a. What’s holding your interest these days? b. What have you read (or seen, or heard, or been working on) that excites you? c. So tell me about (subject you know the person cares about).

What stops us from falling back to sleep isn’t that we can’t sleep. It’s the anxiety story we make up that says, “This is wrong, I’m supposed to sleep eight straight hours, I’ll never sleep again.”

accelerating the progression of Alzheimer’s to blunting your immune system and state of mind, rivaling the destructive effects of hypertension, obesity, smoking, and inactivity combined. Like it or not, we are psychologically and physiologically wired to find and be with our people.

Here I’ll share my top seven tips and invite you to try one, two, or as many as you’re inspired to try. Once you do, be sure to return to your journal and write a bit about the experience.

Step out of your head and into the world. Trust that what you’re thinking about just might work. And even if it doesn’t, the challenge of moving through an idea the world doesn’t embrace almost always pales in comparison with the regret of never having offered it in the first place.

Dweck also suggests that you consider how you handle criticism. Does it make you react in any of the ways described above? These are all signs of a fixed mindset.

In the course of her research, she had come across a study by Arthur Aron,17 a professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, that fascinated her. Psychology students were divided into pairs, a heterosexual male and female, previously unknown to each other. Students who disagreed on any strongly held beliefs before the pairing were

“giver’s glow.”

Here’s what’s really important to remember: it’s okay if no single spark ever rises to the level of all-consuming “mad passion” or “life purpose.” More important is just the feeling of being sparked. Lit up and drawn to invest your energy in something that calls from a place within to do more.