Breathing new energy into old ego patterns can sometimes ‘ventilate’ habitual entanglements that we have built up over a lifetime. Ventilating these built-up patterns is important for disentangling complex ego defenses that have in fact served us throughout our life, however, without the ability to self-reflect, our own minds can become an obstacle to wisdom and growth.

I remember lots of tears that spring. Surprising for a guy who doesn’t cry much. My world was crashing down on me in 2008. As a hotel entrepreneur, we were a canary in the coal mine as we experienced the early punishment of the coming Great Recession.

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post on how to meet more interesting people, I wanted to highlight New York Times columnist David Brooks’ recent article with nine tips for creating deeper conversations. If I didn’t know better, I might have assumed David had spent a week with us at MEA.

This is a question I’ve heard dozens of times in the past three years at MEA. People arrive at our beachfront campus on a dirt street with no name. They’re in a foreign country, and they’re a little cautious, like turtles whose heads recoil in their shell at the first sign of danger.

The day before I turned 55 I received a letter from my bank. The auxiliary checking account I'd opened for online transactions would soon be assessed an $8 monthly fee unless I maintained a $1000 minimum balance or deposited $250/month, neither of which was feasible for me.

Our mindset is the self-perception we hold about ourselves and the world. The mindset we adopt for ourselves can profoundly affect the way we live our lives. As many of you know, Carol Dweck popularized the idea of fixed and growth mindsets.

Midway into our second year at our company Next For Me, some of our advisors and readers questioned the tone of our corporate story and consumer message. It was filled with what they considered too much negative messaging rife with doomsday predictions for 50+ audiences.

Oh, how I wish I could be a BuSu: a Buddhist Surfer. One basic tenet of Buddhism is that comparison equals suffering. I realized this is why I took to meditation in my twenties, but yoga eluded me. I meditate with my eyes closed so I don’t compare how I’m doing with everyone else, but put me in a yoga class with a bunch of able, limber bodies and I become “Conley, the critic”...not of them, of me.

Change is good, right? Rather than offer you a book review each Friday as I’ve done since Wisdom Well began more than a year ago, I’m going to offer you a book a month post twice a year. Here’s my list for the first half of 2021.

I love the title of Roman Krznaric’s book (which is also the title of this post) and his seven-minute TED talk, both of which are as inspiring as they are illuminating. Roman helps us see that we’ve been colonizing the future with those generations powerless over our mistakes.