get ahead.

 

That’s always been true, always will be true, and it shows up in so many areas of history.

 

[and on page 63]…When a topic is complex, stories are like leverage.

 

Leverage squeezes the full potential out of something with less effort. Stories leverage ideas in the same way that debt leverages assets.

 

Trying to explain something like physics is hard if you’re deadlifting facts and formulas. But if you can explain things like how fire works with a story about balls rolling down hills and running into one another – that’s what physicist Richard Feynman, an astonishing storyteller, used to do – you can explain something complex in seconds, without much effort.

 

Stories do more than persuade others. They can help you just as much. Part of what made Albert Einstein so talented was his imagination and ability to distill complexity into a simple scene in his head. When he was sixteen he started imagining what it would be like to ride on a beam of light, holding onto the sides like a flying carpet and thinking through how it would travel and bend. Soon after, he imagined what your body would feel like if you were in an enclosed elevator riding through space. He contemplated gravity by imagining bowling balls and billiard balls competing for space on a trampoline surface. He could process a textbook of information with the effort of a daydream.

 

Ken Burns once said, ‘The common stories are one plus one equals two. We get it, they make sense. But good stories are about one plus one equals three.’ That’s leverage.”

 

An 1856 painting by Vincenzo Cabianca of a Napoleonic Legionnaire was cropped from Wikimedia Commons.  

 

 

Africa’s true size is shown in a new world map adopted by the United Nations

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A map has limitations. For instance, there is the Mercator projection shown above that has Africa being similar in size to Greenland, but the continent really has an area 14 times larger than the Danish territory. A Wikipedia page says:

 

“The Mercator projection (/mərˈkeɪtər/) is a conformal cylindrical map projection first presented by Flemish geographer and mapmaker Gerardus Mercator in 1569. In the 18th century, it became the standard map projection for navigation due to its property of representing rhumb lines as straight lines. When applied to world maps, the Mercator projection inflates the size of lands the farther they are from the equator. Therefore, landmasses such as Greenland and Antarctica appear far larger than they actually are relative to landmasses near the equator.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an article by Mariamne Everett at ALJAZEERA on September 4, 2026 titled UN votes to adopt a new world map that reflects Africa’s true size, as is shown above:

 

“The resolution, put forward by African Union (AU) member states and the Bahamas, was backed by a vote of 164-1 with six abstentions.

 

… The United States – the only country to vote against the resolution – said it promoted an ‘ideological agenda’ and was a distraction from the ‘genuine problems of international peace, prosperity or good relations.’ ”

 

The U.S. whining equally well could apply to renaming Lake Ontario. I blogged about it on August 28, 2026 in a post titled Why did Donald Trump rename Lake Ontario, whose area is the smallest of the five Great Lakes, to Lake America?

 

World map images of a Mercator projection and equal area were adapted from Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

Joyful Anyway is a 2026 book by Kate Bowler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a 2026 book by Kate Bowler titled Joyful Anyway. Google Books has a preview of it. On page 155 she has a Venn diagram for Joy from Hope, Gratitude, and Delight overlapping, as is shown above via a colorized version.

 

On page 156 in Chapter 28 she says:

 

“Joy (According to Researchers)

 

1] Joy is uncontrollable. It ranks lowest out of emotions in its ability to be yanked into your life by sheer force of will.

 

2] Joy is not the same thing as gratitude, exactly, but grateful people are more likely to experience it. And it will make you grateful in the end.

 

3] Joy is random. You can get used to happiness (see also hedonic treadmill), but you can’t get used to joy. Because you can’t get used to a surprise.

 

4] Joy might be random, but it doesn’t mean we can’t be more prepared. Theologian Karl Barth wrote that we should hold ourselves ‘in readiness for joy,’ On your mark..get set..joy.

 

5] You can almost make joy a character trait. Not quite, because joy is nit permanent. But you can become a more and more joyful person. Wouldn’t that be lovely?

 

6] Joy will make us hopeful. A joyful person will have the ability to see possibilities and grace and even the redemption of things that feel completely ruined.

 

7] Joy will delight the crap out of us, If you’re not dlighted, it’s not joy. It’s probably indigestion.

 

8] If we want to know if it’s joy we should look for feelings of (a) harmony, (b) aliveness, (c) transcendence, and (d) unselfconsciousness.

 

9] Joy can be easier and easier to experience. We just have to practice.”

 

And on page 215 in Chapter 40 she says:

 

“Ways to (Almost) Guarantee Joy for No Reason

 

Welcome to what my sister Maria calls No Reason Season. Congratulations! You are getting off the superhighways of efficiency! You are saying ‘No!’ to usefulness! Stop sprinting toward self-mastery and have some experiences that are not for any reason except your delight.

 

1} Host a taste-test party. It can be for anything – ketchup, generic colas, best vanilla ice cream, fast-food French fries. Remove the labels and have everyone rank their favorites.

 

2} Pretend you are in a sitcom the next time you meet a stranger. Life is much funnier if you imagine a laugh track playing in the background.

 

3} Dress as your favorite nineties album cover. Do it solo. Or invite others in on the fun. (secondhand clothing stores have everything you need for time travel.)

 

4} Make up weirdly specific songs about your pet. Or sing seventies love ballads to them, inserting their names: ‘Hold me closer, Tiny Hazelnut!’

 

5} Wear your most sparkly outfit to your next appointment or meeting. Declare it is Sequin Friday or Sparkle Tuesday and be surprised other people didn’t get the memo.

 

6} Fold your toilet paper into tiny origami like at a fancy hotel. Bonus points if you can figure out how to make animals out of towels and surprise your roommate with a towel sloth on the counter.

 

7} Keep premade cookie dough in the freezer for any and all occasions. Sprinkle a little salt on the top because who can stop you?

 

8} Pick a walk-up song for everyone in your home or at the office. Play it as they come in, as LOUDLY AS YOU WANT.

 

There is more. There is more. There is more. There is more. (repeated 39 times)”

 

 

Voices of Experience is a worthwhile blog from the National Speakers Association for public speakers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a worthwhile blog at the web site of the National Speakers Association with a web page which is titled VE Voices of Experience ^TM: A Blog for Speakers by Speakers. The superscript TM really is a lie – they abandoned trying to register a US trademark on October 13, 2023. It had been previously described as for educational services, namely, providing non-downloadable podcasts in the field of public speaking to its members. The web page footer adds that:

 

“The content in Voices of Experiences[sic] is written by NSA members, for NSA members. The opinions and representations made within each article do not necessarily reflect the opinions or position of the association itself.”

 

One post at this blog from the well-known speaker Harvey Mackay on February 4, 2026 is titled ABCs of Public Speaking, and it has section headings titled: A is for audience, B is for body language, C is for creativity, etc. There is another post on July 9, 2026 titled Don’t Let Public Speaking Leave You Tongue-Tied and a still another post on September 30, 2025 titled The Art of the Presentation. Mr. Mackay had been discussed on page 18 in the December 1993 issue of Toastmaster magazine in an article titled Meet the Five Outstanding Speakers.

 

On September 2, 2023 I blogged about how The National Speakers Association stopped publishing the free print version of their bimonthly Speaker magazine. The last issue was for January-February 2023.

 

The image of ABC blocks came from OpenClipArt.

 

 

An inspiring 2024 book by Stephen Petrow titled The Joy You Make: Find the silver linings – even on your darkest days

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the Meridian Library I got, via interlibrary loan, an inspiring 2024 book by Stephen Petrow titled The Joy You Make: Find the silver linings – even on your darkest days. There is a Google Books preview up to page 24. It has twenty-eight brief, unnumbered chapters that are titled as follows:

 

01] The Joy of Gratitude                           1  

02] The Joy of Authenticity                      11

03] The Joy of Memory                           22

04] The Joy of Freudenfreude                 31

05] The Joy of Taking a Pause                38

06] The Joy of Solitude                           45

07] The Joy of Cooking                           59

08] The Joy of Getting Lost                     71

09] The Joy of Your Name                      79

10] The Joy of Solidarity                         88

11] The Joy of Blue                               102

12] The Joy of Writing by Hand            110

13] The Joy of Perspective                   118

14] The Joy of the Cancer Ward          127

15] The Joy of Play                              137

16] The Joy of Doing Nothing              146

17] The Joy of Imperfection                 155

18] The Joy of a Christmas Miracle     164

19] The Joy of Being Single                 175

20] The Joy of a Dance Party              184

21] The Joy of the Mundane                191

22] The Joy of Reading                        198

23] The Joy of Sex                                208

24] The Joy of Aging                             219

25] The Joy of Uncertainty                    229

26] The Joy of the Dark                         238

27] The Joy of Julie                               248

28] Epilogue                                          259

 

At the end of Chapter 17 about The Joy of Imperfection, starting on Page 161 he discusses:

 

“Learning to Embrace Your Imperfections

 

It’s so easy, so natural, and so unhelpful to focus on our own flaws. We make mistakes, we don’t have magazine-cover bodies, we haven’t had the career successes that we wanted. Other people’s lives seem perfect, and ours don’t measure up. Just spend five minutes on Instagram, where vacations, parties, pets, homes, and even our friends’ kids appear perfect. Anne Lamott has given this conundrum much thought, writing. ‘Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life.

 

What can we do so we don’t hate what makes us who we are? Even better, to accept and embrace our true selves? And best of all, to learn how to love ourselves the way we are? For sure, there are a lot of New Agey philosophy types out there saying things like ‘You are special just as you are,’ and ‘Your flaws are your strengths in disguise.’ I just don’t know how helpful these mantras are in changing attitudes. Here’s where I chose to start:

 

Make a list of people and things you believe are perfect. Do your neighbors have a neat and well-kept house? Put them on the list. How about your boss and their well-behaved and well-dressed kids? Ditto. What about that Instagram friend who waxes to the moon about a recent vacation? List them all. Rhen, in a second column, write the mirror image of that supposed perfection. That tidy house – with a huge mortgage – maybe it takes hours of cleaning and neatening every week. Guess what? Maybe you don’t want to do that. Your apartment is a little more cluttered, but you have more time to spend on what you want. Stop making comparisons. Understand that your imperfect home may be just right for how you want to live. Do the same for everything and everyone you think of as perfect. What are you learning? Jot it down.

 

Now make a list of things you worry are imperfect about yourself. What are the mirror images of those? Your nose is too small, your ears too large? They are the genetic remnants of your ancestors, handed down to you as reminders that they once lived. You goofed up at work? With any luck, you went through an educational experience, free of charge. Yelled at the kids instead of being a perfect TV sitcom parent? Perhaps you taught them the lesson that even parents have limits (and yourself a lesson in when to take a breath and walk away).    

 

Try to offset a perceived flaw with something that’s positive. For the longest time, I avoided looking at the scar that runs from my breastbone to below my navel (thank you, metastatic cancer). ‘A scar is a physical deformity, it’s a physical difference,’ Jeffrey Marcus, the chief of pediatric plastic surgery at Duke University, explained to me. People too often draw conclusions or make assumptions about attractiveness, intelligence, even capability based on something they see. In my case, I hated that scar so much I’d get dressed in the dark. Over time, as the scar faded along with those frightening memories, what had once been a stark reminder of my illness became something else altogether: a testament to my survival. Reading Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses one afternoon, I stopped in recognition when I came upon this line: ‘Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.’ Or, as Duke’s Jeff Marcus told me, ‘Some differences can be positive, too.’

 

The fact is that life is full of trade-offs, a mix of our own choices and the hand genetics dealt us. We are all creatures of this moment in history, a marvelous soup of traits both good and bad, and we make of it what we can. I hope that once you see your lists, it will become more obvious to you that nobody is perfect. From there, it’s a step or two to realize you’re good enough. And maybe that’s just fine – for now.”

 

The silver-lined cloud image by Christine Matthews came from Wikimedia Commons.