Letters From Alex

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Successful on paper, miserable in real life: the missing piece isn't another goal. It's alignment with the version of you who knew the job was wrong before you said "yes." And it has been hiding in plain sight Why am I "successful" but unhappy? Success on paper, but an internal sense of purposelessness and mild "I'm kind of used to it by now" unhappiness is...

The Origin: Why You Learned to Scan the Room By the time you were seven, you learned that your safety depended on someone else's mood. At its root, people-pleasing is an attempt to manufacture your inner peace by micromanaging the emotional weather of everyone around you. Your boss's frown, your partner's sigh, your mother's silence. A way to distinguish it from someone being considerate of others is by asking yourself this question: Am I okay even if they aren't? The origins of...

Every blocked creative has the same thought: "Everyone else got a manual I missed." Real creators feel certain. I'm a fraud. Newsflash: They don't. The ones making interesting work are perpetually out of their depth. I spent five years working 12-hour days on a scientific invention. I knew another group was chasing the same thing. I wasn't making progress. My body started falling apart. And then I learned that other group was about to publish and scoop me. For a scientist, getting scooped...

There's a study I can't stop thinking about. Researchers took people with depression and split them into groups. Therapy. Medication. And one group that did something stranger: they eliminated the words "I can't" and "I have to" from their vocabulary entirely. Instead of "I can't get out of bed," they said "I choose not to get out of bed." Instead of "I have to go to work," they said "I choose to go to work." This last group recovered faster than the others. Significantly. Here's why this...

Somewhere between childhood and adulthood, most of us learn to hide. Not from anything real. From imagined judgment. From who we imagineother people think we are. I learned this thanks to my daughter. I forgot to turn the sprinklers back on after winter. By the time I noticed, half my front lawn was dead — brown, patchy, embarrassing. Every time I pulled into the driveway I felt a small sting of shame. What do the neighbors think? I started watering at odd hours, hoping no one would see me...

Hi Reader Most people try to fix their anxiety. They view anxiety as a problem to be solved. Something to change and get rid of. Here’s why that never works. Anxiety isn’t a feeling. Anxiety is a spiral. The anxiety spiral tricks us into doing the things that cause it to grow.So the more you fight it, the more it escalates, leading you further and further away from peace. Here’s how the anxiety spiral works Something in your environment feels threatening. A small fear response happens. That...

Letters From Alex COACH The Silence After the Achievement: When There's No One to Tell "Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes." -Carl Jung You got the promotion. Closed the deal. Hit the number. Posted the win. And then. Deafening silence. Not the good kind. Not the satisfied quiet of a job well done. The hollow kind. The kind that echoes back at 3 AM when you're staring at the ceiling wondering why the...