David Herz, Coach

Recently Asked on Quora

How do you become your own best friend?

This is a bad idea. While you should have self-respect and a healthy view of your potential/ability, as your own best friend you are talking into an echo chamber that will only confirm and grow your biases.

You want a critical outside party to give you a good smack upside the head when you need it, a hug when you need it, a shoulder to cry on, and even a pity party from time to time, followed with a smack upside the head. You can try to be this for yourself, but it's too easy to uncritically fall into bad patterns.

What's more, you live in the world. You must learn to navigate that world. Instead of looking inside, you might want to engage in a much more fun question: “What can I do today to be the World's Best Friend?” or “What can I do to be X's Best Friend today?” where X is any person you want to connect with today.

There are two things I want to add here. The first is the best way to have friends is to be a friend. A friend does without any expectation of return or profit. He does because he has a commitment and it makes him feel good.

Second, it's not for you to judge if you are a good enough friend. If a person says you are, you are. That doesn't oblige you to anything, other than the baseline honesty and straightness that should be there anyway.

Take it on. If you want you can make it your theme for 2018. And if you are so inclined, come on back here and let me know how it went.

Thought Catalog

So your assignment today is getting a handle on what's so. So take out your journal (and if you don't have one yet, create one; any notebook will do), put down today's date and just jot down the following:

• Your Age
• Your Height
• Your Weight
• Relationship Status
• Number of Kids
• Where you live: address, type, size, rent or own.
• Job title
• Your Current Salary/Monthly Income
• Current Assets: money in the bank, current receivables, IRAs, 401(k) plans, stocks, real estate, car, jewelry, etc.
• Current Obligations: rent, taxes, utilities, memberships, school tuition, alimony/child support, etc.
• Current Debt: credit card(s), mortgage(s), car or personal loans, installment sale obligations
• Degrees, Certifications and Licenses
• Other titles or achievements
• Physical achievements, challenges met, crafts projects completed
• Status of anything else you keep track of (how much you bench press, the state of your beanie baby collection, how often you traveled or saw family in the last year, etc.)

Don't judge! Don't start looking at whether you think it's enough or whether you thought you'd be somewhere else. All you want to do with this is acknowledge what's so.

Now you want to acknowledge yourself for everything it took to get here, and for the work you did to have what you have and be who and where you are.

Dear Friends:

Originally posted to help you create 2018, this formula, and the sequence that follows, can be tried on any time. Sign on for a handful of exercise to take a look at where you are and determine where you want to go. Get those two figured out and you—with our help, if you want—can create a plan to get there.

We expect that some of you don't need any more than this reminder to set your year up. If you are one of those, we acknowledge you and invite you to get on with it.

For some of us though, we know a little nudge now will set us on a course to a much different place by the end of the year.

If you are one of these, in a few moments we'll invite you to get on our list so we can provide that nudge.

For some it's much worse. You're surprised you are even here at all. And maybe you're a bit like I was: Maybe you've made New Year's Resolutions. You've stopped doing that. You are so sure you'll fail, you don't want to make any promises at all. It's just too painful.

And if you are one of these, I'm glad you are here at all. It suggests you've still got at least a glimmer of hope. It suggests that at some level you know you can beat your demons. You, make that we, know that there's a bigger life available for us, and we're ready to support each other in creating it.

So for those who want a little nudge, and those who haven't given up, for those willing to take on that something else is possible, we invite you to sign on to our list. We'll be sending you a series of prompts for thought and action as we start 2018.

And here's our first: What did you do that you are proud of in 2017? Be generous with yourself. It could be that you made your first million, or your first dollar, that you married, or just went on a date, or just that you are still here to start 2018. There is no accomplishment too small if it means something to you. Please feel free to share in the comments below.

And in the meantime, sign on to:

Let's Create 2018

Dear Friend:

I write to ask your forgiveness. And I thank G-d that you are so much more grown up than I.

You said on Wednesday that you get angry. I could only think that you got that from me, and that's really not the legacy I want to leave you. It's not a happy - or productive - way to go through life.

I interviewed a friend of mine a few weeks ago. And then got to speaking with him about parenting afterward. He shared the major lesson he left his kid: “Just keep going.”

I missed that one somewhere. Every time I thought I made a mistake, every time things didn't go as planned, every opportunity I've missed, I let it mess me up. With all the Landmark I've done, you'd think I'd be past it (instead, I use it as more evidence that I am screwed up).

Read more »

Adem Djemil

A Glorious 5778

Sharleen (my partner, my inspiration, and my wife) has joined the business. We wish you an Meaningful and Fulfilling, make that a Glorious 5778. Our wish is that this New Year is so New and so You that when you look back you don't recognize the person who started it.