a daily blog on well-being and how to feel better by Mark Barger Elliott…

“You pitch a promise,” said Joy Mangano, inventor of the Miracle Mop, during a Masterclass she teaches. Mangano made 1,000 of these mops herself in 1990, went on the Home Shopping Network, and was an enormous success. The popularity of the mop is attributed to the fact you can wring it without touching the mop…

“Failure resume,” is the wonderful title of a piece comedian Aparna Nancherla wrote in the New Yorker back in August. In the format of a document that would be used to apply for a job, Nancherla listed things she had failed at like – Have missed a huge number of cultural touchstones spanning film, TV,…

“Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.” William James, considered the “father of American psychology,” wrote those words. They are a central theme in a book I’ve been re-reading by author and philosopher John Kaag on how James’ writing and this concept helped…

Moments can define our lives. Acceptance to college. Graduating. Our wedding. The death of a loved one. The birth of a child. There are also moments that can define our professional lives. We earn a promotion. We conceive of an idea that catapults a company forward. But there are also moments that can define our…

What is prayer? I have pointed to the work of poet Mary Oliver many times as she offers lovely, faithful insights on how to live our lives. Yesterday I read how she suggested one way to think of prayer is as a “long conversation.” Meaning, as with a long conversation we might have with friend,…

An aboriginal woman in her 80s explained on Michael Pollan’s show Cooked, “you hunt after the fire.”  She was describing how her community chooses first to set fire to an area of land before hunting for food to feed their families. Why? It gives a distinct advantage to the hunter as animals are flushed out into…