Karel is thrilled to welcome Paige Heron to the Life Habits podcast as the executive producer and co-host. We discuss the need for the change, how the idea for Version 2.0 came about, and the rationale for the changes we’re making. We also detail what those changes are. Changes include our brand new website www.lifehabitspodcast.com where you can find all of the Life Habits Podcast episodes and show notes, our updated purpose and tagline, a place to sign up for our newsletter, a brief introduction to the two of us, how to get in touch with us, and everything else you need to know about the podcast.We hope that you’re as excited as we are for the new and improved Version 2.0 of the Life Habits podcast.

My guest for this episode is Paige Heron. I’ve tried to get her on this podcast for a long time to discuss a number of different topics but we landed on a topic that has been and continues to be central to her life, chronic illness, and it’s something that many people don’t understand, especially what is essentially an invisible illness. I too knew very little about the experience of dealing with a chronic illness initially but accompanying Paige to various medical appointments, reading about her conditions, and most importantly listening to her provided me a deeper insight into her experiences and how best to support her. That’s what we discussed during this episode. We delve into Paige’s early life, the physical changes she experienced, her experiences with the medical profession, and we discuss what to do if you have similar experiences or if someone you love does, making sure to seek out appropriate medical expertise and guidance.Quotes from this episode:“No other disease in the history of modern medicine, has been neglected in such a was as Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome” — Professor Rodney Grahame“Every EDS patient knows that one of the hardest parts of our day is the moment we open our eyes and waken into the reality of our bodies, stirred from dreams of ourselves as we used to be, and the futures we imagined we’d have.” ― Michael Bihovsky“When you are frustrated with me because of the things I can not do……Just imagine how frustrated I must be because I’m not able.” — Count My SpoonsLinks from this episode:Ehlers-Danlos SocietyEhlers-Danlos Support UK

Karel continues on with his leveling up series focussing on career transitions. He is again joined by Renee Albert and Herman Colquhoun. In Part 1 of the interview in the LH111, Renee and Herman describe their early lives and their educational journeys together with the pivots each took and the insights they gleaned from the experience. This Part 2 gets into their actual career trajectories and also their involvement in the IBM Racial Equity in Design movement. In this Part 3 we get into what sorts of things talented and successful professionals like Renee and Herman do in addition to their days jobs.

Karel continues on with his leveling up series focussing on career transitions. He is again joined by Renee Albert and Herman Colquhoun. In Part 1 of the interview in the LH111, Renee and Herman describe their early lives and their educational journeys together with the pivots each took and the insights they gleaned from the experience. This Part 2 gets into their actual career trajectories and also their involvement in the IBM Racial Equity in Design movement. We’re planning a Part 3 which will get into what sorts of things talented and successful professionals like Renee and Herman do in addition to their days jobs.

Karel continues on with his leveling up series and this time focusses on career transitions. He is joined by Renee Albert and Herman Colquhoun discussing their fascinating and successful careers. We had so much to talk about so this episode, Part 1, focusses on the education journey. Part 2 will dig into the working journey and additional topics too.

Karel is again joined by popular guest Marie-Josėe Shaar (MJ) for this the second instalment in the Leveling Up series with this episode focusing on The Connections Cure.

Karel’s back with more episodes! In fact, he has a whole new series called Leveling Up. The series takes the topics you’ve learned to date to a whole new level and a set of new topics too.

This is the third episode in the “Checking-in” series focused on coping during the pandemic. Karel devotes this episode on providing ideas to help you stay the course during this long-running pandemic.

Karel is joined by UK Psychologist Mandy Kloppers to discuss mental health during this difficult period of a pandemic and social unrest and to discuss a variety of approaches to coping given different situations and circumstances.

With the overall series tagline for all these years being “staying sane in a crazy world”, Karel was inspired to start record episodes again with a collection of Check-in episodes to help listeners deal with and cope during the Coronavirus pandemic. This, the first in the collection, provides advice on working from home.

Karel continues his occasional series of episodes on major life changes, this time focusing on exploring the world. His guest is Kate Paddison who is currently in Melbourne, Australia. She describes her decision to buy a one-way ticket and explore the world.

Karel devotes this episode to the design methods and tools now available to everyone in order to innovate on products, services, and really anything anyone wants to improve. He summarizes his seven habits of highly effective design thinkers.

Here’s another in the occasional series of episodes on major life changes. This episode focusses on career pivots, that is major career changes, and discusses insights, lessons learned, and advice from someone who has recently gone through this. Karel is joined by Lendy Krantz who is currently Director of Operations and Strategy at WeWork in New York City.

Karel is again joined by Marie-Josée Shaar as they both explore an extension to Marie-Josée's Sleep, Food, Mood, and Exercise theme by focusing on mood and the quality of relationships yielding love, caring, and connectedness. 

This is the first of an occasional series of episodes on major life changes. This episode Karel deals with the topic of creating your own job and he's joined by Chui Chui Tan from Bristol, England who details her story of quitting her job of many years to start her own company.  

Karel celebrates the 100th episode of the podcast series by thanking his listeners and his guests and then reviewing briefly each of the episodes in the series.

Karel's back with a podcast episode dealing with the important topic of diversity and inclusion. In addition to reviewing previous episodes related to the topic and providing some inspirational quotes, Karel focuses on three habits: Recognizing and eliminating bias, understanding and empathizing, and championing and celebrating. He finishes up the episode talking about the episodes to come which will focus on insights from people who have gone through significant life changes. 

Karel expands on his previous episodes dealing with career advice to make the case for approaching career health much like we know how to deal with physical health by doing workouts, journals, and checkups. 

Many parts of the world are experiencing unprecedented levels of uncertainty due to political, economic, and religious types of instability. This episode will give you ways of dealing with uncertainty, becoming an agent of change, and having personal impact. 

The results of a listener poll led to a request for an episode on Mindful Meditation and Karel delivered on that request in this episode. Karel talks about the research evidence for the benefits and then provides guidance of practicing mindfulness and meditation. 

Karel is joined by Cynthia Tripathi to talk about her first book "Escaping Average". Karel and Cynthia discuss ways of upping your game in the areas of mental state, health, career, finance, and social life. 

Karel is again joined by UK Psychologist Mandy Kloppers to discuss recognizing and then fixing common errors in thinking. 

In response to listener suggestions, Karel devotes this episode to three themes for developing and applying social intelligence to entrepreneurial, intrepreneurial, and self-improvement initiatives.

After conducting a poll with listeners via social media as to what topic to focus on next, Karel determined that Optimizing Happiness was far and away the most asked for. Karel builds on the foundation that was built in LH84 - Being Happier to provide additional advice in this episode to further hone particular habits to achieve even greater levels of happiness in life. 

Karel hasn't recorded episodes lately because he's been traveling a lot so he thought he'd dedicate his first new episode to the topic of providing advice to optimize travel. 

Inspired by Emma Watson's UN speech, Karel devotes this episode to providing advice for woman and men to promote gender equality. 

Karel devotes this episode to the critically important habit of developing empathy.

Karel is back after a hiatus and devotes this episode to understanding what insights and lessons sports can provide in improving our life skills. 

Karel is joined again by Marie-Josée Shaar this time to address the errors in thinking that can hurt your health and what you can do to prevent them from doing so. 

Want to apply the power of Positive Psychology to business and to your working life? Karel is joined by Margaret Greenberg for this episode discussing the book she wrote with Senia Maymin, "Profit from the Positive: Proven Leadership Strategies to Boost Productivity and Transform Your Business". 

Karel addresses listener questions and introduces affirmations and mindfulness together with guest UK Psychologist Mandy Kloppers. 

Karel devotes this episode to the topic of being happier and summarizes a list of ten items from Positive Psychology that you can start to do right away to be happier. He also recommends a new social network focused on increasing happiness in the world, called Happier.com.

Karel devotes this episode to listener questions on the topic of communication challenges. 

Karel is again joined by UK Psychologist Mandy Kloppers as they address a listener question asking for advice on dealing with change.

Karel devotes this episode to a listener suggestion to address becoming more productive using technology. Karel discusses four major themes 1) doing things more efficiently, doing more things at once sensibly, doing fewer things at once sensibly, and doing nothing.

Karel is again joined by Marie-Josée Shaar this time to discuss four approaches to creating cultures of wellness. Make sure to visit Marie-Josée's website smartsandstamina.com which also includes a link to her book. For further information on this topic, make sure to visit positivepychologynews.com.

In response to a listener suggestion, Karel devotes this episode to various ways of improving your personal impression management using the techniques and approaches from product marketing.

Karel devotes this episode to listener requests along the theme of staying true to yourself. He addresses awareness, consistency, and strength.

Karel addresses five questions listeners submitted on the topic of workplaces challenges.  The questions deal with communicating across age and experience level differences, knowing who to trust, workplace bullying, managing anger outbursts, and working effectively with a world-wide team.

This episode is a tribute to Karel's mother who passed away recently and reflects on seven of the life lessons she taught, lived, and modeled, and will serve as her gift and legacy.

Would you like to be more aware of bullying of various types and what can be done about it?  This was a topic that rose to the top of our Facebook poll of listeners.  Karel has university student, George Janeteas, as his guest on bullying in general and cyber-bullying in particular.  You can find more about George at his website at georgejaneteas.ca.  George also provided the following additional resources: the Trevor Project, Youth Line, Kids Help Phone, and Prevnet.

This episode is a tribute to the late Stephen Covey, the author of the seminal book "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People".  Karel discusses the influence Covey has had on listeners, himself, and the world.  He then provides a few quotes and briefly summarizes Covey's seven habits.

Karel dedicates this episode to a set of questions submitted by listeners on the theme of relationships and is again joined by UK Psychologist Mandy Kloppers. The questions address how to deal with infidelity, getting over a failed relationship, and dealing with parents as they are progressing through a divorce. Mandy has also written further on these topics on her blog, specifically "infidelity" and "end of a relationship".

After having heard Carol Dweck being interviewed on the Harvard Business Review podcast and checking with the Life Habits listeners on the Facebook page, Karel decided to read Carol's book "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success" and to dedicate this episode to its major insights and recommendations. Learn how to transition your thinking from a fixed mindset to one leading to growth in all aspects of your life.

At the suggestion of a listener, Karel devotes this episode to the topic of "Doing the Right Thing" and provides some practical advice on what to consider in weighing options when needing to make an ethical/moral decision.

Would you like a broader perspective on managing your money?  At the suggestion of a listener, Karel provides both a conceptual perspective and some practical advice on managing money in this episode.

In response to a listener question, Karel provides advice on the process to use to stop worrying, including the identification of your degree of control and taking action on the basis of this.

Karel summarizes key insights from Daniel H. Pink's book "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us", on the recommendation of a podcast listener. He summarizes the alternatives to "carrot and stick" approaches which include a focus on Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose.  Find out more about Dan Pink and how to get a copy of his book.

Karel is again joined by guest UK Psychologist Mandy Kloppers to address a listener request about professional help.  Mandy outlines when you seek help, what types of help are available, and what to expect so that you can get the most out of any professional help you seek. More information and advice on a number of topics from Mandy can be found on her YouTube channel and on her website.

Karel is joined again by guest Marie-Josée Shaar who describes five simple, lazy, ways to get in shape based on the content in her great new book Smarts and Stamina: The Busy Person's Guide to Optimal Health and Performance, which she authored with occasional guest on the podcast, Kathryn Britton.

Karel reflects on the life of Steve Jobs and discusses his life lessons as conveyed through Walter Isaacson's authorized biography "Steve Jobs" and Steve's 2005 Stanford Commencement Address.  You may also want to check out Karel's blog post on Steve Jobs's contributions to design.

Are you still getting stuck and lacking sufficient motivation? Karel devotes this episode to using visualization of the goal and progress toward the goal as additional means of increasing your motivation and being successful. These techniques are applicable to virtually all the areas of focus and topics covered in this podcast series.

Many people either don't take time off or do so only with others. Karel devotes this episode to advice for taking time for yourself via five Rs.

Want to make a difference in life, at home, at work, or throughout all society? Karel devotes this episode to an approach to plan and make progress on this topic.

Want to improve your overall sense of well-being?  Master gratitude. Karel is joined on this episode by guest Kathryn Britton who is the author of "Gratitude: How to Appreciate Life's Gifts". You can reach Kathryn by sending her email at kathryn@theano-coaching.com.

Clinical Psychologist Dr. Guy Winch joins Karel on this episode to provide a set of quotes and top 10 tips for learning to complain effectively. Guy is the author of a great book on the topic called "The Squeaky Wheel: Complaining the right way to get results, improve your relationships, and enhance self-esteem".  Learn more about Guy at his website, Facebook page, or on Twitter.

At the suggestion of an Australian listener, Karel solicited questions from listeners and devotes this episode to providing answers to three listener questions.

Want to improve your interpersonal communication? Learn how to listen authentically. In this episode, Karel provides 10 ideas for developing the habit of authentic listening.

Whether you're interested for health, the environment, ethics, or just to eat tasty food, this episode will help you with moving toward a plant-based diet and provide you with 10 practical progressive steps to get there. Karel has long-time vegetarian advocate Dilip Barman as his guest on this episode. Dilip makes reference to two websites during the session: the first is an article on FAO and the second is an article on the Guardian website.  For more information, you can visit Dilip's own website, his cooking site, his photography site, and the International Vegetarian Union site, and also the Triangle Vegetarian Society site.  Please note that there is a knocking sound during parts of the podcast which we've done the best to try to edit out but still is able to be heard in certain places.  Apologies for any annoyance this may cause you while listening to this episode.

Want to get into shape?  Karel has guest Marie-Josee Shaar back again this time providing advice on the exercise part of her Sleep, Food, Mood, and Exercise system.  Make sure to visit Marie-Josee's website and sign up for her amazing newsletter.

Need advice on getting that next job, a new position in your current organization, or any other situation where you'll be evaluated and assessed?  Karel devotes this episode to outlining 10 practical tips for preparing for and handling the interview.

Want to learn to achieve a deep state of relaxation?  Karel provides this special episode with guided instruction to achieve deep progressive muscle relaxation. This episode can be listened to whenever you would like to achieve deep relaxation and it is recommended that you only listen to it in a private and quiet setting with no distractions. The background music used on this episode is Antonio Vivaldi's Sonata 5 Largo (I & III) performed by the Telemann Trio and is used courtesy of Musopen (musopen.org).

Confirmation bias is the cause of many of the problems in relationships, communities, and the world. Learn how to recognize and start to conquer it.

Do you tend to take things personally more than you should?  Karel devotes this episode to a listener request to address the topic of taking things personally. After discussing some developmental and individual difference dimensions related to the topic and some relevant quotes, he provides advice for improving in this important area via a top 10 list.

Do you have difficulty with sleep?  Karel has guest Marie-Josee Shaar back again to do a follow-up drill-down episode on the topic of sleep. Check out Marie-Josee's website at SmartsandStamina.com.

Do you want to improve your skills for managing people either in a formal management position or an informal one (as a parent, coach, etc.)?  In response to a listener request, Karel devotes this episode to providing practical advice for becoming more effective in the management of people.

Do you tend to be too passive or too aggressive? Do you want to optimize the effectiveness of your communication?  Karel devotes this episode to providing advice on becoming appropriately assertive.

Are you dealing with a difficult person in your life? In response to a listener request, Karel provides 10 suggestions for dealing with difficult people.

Do you have to work with others in groups? Pretty well everyone does. Do you want to improve the teamwork exhibited by those teams? In response to a listener request, Karel devotes this episode to the various ways teamwork can be optimized.

Do you think about the insights you've gleaned from your parents and family?  Have you captured and communicated them?  Karel recommends that you do and provides a top 10 list to provide you some advice on how to do it.

In response to a listener request, Karel provides a brief recap and review of each of the podcast episodes recorded to date, episode 1 through to episode 44.  See which episodes you missed or want to listen to again.  Also, consider recommending a particular episode to a friend or the whole series.

Do need help in getting advice and finding a mentor.  That's the focus of this episode.  Karel goes through the top 10 list of suggestions for approaching getting appropriate help and also giving it as well.  Please refer to the show notes for episodes 32, 42, and 40 for contact details for people you can contact for professional advice as well.

Are you stuck or in a rut?  Are you finding that you're not able to get going effectively on the improvements you'd like to make to your life?  This episode is devoted to getting you unstuck so that you can make effective progress on whatever improvements you'd like to make in your life with a practical set of top 10 items.

Joining Karel for this episode is Marie-Josee Salvas Shaar.  While most other episodes deal with a single topic, this one is different in that it deals with four topics and, importantly, the integration of them together - sleep, food, mood, and exercise.  Refer to the top 10 list on this site and visit Marie-Josee's website for more information.

Take some time to step back, reflect, and provide feedback.  Karel gives a preview of what topics are on the candidate list for future episodes and then provides a top 10 list for reflecting and providing feedback on this and other podcasts and similar technology mediated content and conversations.

Learn to develop Psychological Capital during this episode when Karel has special guest Kathryn Britton back again.  Kathryn was also on Episode 16 and talked that time about Positive Psychology.  This time she focuses on Hope and Resilience the latter of which she has also recently co-edited a book on which is available at Amazon.  She is also available for individual coaching sessions. You can reach her at Theano Coaching.

Do you find that the meetings you lead and/or attend aren't as effective as they could be?  Karel provides a context for evaluating the cost of a meeting and the resulting need for increased effectiveness and then provides a top 10 list of practical advice to use in making meetings you lead as a formal leader or as an emergent one much more effective and enjoyable.

In this episode, Karel takes the approaches, methods, and techniques used in product design and applies them to designing the product, you.  The quotes and top 10 list provide you a way to think about and approach self-improvement by designing your life.

Have you wondered how long it should take to develop a skill into a habit?  In response to a listener request, Karel addresses the very important topic in this episode.  He describes the factors that determine the length of time that it takes and then summarizes the rules of thumb for simple and complex behaviors as well as what it takes to get to mastery.  The top 10 list for this episode provides advice on optimizing the realization of the development of skills into habits.

In response to a listener request, Karel reviews key points from ten previous episodes in order for you to assess your progress, celebrate successes and identify additional areas of continued and intensified focus.

Want to improve the presentations you give?  Whether you're in school or beginning your career and just starting to give presentations or you're a veteran presenter, Karel provides advice on how to improve the overall effectiveness of your presentations.  He addresses the following topics: audience, objectives, three main points, duration, slides/structure, graphics/text, audio-video/animation, humor, practice, and delivery.

Does your life feel out of control? Are you not spending time on the things you think are important in life? In this episode, Karel summarizes some insightful quotes and then reviews ten ideas for optimizing the balance and integration of the work and non-work aspects of your life.

Want to improve your electronic communication?  Karel devotes this longer than usual episode on the topic of electronic communication which includes everything from Facebook and Twitter to texting, instant messaging, e-mail, conference calling, and video conferencing.  Karel provides advice on increasing your effective use of these mechanisms as well as how to limit them as well.

Karel is joined on this episode by special guest UK Psychologist Mandy Kloppers who discusses the important topic of self-confidence.  Mandy shares her favorite quotes on the topic and outlines her top 10 ideas for increasing self-confidence. Mandy also recommends the book Mind over Mood as a particularly good source of information on this topic. If you live in the UK, you can also checkout the innovative service she founded called text-tonic. If you live outside the UK, you can still visit the website but for now can't make use of the mobile/cell phone service itself.

How are the various relationships in your life doing? Karel focuses this episode on the topic of relationships - taking stock, increasing, decreasing, and deepening them across all contexts and roles within your life.  He also provides advice on improving the quality of relationships, something that is so important to the overall quality of all our lives.

Having trouble staying focussed with everything going on in your life?  Karel devotes this episode to the topic of getting and staying focussed and shares his thoughts and ideas so that you can improve your approach to this important aspect of your life.

Want to further develop and hone your leadership skills?  Whether you're a political or business leader, a little league coach, a parent or student, a formal designated leader or an emergent one, the advice Karel provides in this episode will help you improve your leadership skills. The problem with the initial mp3 file for this episode is now fixed. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Want to make New Year's resolutions that will last?  Karel devotes this episode to providing advice on determining how to select appropriate resolutions and how to make sure that you'll be able to successfully carry them out.

Want to get better at expressing gratitude?  Most people don't express gratitude enough.  Karel summarizes some good thinking on this topic and then provides 10 ideas for understanding gratitude and getting good at expressing it yourself.

Do you have the necessary level of resilience to deal with the changes happening in the world?  Karel outlines the concept of personal resilience in this episode and provides ten ideas to develop into habits that will increase your capacity to deal with major changes, the results of them, and ways to turn challenges into opportunities.

Want to make sense of blogs, mini-blogs, and podcasts?  Karel devotes this episode to describing the current trends in blog and podcast technologies (Google Alerts, Twitter, iTunes) and providing specific advice on how to find the content that is of interest to you using these technologies.  The top 10 list for this episode provides Karel's specific recommendations of blogs and podcasts.  Feel free to provide any recommendations you may have for blogs and podcasts via comments on this site or in an e-mail to lifehabits@gmail.com.

Feeling stressed?  Karel devotes this episode to a set of ideas and skills to develop into routine habits to help you manage stress on a day-to-day basis.  After summarizing the ever popular insightful famous quotes on the topic, Karel starts by helping you understand your circle of influence then describes a series of practical techniques and encourages listeners to try them and assess progress in using them.  He also briefly outlines but doesn't provide the detailed instructions for practicing a technique called Progressive Muscle Relaxation.  Here is some further information on this technique.

How are things working out for you?  Every once in a while it's good to take stock of how things are going.  Inspired by a listener suggestion, Karel takes this episode to review key ideas from previous podcasts and provide additional perspectives on them in order for you to check your progress and make any necessary mid-course corrections.

Haven't been getting certain things done?  Many people procrastinate and don't know how to stop.  In this episode, Karel reads some insightful quotes on the topic of procrastination and then takes listeners through 10 ideas for dealing with it and developing life-long habits to prevent getting into cycles of procrastination. He also summarizes the feedback received regarding the format of the podcast which strongly favored sticking with the current 30-40 minute length and content. Thanks so those of you who provided feedback.

Is your life getting too complicated?  Most people experience this and don't know how to go about dealing with it.  In this episode, Karel reads the usual famous quotes to get started and then summarizes 10 ideas for taking stock of your life and systematically simplifying it.  In response to a listener request, the famous quotes are now going to be made available starting with this episode right in the mp3 file along with the top 10 list.

Everyone wants to be more creative but few know how to go about it.  After reviewing some insightful and thought-provoking famous quotes on the topic, Karel details 10 ideas for fostering creativity.  The approaches are applicable to work situations involving products, services, and processes but equally to your personal and home life.  At the end of the episode, Karel also asks for input on a suggestion for improving the podcast series by providing short 5-8 minute daily refresher podcast episodes.

Many people hang on to resentment, hurt, and anger.  Many people also haven't experienced the power of helping others.  This episode provides you with 10 ideas for skills to develop into habits so that you can appropriately and regularly express forgiveness and compassion.

After the basic needs in life are met, many people still look for something else that will make their life everything that it can be.  Maslow's hierarchy of needs provides a context for this and his work on self-actualization outlines the attributes people have who have achieved the highest levels of personal fulfillment.  Karel summarizes Maslow's hierarchy approach and then uses it as the basis for a proposed set of 10 ideas for you to develop into self-actualization skills and, in time, habits.

Most people find themselves getting angry and reacting in ways that they later regret.  After providing some description of what happens in the body and setting the context with some insightful quotes, Karel details ten ideas for skills to develop into habits that can help you to control your emotions, like anger, rather than them controlling you.

A new area in the field of psychology is Applied Positive Psychology.  Karel interviews Kathryn Britton a professional coach who specializes in this area. Kathryn describes the major career changes she made to become become an expert in Applied Positive Psychology.  She outlines its history and the major themes it addresses given practical examples of each.  Discussion in the episode mentions Kathryn's website, blog, and the newsletter to which she is a regular contributor.

Some people just dream of success while others actually achieve it.  After reading some insightful quotes on the topic, Karel summarizes 10 ideas for you to develop into skills and in turn into habits to increase the likelihood of you being clear about what success means to you and then systematically achieving it.  He also reads a comment from a listener regarding a previous podcast which includes the recommendation for a book titled "Screamfree Parenting" by Hal Runkel.

The sexes are different.  Karel reviews some surprising recent research findings regarding gender differences, provides some personal context for the topic, and then summarizes 10 ideas for developing some good skills in this area which can be honed into life habits.  Karel deals with topics having to do with equality, ideas for cross-gender learning yielding optimized androgyny, and advice regarding the celebration of one's gender including its strengths and advantages.  Karel recommends the book "Why Gender Matters" by Leonard Sax which can also be found at audible.com.

Technology pervades all aspects of our lives.  This episode provides you with advice to make technology work for you rather than you being a slave to it.  Karel gives advice on how to control the inputs, which are often technology interruptions, and the outputs, which are your ways of taking action.  He also provides his usual list of 10 items to consider in this case to optimize the aspects of your life that have to do with technology.  During the podcast, Karel mentions several products or tools.  Here are the links to those that were mentioned, audible.com, post-it notes, Facebook, and Google Reader.

Tom Friedman wrote the best-seller "The World is Flat" and described how the world was becoming smaller and more interconnected as a result of, among other things, the advancement of technology.  After quoting some statistics regarding internet, blog, and podcast use worldwide, Karel makes the case for being more aware of and sensitive to global audiences and cultures.  He summarizes 10 skills that should be considered on this topic for honing into habits in order to more effectively deal with a flat world.  He also makes reference to avoiding cultural faux pas.

Spoken language is one of the most important abilities humans possess but, surprisingly, also often the most neglected in terms of skill development.  The last episode dealt with spoken language as it relates to public speaking, an activity that is most feared by many people.  This episode deals with person-to-person, or interpersonal, communication which everyone does everyday.  After reviewing some insightful famous quotes on the topic, Karel summarizes 10 key habits do develop in order to optimize your interpersonal communication.  These are as as important to a business setting as they are to a non-business one.  Further honing these skills into habits will dramatically improve your communication skills and, in turn, your overall effectiveness and the quality of your relationships with others.

Being effective at public speaking is among the most important skills to have yet most people fear speaking in public and lack some of the skills to be effective at it.  Karel provides advice regarding 10 valuable habits to develop in this important aspect of life.  He discusses relevance to work as well as non-work settings.

This episode deals with the important topic of fitness both in terms of doing it for life and gleaning the benefits that include a better and longer life. After reading some famous quotes on the topic of fitness, Karel provides 10 things to think about regarding fitness. The first three deal with ways of thinking about the importance and the benefits of optimal fitness and the remaining seven deal with the development of specific fitness habits. This guidance assumes that you are in contact with your doctor to ensure that there are no medical reasons that would prevent you from engaging in an exercise program.

This episode deals with the important topic of Authentic Parenting. Whether you're a parent now, planning to be one in the future, or simply want to understand the world of parenting better, this is for you. Based on the first-hand experience of being a parent of four kids, observing the parenting of others, and the academic literature, Karel provides his list of 10 most important habits for being an authentic parent. These ideas will help you to be a better parent, make parenting less stressful, and lead to more enjoyment of your role as parent as well as give your kids the optimal family environment within which to flourish in life.

Building on Episode 6 which dealt with the topic of Career Planning, this episode addresses Career Strategies.  Karel provides 10 strategies for choosing a career and being successful in it.  The ideas are relevant to those who are still in school and just thinking about future careers, those at the start of their career in order to enhance their success, and those well into their career who are looking for further career optimization or an alternative career.

Whether you're still in school and haven't started your career, just got your first job, or in mid-career, the topic of career planning is hugely important.  As Lewis Carroll said, "If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there."  Most people don't pay enough attention to career planning or think about it too narrowly and then wonder why they don't have the career they truly wanted.  Karel addresses this topic by introducing three factors that he believes are key to consider during pre-career, early career, and mid-career planning.  He then takes each and gives advice on how to approach making progress in a tangible way.

The mind is amazingly powerful. We can either control it or be controlled by it. This episode is all about being aware of what your mind is capable of doing when you don't control it and, once you're aware of it, to take control. Karel quotes Marcus Aurelius, who said, "You have the power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this and you will find strength". Karel gives a few examples of the power of the mind and the ways in which it can take control without our knowledge.

One of the most important habits to learn is to stay positive no matter what the stimulus and now matter what the context. Karel starts off this episode by quoting Helen Keller who said, "when one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us". The episode includes a story about a university coach who was overly negative but whose behavior changed dramatically when confronted to an unwavering positive reaction. We have the power to decide how to react to a stimulus and if we decide to take the negative reaction it often yields less than optimal results; when we react positively, the outcomes are often much more favorable. Karel gives examples of positive approaches in situations regarding work and career, relationships, parenting, and health. In each, a specific positive approach can yield incredibly desirable outcomes.

Karel Vredenburg focuses on time management in this episode. You might be thinking, "I don't have time for that!" but after listening and taking the advice given you will have a lot more time to devote to the important items in your life. Karel starts off by quoting Thomas Edison who said, "Time is really the only capital that any human being has, and the only thing he can't afford to lose." to reinforce the importance of valuing time and thus managing it effectively.Karel discusses taking control of your time, yearly and weekly time scales, prioritizing the roles you play, and then has specific advice on new habits to consider for use on the job including default meeting length, staying focussed during meetings, deciding whether a meeting, a phone call, an e-mail, or an IM chat is most appropriate and efficient. His advice for the rest of your life includes multitasking with an iPod, using audible.com to get your reading material, listening to podcasts, switching phone to voicemail and text messaging, subcontracting work at home, assigning tasks to kids and making their allowance contingent on the work, scheduling time for each family member, and also to watch out for over-scheduling activities at home and leaving some time for spontaneous activities.

Karel Vredenburg welcomes listeners to this new podcast series and provides an overview of the content, format, and frequency. He also introduces the first topic - starting with the end in mind and finishes up by inviting listeners to provide feedback via the website or gmail.

Karel continues on with his leveling up series focussing on career transitions. He is again joined by Renee Albert and Herman Colquhoun. In Part 1 of the interview in the LH111, Renee and Herman describe their early lives and their educational journeys together with the pivots each took and the insights they gleaned from the experience. This Part 2 gets into their actual career trajectories and also their involvement in the IBM Racial Equity in Design movement. In this Part 3 we get into what sorts of things talented and successful professionals like Renee and Herman do in addition to their days jobs.

Karel continues on with his leveling up series focussing on career transitions. He is again joined by Renee Albert and Herman Colquhoun. In Part 1 of the interview in the LH111, Renee and Herman describe their early lives and their educational journeys together with the pivots each took and the insights they gleaned from the experience. This Part 2 gets into their actual career trajectories and also their involvement in the IBM Racial Equity in Design movement. We’re planning a Part 3 which will get into what sorts of things talented and successful professionals like Renee and Herman do in addition to their days jobs.

Karel continues on with his leveling up series and this time focusses on career transitions. He is joined by Renee Albert and Herman Colquhoun discussing their fascinating and successful careers. We had so much to talk about so this episode, Part 1, focusses on the education journey. Part 2 will dig into the working journey and additional topics too.

Karel is again joined by popular guest Marie-Josėe Shaar (MJ) for this the second instalment in the Leveling Up series with this episode focusing on The Connections Cure.

Karel's back with more episodes! In fact, he has a whole new series called Leveling Up. The series take the topics you've learned to date to a whole new level and a set of new topics too.

This is the third episode in the "Checking-in" series focused on coping during the pandemic and beyond. Karel devotes this episode on providing ideas to help you stay the course during this long-running pandemic.

Karel is joined by UK Psychologist Mandy Kloppers to discuss mental health during this difficult period of a pandemic and social unrest and to discuss a variety of approaches to coping given different situations and circumstances.

With the overall series tagline for all these years being “staying sane in a crazy world”, Karel was inspired to start record episodes again with a collection of Check-in episodes to help listeners deal with and cope during the Coronavirus pandemic. This, the first in the collection, provides advice on working from home.

Karel continues his occasional major life changes episode series this time interviewing world traveler Kate Paddison.

Karel devotes this episode to design methods and tools everyone can use to be more innovative. He summarizes his seven habits of highly effective design thinkers.

Karel is joined by Lendy Krantz of WeWork to discuss insights, lessons learned, and advice on career pivots.

Karel and Marie-Josée Shaar explore an extension to Sleep, Food, Mood, and Exercise by focusing on love, caring, and connectedness.

Karel interviews Chui Chui Tan who quit her job to start her own company.

Karel's back with an episode dealing with the important topic of diversity and inclusion providing specific advice on three areas of focus.

Karel expands on his previous episodes dealing with career advice by making the case for approaching career health much like we know how to deal with physical health by doing workouts, journals, and checkups.

This episode will give you ways of dealing with uncertainty, becoming an agent of change, and having personal impact.

The top request on a listener poll was for an episode on Mindfulness and Meditation so Karel devotes this episode to that topic. He discusses the research evidence regarding the benefits and then gives guidance on practicing mindfulness and meditation.

Karel is joined by Cynthia Tripathi, the author of Escaping Average. Karel and Cynthia discuss ways of upping your game in the areas of mental state, health, career, finance, and social life.

Karel is again joined by UK Psychologist Mandy Kloppers to discuss recognizing and fixing common errors in thinking.

In response to listener suggestions, Karel devotes this episode to three themes for developing and applying social intelligence to entrepreneurial, intrepreneurial, and self-improvement initiatives.

After conducting a poll with listeners via social media as to what topic to focus on for this episode, it was determined that Optimizing Happiness was far and away the most ask for. Karel builds on the foundation that was established in LH84 on Being Happier to provide additional advice to further hone particular habits to achieve even greater levels of happiness in life.

Karel has been traveling a lot and hasn't recorded episodes lately so he decided to devote this return episode to the topic of optimizing travel.

Inspired by Emma Watson's UN speech, Karel devotes this episode to providing advice for women and men to promote gender equality.

Karel devotes this episode to the critically important habit of developing empathy for others.

Karel is back after a hiatus and devotes this episode to understanding what insights and lessons sports can provide in improving our life skills.

Karel is joined again by Marie-Josée Shaar this time to address the errors in thinking that can hurt your health and what you can do to prevent them from doing so.

Want to apply the power of Positive Psychology to business and to your working life? Karel is joined by Margaret Greenberg for this episode discussing the book she wrote with Senia Maymin, "Profit from the Positive: Proven Leadership Strategies to Boost Productivity and Transform Your Business".

Karel addresses listener questions and introduces affirmations and mindfulness together with guest UK Psychologist Mandy Kloppers.

Karel devotes this episode to the topic of being happier and summarizes a list of ten items from Positive Psychology that you can start to do right away to be happier. He also recommends a new social network focused on increasing happiness in the world, called Happier.com.

Karel devotes this episode to listener questions on the topic of communication challenges.

Karel is again joined by UK Psychologist Mandy Kloppers as they address a listener question asking for advice on dealing with change.

Karel devotes this episode to a listener suggestion to address becoming more productive using technology. Karel discusses four major themes 1) doing things more efficiently, doing more things at once sensibly, doing fewer things at once sensibly, and doing nothing.

Karel is again joined by Marie-Josée Shaar this time to discuss four approaches to creating cultures of wellness. Make sure to visit Marie-Josée's website smartsandstamina.com which also includes a link to her book. For further information on this topic, make sure to visit positivepychologynews.com.

In response to a listener suggestion, Karel devotes this episode to various ways of improving your personal impression management using the techniques and approaches from product marketing.

Karel devotes this episode to listener requests along the theme of staying true to yourself. He addresses awareness, consistency, and strength.

Karel addresses five questions listeners submitted on the topic of workplaces challenges. The questions deal with communicating across age and experience level differences, knowing who to trust, workplace bullying, managing anger outbursts, and working effectively with a world-wide team.

This episode is a tribute to Karel's mother who passed away recently and reflects on seven of the life lessons she taught, lived, and modeled, and will serve as her gift and legacy.

Would you like to be more aware of bullying of various types and what can be done about it? This was a topic that rose to the top of our Facebook poll of listeners. Karel has university student, George Janeteas, as his guest on bullying in general and cyber-bullying in particular. You can find more about George at his website at georgejaneteas.ca. George also provided the following additional resources: the Trevor Project, Youth Line, Kids Help Phone, and Prevnet.

This episode is a tribute to the late Stephen Covey, the author of the seminal book "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People". Karel discusses the influence Covey has had on listeners, himself, and the world. He then provides a few quotes and briefly summarizes Covey's seven habits.

Karel dedicates this episode to a set of questions submitted by listeners on the theme of relationships and is again joined by UK Psychologist Mandy Kloppers. The questions address how to deal with infidelity, getting over a failed relationship, and dealing with parents as they are progressing through a divorce. Mandy has also written further on these topics on her blog, specifically "infidelity" and "end of a relationship".

After having heard Carol Dweck being interviewed on the Harvard Business Review podcast and checking with the Life Habits listeners on the Facebook page, Karel decided to read Carol's book "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success" and to dedicate this episode to its major insights and recommendations. Learn how to transition your thinking from a fixed mindset to one leading to growth in all aspects of your life.

At the suggestion of a listener, Karel devotes this episode to the topic of "Doing the Right Thing" and provides some practical advice on what to consider in weighing options when needing to make an ethical/moral decision.

Would you like a broader perspective on managing your money? At the suggestion of a listener, Karel provides both a conceptual perspective and some practical advice on managing money in this episode.

In response to a listener question, Karel provides advice on the process to use to stop worrying, including the identification of your degree of control and taking action on the basis of this.

Karel summarizes key insights from Daniel H. Pink's book "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us", on the recommendation of a podcast listener. He summarizes the alternatives to "carrot and stick" approaches which include a focus on Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose. Find out more about Dan Pink and how to get a copy of his book.

Karel is again joined by guest UK Psychologist Mandy Kloppers to address a listener request about professional help. Mandy outlines when you seek help, what types of help are available, and what to expect so that you can get the most out of any professional help you seek. More information and advice on a number of topics from Mandy can be found on her YouTube channel and on her website.

Karel is joined again by guest Marie-Josée Shaar who describes five simple, lazy, ways to get in shape based on the content in her great new book Smarts and Stamina: The Busy Person's Guide to Optimal Health and Performance, which she authored with occasional guest on the podcast, Kathryn Britton.

Karel reflects on the life of Steve Jobs and discusses his life lessons as conveyed through Walter Isaacson's authorized biography "Steve Jobs" and Steve's 2005 Stanford Commencement Address. You may also want to check out Karel's blog post on Steve Jobs's contributions to design.

Are you still getting stuck and lacking sufficient motivation? Karel devotes this episode to using visualization of the goal and progress toward the goal as additional means of increasing your motivation and being successful. These techniques are applicable to virtually all the areas of focus and topics covered in this podcast series.

Many people either don't take time off or do so only with others. Karel devotes this episode to advice for taking time for yourself via five Rs.

Want to make a difference in life, at home, at work, or throughout all society? Karel devotes this episode to an approach to plan and make progress on this topic.

Want to improve your overall sense of well-being? Master gratitude. Karel is joined on this episode by guest Kathryn Britton who is the author of "Gratitude: How to Appreciate Life's Gifts". You can reach Kathryn by sending her email at kathryn@theano-coaching.com.

Clinical Psychologist Dr. Guy Winch joins Karel on this episode to provide a set of quotes and top 10 tips for learning to complain effectively. Guy is the author of a great book on the topic called "The Squeaky Wheel: Complaining the right way to get results, improve your relationships, and enhance self-esteem". Learn more about Guy at his website, Facebook page, or on Twitter.

At the suggestion of an Australian listener, Karel solicited questions from listeners and devotes this episode to providing answers to three listener questions.

Want to improve your interpersonal communication? Learn how to listen authentically. In this episode, Karel provides 10 ideas for developing the habit of authentic listening.

Whether you're interested for health, the environment, ethics, or just to eat tasty food, this episode will help you with moving toward a plant-based diet and provide you with 10 practical progressive steps to get there. Karel has long-time vegetarian advocate Dilip Barman as his guest on this episode. Dilip makes reference to two websites during the session: the first is an article on FAO and the second is an article on the Guardian website. For more information, you can visit Dilip's own website, his cooking site, his photography site, and the International Vegetarian Union site, and also the Triangle Vegetarian Society site. Please note that there is a knocking sound during parts of the podcast which we've done the best to try to edit out but still is able to be heard in certain places. Apologies for any annoyance this may cause you while listening to this episode.

Want to get into shape? Karel has guest Marie-Josee Shaar back again this time providing advice on the exercise part of her Sleep, Food, Mood, and Exercise system. Make sure to visit Marie-Josee's website and sign up for her amazing newsletter.

Need advice on getting that next job, a new position in your current organization, or any other situation where you'll be evaluated and assessed? Karel devotes this episode to outlining 10 practical tips for preparing for and handling the interview.

Want to learn to achieve a deep state of relaxation? Karel provides this special episode with guided instruction to achieve deep progressive muscle relaxation. This episode can be listened to whenever you would like to achieve deep relaxation and it is recommended that you only listen to it in a private and quiet setting with no distractions. The background music used on this episode is Antonio Vivaldi's Sonata 5 Largo (I & III) performed by the Telemann Trio and is used courtesy of Musopen (musopen.org).

Confirmation bias is the cause of many of the problems in relationships, communities, and the world. Learn how to recognize and start to conquer it.

Do you tend to take things personally more than you should? Karel devotes this episode to a listener request to address the topic of taking things personally. After discussing some developmental and individual difference dimensions related to the topic and some relevant quotes, he provides advice for improving in this important area via a top 10 list.

Do you have difficulty with sleep? Karel has guest Marie-Josee Shaar back again to do a follow-up drill-down episode on the topic of sleep. Check out Marie-Josee's website at SmartsandStamina.com.

Do you want to improve your skills for managing people either in a formal management position or an informal one (as a parent, coach, etc.)? In response to a listener request, Karel devotes this episode to providing practical advice for becoming more effective in the management of people.

Do you tend to be too passive or too aggressive? Do you want to optimize the effectiveness of your communication? Karel devotes this episode to providing advice on becoming appropriately assertive.

Are you dealing with a difficult person in your life? In response to a listener request, Karel provides 10 suggestions for dealing with difficult people.

Do you have to work with others in groups? Pretty well everyone does. Do you want to improve the teamwork exhibited by those teams? In response to a listener request, Karel devotes this episode to the various ways teamwork can be optimized.

Do you think about the insights you've gleaned from your parents and family? Have you captured and communicated them? Karel recommends that you do and provides a top 10 list to provide you some advice on how to do it.

In response to a listener request, Karel provides a brief recap and review of each of the podcast episodes recorded to date, episode 1 through to episode 44. See which episodes you missed or want to listen to again. Also, consider recommending a particular episode to a friend or the whole series.

Do need help in getting advice and finding a mentor. That's the focus of this episode. Karel goes through the top 10 list of suggestions for approaching getting appropriate help and also giving it as well. Please refer to the show notes for episodes 32, 42, and 40 for contact details for people you can contact for professional advice as well.

Are you stuck or in a rut? Are you finding that you're not able to get going effectively on the improvements you'd like to make to your life? This episode is devoted to getting you unstuck so that you can make effective progress on whatever improvements you'd like to make in your life with a practical set of top 10 items.

Joining Karel for this episode is Marie-Josee Salvas Shaar. While most other episodes deal with a single topic, this one is different in that it deals with four topics and, importantly, the integration of them together - sleep, food, mood, and exercise. Refer to the top 10 list on this site and visit Marie-Josee's website for more information.

Take some time to step back, reflect, and provide feedback. Karel gives a preview of what topics are on the candidate list for future episodes and then provides a top 10 list for reflecting and providing feedback on this and other podcasts and similar technology mediated content and conversations.

Learn to develop Psychological Capital during this episode when Karel has special guest Kathryn Britton back again. Kathryn was also on Episode 16 and talked that time about Positive Psychology. This time she focuses on Hope and Resilience the latter of which she has also recently co-edited a book on which is available at Amazon. She is also available for individual coaching sessions. You can reach her at Theano Coaching.

Do you find that the meetings you lead and/or attend aren't as effective as they could be? Karel provides a context for evaluating the cost of a meeting and the resulting need for increased effectiveness and then provides a top 10 list of practical advice to use in making meetings you lead as a formal leader or as an emergent one much more effective and enjoyable.

In this episode, Karel takes the approaches, methods, and techniques used in product design and applies them to designing the product, you. The quotes and top 10 list provide you a way to think about and approach self-improvement by designing your life.

Have you wondered how long it should take to develop a skill into a habit? In response to a listener request, Karel addresses the very important topic in this episode. He describes the factors that determine the length of time that it takes and then summarizes the rules of thumb for simple and complex behaviors as well as what it takes to get to mastery. The top 10 list for this episode provides advice on optimizing the realization of the development of skills into habits.

In response to a listener request, Karel reviews key points from ten previous episodes in order for you to assess your progress, celebrate successes and identify additional areas of continued and intensified focus.

Want to improve the presentations you give? Whether you're in school or beginning your career and just starting to give presentations or you're a veteran presenter, Karel provides advice on how to improve the overall effectiveness of your presentations. He addresses the following topics: audience, objectives, three main points, duration, slides/structure, graphics/text, audio-video/animation, humor, practice, and delivery.

Does your life feel out of control? Are you not spending time on the things you think are important in life? In this episode, Karel summarizes some insightful quotes and then reviews ten ideas for optimizing the balance and integration of the work and non-work aspects of your life.

Want to improve your electronic communication? Karel devotes this longer than usual episode on the topic of electronic communication which includes everything from Facebook and Twitter to texting, instant messaging, e-mail, conference calling, and video conferencing. Karel provides advice on increasing your effective use of these mechanisms as well as how to limit them as well.

Karel is joined on this episode by special guest UK Psychologist Mandy Kloppers who discusses the important topic of self-confidence. Mandy shares her favorite quotes on the topic and outlines her top 10 ideas for increasing self-confidence. Mandy also recommends the book Mind over Mood as a particularly good source of information on this topic. If you live in the UK, you can also checkout the innovative service she founded called text-tonic. If you live outside the UK, you can still visit the website but for now can't make use of the mobile/cell phone service itself.

How are the various relationships in your life doing? Karel focuses this episode on the topic of relationships - taking stock, increasing, decreasing, and deepening them across all contexts and roles within your life. He also provides advice on improving the quality of relationships, something that is so important to the overall quality of all our lives.

Having trouble staying focussed with everything going on in your life? Karel devotes this episode to the topic of getting and staying focussed and shares his thoughts and ideas so that you can improve your approach to this important aspect of your life.

Want to further develop and hone your leadership skills? Whether you're a political or business leader, a little league coach, a parent or student, a formal designated leader or an emergent one, the advice Karel provides in this episode will help you improve your leadership skills. The problem wih the initial mp3 file for this episode is now fixed. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Want to make New Year's resolutions that will last? Karel devotes this episode to providing advice on determining how to select appropriate resolutions and how to make sure that you'll be able to successfully carry them out.

Want to get better at expressing gratitude? Most people don't express gratitude enough. Karel summarizes some good thinking on this topic and then provides 10 ideas for understanding gratitude and getting good at expressing it yourself.

Do you have the necessary level of resilience to deal with the changes happening in the world? Karel outlines the concept of personal resilience in this episode and provides ten ideas to develop into habits that will increase your capacity to deal with major changes, the results of them, and ways to turn challenges into opportunities.

Want to make sense of blogs, mini-blogs, and podcasts? Karel devotes this episode to describing the curent trends in blog and podcast technologies (Google Alerts, Twitter, iTunes) and providing specific advice on how to find the content that is of interest to you using these technologies. The top 10 list for this episode provides Karel's specific recommendations of blogs and podcasts. Feel free to provide any recommendations you may have for blogs and podcasts via comments on this site or in an e-mail to lifehabits@gmail.com.

Feeling stressed? Karel devotes this episode to a set of ideas and skills to develop into routine habits to help you manage stress on a day-to-day basis. After summarizing the ever popular insightful famous quotes on the topic, Karel starts by helping you understand your circle of influence then describes a series of practical techniques and encourages listeners to try them and assess progress in using them. He also briefly outlines but doesn't provide the detailed instructions for practicing a technique called Progressive Muscle Relaxation. Here is some further information on this technique.

How are things working out for you? Every once in a while it's good to take stock of how things are going. Inspired by a listener suggestion, Karel takes this episode to review key ideas from previous podcasts and provide additional perspectives on them in order for you to check your progress and make any necessary mid-course corrections.

Haven't been getting certain things done? Many people procrastinate and don't know how to stop. In this episode, Karel reads some insightful quotes on the topic of procrastination and then takes listeners through 10 ideas for dealing with it and developing life-long habits to prevent getting into cycles of procrastination. He also summarizes the feedback received regarding the format of the podcast which strongly favored sticking with the current 30-40 minute length and content. Thanks so those of you who provided feedback.

Is your life getting too complicated? Most people experience this and don't know how to go about dealing with it. In this episode, Karel reads the usual famous quotes to get started and then summarizes 10 ideas for taking stock of your life and systematically simplifying it. In response to a listener request, the famous quotes are now going to be made available starting with this episode right in the mp3 file along with the top 10 list.

Everyone wants to be more creative but few know how to go about it. After reviewing some insightful and thought-provoking famous quotes on the topic, Karel details 10 ideas for fostering creativity. The approaches are applicable to work situations involving products, services, and processes but equally to your personal and home life. At the end of the episode, Karel also asks for input on a suggestion for improving the podcast series by providing short 5-8 minute daily refresher podcast episodes.

Many people hang on to resentment, hurt, and anger. Many people also haven't experienced the power of helping others. This episode provides you with 10 ideas for skills to develop into habits so that you can appropriately and regularly express forgiveness and compassion.

After the basic needs in life are met, many people still look for something else that will make their life everything that it can be. Maslow's hierarchy of needs provides a context for this and his work on self-actualization outlines the attributes people have who have achieved the highest levels of personal fulfillment. Karel summarizes Maslow's hierarchy approach and then uses it as the basis for a proposed set of 10 ideas for you to develop into self-actualization skills and, in time, habits.

Most people find themselves getting angry and reacting in ways that they later regret. After providing some description of what happens in the body and setting the context with some insightful quotes, Karel details ten ideas for skills to develop into habits that can help you to control your emotions, like anger, rather than them controlling you.

A new area in the field of psychology is Applied Positive Psychology. Karel interviews Kathryn Britton a professional coach who specializes in this area. Kathryn describes the major career changes she made to become become an expert in Applied Positive Psychology. She outlines its history and the major themes it addresses given practical examples of each. Discussion in the episode mentions Kathryn's website, blog, and the newsletter to which she is a regular contributor.

Some people just dream of success while others actually achieve it. After reading some insightful quotes on the topic, Karel summarizes 10 ideas for you to develop into skills and in turn into habits to increase the likelihood of you being clear about what success means to you and then systematically achieving it. He also reads a comment from a listener regarding a previous podcast which includes the recommendation for a book titled "Screamfree Parenting" by Hal Runkel.

The sexes are different. Karel reviews some surprising recent research findings regarding gender differences, provides some personal context for the topic, and then summarizes 10 ideas for developing some good skills in this area which can be honed into life habits. Karel deals with topics having to do with equality, ideas for cross-gender learning yielding optimized androgyny, and advice regarding the celebration of one's gender including its strengths and advantages. Karel recommends the book "Why Gender Matters" by Leonard Sax which can also be found at audible.com.

Technology pervades all aspects of our lives. This episode provides you with advice to make technology work for you rather than you being a slave to it. Karel gives advice on how to control the inputs, which are often technology interruptions, and the outputs, which are your ways of taking action. He also provides his usual list of 10 items to consider in this case to optimize the aspects of your life that have to do with technology. During the podcast, Karel mentions several products or tools. Here are the links to those that were mentioned, audible.com, post-it notes, Facebook, and Google Reader.

Tom Friedman wrote the best-seller "The World is Flat" and described how the world was becoming smaller and more interconnected as a result of, among other things, the advancement of technology. After quoting some statistics regarding internet, blog, and podcast use worldwide, Karel makes the case for being more aware of and sensitive to global audiences and cultures. He summarizes 10 skills that should be considered on this topic for honing into habits in order to more effectively deal with a flat world. He also makes reference to avoiding cultural faux pas.

Spoken language is one of the most important abilities humans possess but, surprisingly, also often the most neglected in terms of skill development. The last episode dealt with spoken language as it relates to public speaking, an activity that is most feared by many people. This episode deals with person-to-person, or interpersonal, communication which everyone does everyday. After reviewing some insightful famous quotes on the topic, Karel summarizes 10 key habits do develop in order to optimize your interpersonal communication. These are as as important to a business setting as they are to a non-business one. Further honing these skills into habits will dramatically improve your communication skills and, in turn, your overall effectiveness and the quality of your relationships with others.

Being effective at public speaking is among the most important skills to have yet most people fear speaking in public and lack some of the skills to be effective at it. Karel provides advice regarding 10 valuable habits to develop in this important aspect of life. He discusses relevance to work as well as non-work settings.

This episode deals with the important topic of fitness both in terms of doing it for life and gleaning the benefits that include a better and longer life. After reading some famous quotes on the topic of fitness, Karel provides 10 things to think about regarding fitness. The first three deal with ways of thinking about the importance and the benefits of optimal fitness and the remaining seven deal with the development of specific fitness habits. This guidance assumes that you are in contact with your doctor to ensure that there are no medical reasons that would prevent you from engaging in an exercise program.

Karel Vredenburg

Building on Episode 6 which dealt with the topic of Career Planning, this episode addresses Career Strategies. Karel provides 10 strategies for choosing a career and being successful in it. The ideas are relevant to those who are still in school and just thinking about future careers, those at the start of their career in order to enhance their success, and those well into their career who are looking for further career optimization or an alternative career.

Whether you're still in school and haven't started your career, just got your first job, or in mid-career, the topic of career planning is hugely important. As Lewis Carroll said, "If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there." Most people don't pay enough attention to career planning or think about it too narrowly and then wonder why they don't have the career they truly wanted. Karel addresses this topic by introducing three factors that he believes are key to consider during pre-career, early career, and mid-career planning. He then takes each and gives advice on how to approach making progress in a tangible way.

There is a significant trend toward people working from home but there is very little information about good habits and best practices regarding this mode of working. Karel summarizes the three most common types of working from home and then outlines the benefits and challenges of remote work. He then provides specific advice about how best to arrange and handle working remotely as well as when it may not be the best option.

The mind is amazingly powerful. We can either control it or be controlled by it. This episode is all about being aware of what your mind is capable of doing when you don't control it and, once you're aware of it, to take control. Karel quotes Marcus Aurelius, who said, "You have the power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this and you will find strength". Karel gives a few examples of the power of the mind and the ways in which it can take control without our knowledge.

One of the most important habits to learn is to stay positive no matter what the stimulus and now matter what the context. Karel starts off this episode by quoting Helen Keller who said, "when one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us". The episode includes a story about a university coach who was overly negative but whose behavior changed dramatically when confronted to an unwavering positive reaction. We have the power to decide how to react to a stimulus and if we decide to take the negative reaction it often yields less than optimal results; when we react positively, the outcomes are often much more favorable. Karel gives examples of positive approaches in situations regarding work and career, relationships, parenting, and health. In each, a specific positive approach can yield incredibly desirable outcomes.

Karel Vredenburg focuses on time management in this episode. You might be thinking, "I don't have time for that!" but after listening and taking the advice given you will have a lot more time to devote to the important items in your life. Karel starts off by quoting Thomas Edison who said, "Time is really the only capital that any human being has, and the only thing he can't afford to lose." to reinforce the importance of valuing time and thus managing it effectively. Karel discusses taking control of your time, yearly and weekly time scales, prioritizing the roles you play, and then has specific advice on new habits to consider for use on the job including default meeting length, staying focussed during meetings, deciding whether a meeting, a phone call, an e-mail, or an IM chat is most appropriate and efficient. His advice for the rest of your life includes multitasking with an iPod, using audible.com to get your reading material, listening to podcasts, switching phone to voicemail and text messaging, subcontracting work at home, assigning tasks to kids and making their allowance contingent on the work, scheduling time for each family member, and also to watch out for overscheduling activities at home and leaving some time for spontaneous activities.

Karel Vredenburg welcomes listeners to this new podcast series and provides an overview of the content, format, and frequency. He also introduces the first topic - starting with the end in mind and finishes up by inviting listeners to provide feedback via the website or gmail.