Pete Michaud

Fear Doesn’t Stop

If you live in the fantasy that life will start once you are no longer afraid, you will be playing the waiting game forever. That’s a quote from the beautiful and brainy Dr. Brenner of A Flourishing Life. She touches on a hugely important point in a recent post: fear isn’t conquered by forcing...

Authenticity Alienates (That’s Okay)

I could brand myself as a business blog and I’d be credible since my retirement story is the the kind of thing that the blogosphere loves to jerk off to. I could talk about technology like I did when I was Ken Sharpe. I could talk about cognitive biases, or philosophy. The list continues. I’m not...

Thinking and Feeling

A bunch of people are pissed off with me about saying drugs are cool, which is a perfect opportunity to write about thinking and feeling. I’ve talked about the paleomammalian brain before: the part of us that evolved before our frontal lobe. The part that’s ruled by passion, and won’t let...

Positive Psychology

People who are trying to improve themselves by thinking about the way they think often ask the questions: What’s wrong? and How can I fix it? Which is a more useful tool than thinking about nothing and doing nothing. So honor yourself for that. But they say what we focus on becomes our reality. So when...

Expectations as Mirrors

Epiphany: you can learn what to expect from people by finding out what they expect from people. 1. Everyone models other people as anomalous versions of themselves. I once walked from the tower by the river where I used to work to get sushi with Brad, the guy who sat in the cube across from me picking his...

Trapped in the Cave

I think everyone should do drugs at least a couple times. It’s not super important which drug you choose, but maybe MDMA or psychedelic mushrooms would be a good choice. (Do your research if you take me seriously, these are relatively safe drugs, but they do interact badly with certain preexisting...

TV Creates Cowards

This is the first episode of a British show called How TV Ruined Your Life. I’m sharing it because it drives home the point that the influences we subject ourselves to deeply influence our perception of the world. TV is the pet example here, but remember that it’s one of many....

Don’t Find Happy, Be Happy

You are perfect and complete. This has happened to me twice now, so I need to share it. The first time was with a Christian missionary in Kansas City. The second time, exactly like the first, was with a Hare Krisha devotee in St. Augustine. I like the second version better. Giorgio (like Giorgio Armani, he...

Brené Brown on Vulnerability

This video is awesome because Brené teaches you how to be vulnerable and fearless, empathic and passionate. It touches on most of the subjects I talk about on this blog. She teaches us to love ourselves and create deep connections with other people. She’s talking about basic human needs, she’s...

Placebo

What you believe becomes your reality. When all women are bitches, and all guys are assholes, and money is nothing but stress, and business is hard, then you’re going to end up a stressed out bitch surrounded by assholes slogging through a hard business. But it works the other way too. My expectation...