Here’s How To Ask Others To Stop Sharing Photos Of Your Kids Online

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The digital record of a child born this century often begins before birth, when a parent shares a grainy sonogram image.

By the time the child is old enough to open their own social media accounts, there may already be hundreds of images of them online, searchable by name, geotag location and facial recognition technology.

But an increasing number of parents are opting out of this “sharenting” norm of documenting all of their child’s milestones on social media.

They might choose to not post any photos of their child at all or only photos in which their child’s face isn’t visible. Some parents block out their child’s face in group photos or make public requests that others do not post images of their child.

There are several reasons why parents decide to protect their child’s digital privacy. They might want their child, once they are old enough to consent, to control the distribution of their own image and other identifying information.

They might also have concerns about the potential for future embarrassment if images of their child are searchable by peers or even college admissions officers and employers.

“Posting photos of kids online also creates a digital footprint that forms their identities in an online world they haven’t chosen to enter,” Erin Wilkey Oh, content director of family and community engagement at Common Sense Media, tells HuffPost.

Parents involved in contentious custody battles, such as those involving restraining orders, may also have an interest in keeping their child’s image and any clues as to their location offline.

Finally, parents may want to prevent companies from collecting information about their child, creating a data trail that will follow them for the rest of their lives.

“Shared photos can be easily traced back to the parent’s identity and social media account, offering data brokers the ability to discern the child’s identity and start compiling digital dossiers on your kids,” Mark Bartholomew, a professor at the University at Buffalo School of Law, tells HuffPost.

Although less likely, there are also darker dangers. “Posting images online is not risk-free,” Pamela Rutledge, director of the Media Psychology Research Center, tells HuffPost. “It increases the chance of things like bullying and stalking or, although rare, even predators.”

How to ask family and friends to not post photos of your child online

Whether you’re the parents of a newborn or you have an older child who has expressed a desire to keep their image offline, you have the right to request that photos not be shared.

It may feel uncomfortable to make this ask. Family members or friends may express disappointment or even feel that you are judging them for wanting to share photos.

Wilkey Oh suggests saying something like: “We’ve decided to not share photos of our child on social media, and we’re asking friends and family to do the same.”

You can take the focus and pressure off others by using an “I” statement.

“The most effective way of voicing an opinion that has implications for the behaviour of others is to own it,” says Rutledge. You might want to say: “I’m not comfortable sharing pictures on social media. Please make sure any of the pictures of my family aren’t in the ones you share online.”

If there are conditions under which you would be OK with a photo of your child being shared, such as their face not showing and location tags being turned off, you can let them know this, too.

“If your child is older and is opposed to such sharing, I’d just tell those family members that you are respecting your child’s wishes,” Bartholomew says.

“If the child is younger, I’d explain that it’s so hard to know what the future costs might be of your child’s digital footprint,” he adds.

When to make the request

“Because posting photos of kids is so common on social media, many people don’t think twice about it,” Wilkey Oh says. She recommends making the request upfront with new teachers, caregivers or other adults in your child’s life rather than waiting until a photo is shared.

New parents have the advantage of starting with a clean slate. It’s easier to maintain a child’s non-presence online than it is to track down images that have already been posted and have them removed.

If you’ve just welcomed your first child, you might send a group text or post a message on your own social media account saying, “We’ve decided not to put any photos of our child on social media to protect their privacy and until they are old enough to consent,” Wilkey Oh says.

If you have shared images of your child in the past but have decided to stop doing so, you’ll have to let family and friends know in advance of gatherings or at the time the picture is being taken.

“Pose a polite but firm statement at the beginning of any gathering where photos are likely to be taken,” Rutledge advises.

At family gatherings, you can ask relatives not to share photos of your children on social media.

Morsa Images via Getty Images

At family gatherings, you can ask relatives not to share photos of your children on social media.

Hopefully you’ll only need to ask once. If it’s just a couple of friends or relatives who continue posting pictures, it may make more sense to speak with those people one-on-one.

You can remind them that your misgivings are not personal to them but with the digital world at large.

“Most people are generally aware of how our online transactions can be compiled and used against us,” Bartholomew says.

“Telling others that you want to at least try to keep your kids out of the digital dragnet until they get older should be a fairly compelling justification for not posting images.”

If they persist in claiming that pictures will be safe on their accounts, you may need to explain that even with privacy settings, “pictures can still make it into the hands of those outside the approved circle,” Rutledge says.

She also notes that in the case of Facebook and Instagram, their parent company, Meta, retains the rights to any photos you upload.

Some people may “dismiss your concerns as silly or overprotective,” she adds, but you have the right to draw these boundaries and do what you think is in the best interest of your child for the long term.

“Not respecting the privacy rights of kids can seriously damage trust and relationships as they age at a time when you most want the lines of communication to stay open,” Rutledge says.

Another consideration is that your child will have their own phone and social media accounts one day, and you have a brief chance to serve as a role model.

Sandra Cortesi, director of youth and media at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, tells HuffPost: “If parents decide not to share photos, and explain why not, this might help children to make better decisions down the road as well.”

When possible, Cortesi suggests involving kids in these conversations about privacy.

“One approach is for parents to share a few age-appropriate ‘hypotheticals’ with family members to illustrate how sharing of photos might have different consequences depending on context and over time,” she explains.

For example, a photo of a teen at a party might seem like harmless fun to the person who posted it, but look like bad judgment to a college admissions officer.

Ideally, Cortesi says, you’re having regular conversations with family and friends about the sharing of photos and other information.

“With such shared context, it’s much easier to have a discussion about children’s data privacy in the moment of taking a picture or video,” she says.

You can also offer up some alternative sharing options

Wilkey Oh suggests that parents “have some alternative sharing methods in place to share special moments or milestones of a child with family and friends”. These could be a group text or a private photo sharing site that’s accessible only to those invited.

This way family members can easily share images with each other without the risks of those images being posted in a public space.

What to do if there are photos of your child online that you want taken down

If there are public images of your child that you or your child would like taken down, you can ask the owner of the account to do so.

Though advertisers may have already collected data from the images, this can solve the problem of those images being searchable in the future – provided that they haven’t been copied and posted elsewhere.

If that fails, you can also contact the platform and make the request to have the images taken down. Wilkey Oh notes that the help centres on Facebook and Instagram have instructions for doing this, although there’s no guarantee if, or when, the companies would respond.

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‘Habit Stacking’ Could Be The Answer To Actually Sticking To Your 2023 Resolutions

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It’s the same every year – we make a list of resolutions for the New Year the length of our arm, before inevitable breaking them half way through January.

The fact of the matter is, trying to implement so many changes into our lives at once is no easy feat.

Change can be tricky, especially if it involves breaking a habit of a lifetime and requires a whole lot of discipline. However, there is a method that could make us stick to our self-promises for good.

Enter ‘habit stacking’.

The concept is fairly straightforward, as TikToker Elle Leonard explains in her now viral video, habit stacking involves ‘stacking’ a habit you want to do on top of one you already have, meaning it’s more likely to become part of your daily routine.

In her video, Elle uses the example of wanting to speak to her grandparents more. In her home she has mugs that her grandmother gave her and now, whenever she uses one, she uses it as a reminder to phone her relatives there and then to check in.

By incorporating her daily habit of having a morning coffee with a new habit of speaking to her grandparents, she’s managed to stick to it.

And it’s not just TikTok that loves habit stacking, the pros do too.

According to James Clear, author of #1 New York Times bestseller Atomic Habits, “your brain builds a strong network of neurons to support your current behaviours. The more you do something, the stronger and more efficient the connection becomes.”

He defines the formula for habit stacking as: After/Before current habit, I will new habit.

Habit stacking, explains Clear, lets you take advantage of the strong connections you have for a habit you already carry out in order to stick to a new one.

“You have patterns and behaviours that have been strengthened over years. By linking your new habits to a cycle that is already built into your brain, you make it more likely that you’ll stick to the new behaviour,” he writes on his website.

By stacking your habits, effort is less, the new parts of your routine are more natural, and voila! You’re on the road to long-lasting behavioural change.

Another key way of making sure that habit stacking is successful, is clearly setting a highly specific and actionable cue on which to attach your new habit to.

For instance, let’s take ‘eating more healthily’ as a resolution we want to stick to in 2023. According to Clear, this isn’t, well, clear enough.

Instead, to make it actionable, you’d stack it onto something you already do, for instance: “When I cook dinner for myself at night, I will cook a portion of vegetables every single time.”

Or how about, “when I wake up, while I’m waiting for/making my coffee, I will eat a piece of fruit.”

This is far less vague than ‘eat healthier’ as it’s a habit you can incorporate into the one you already carry out.

Here’s another example that many of us will no doubt be promising ourselves in 2023: drinking more water.

Instead of just vowing to do that, we can build it into our routines on top of an action we already carry out – “after I brush my teeth, I will drink a glass of water”, “before I eat my lunch, I will drink a glass of water”, “when I close my laptop for the day, I will drink a glass of water.”

Clear explains: “Be specific and clear: After I close the door. After I brush my teeth. After I sit down at the table. The specificity is important. The more tightly bound your new habit is to a specific cue, the better the odds are that you will notice when the time comes to act.”

Here’s his list of habits you can ‘anchor’ a new one to:

  • Get out of bed.
  • Take a shower.
  • Brush your teeth.
  • Get dressed.
  • Brew a cup of coffee.
  • Eat breakfast.
  • Take the kids to school.
  • Start the work day.
  • Eat lunch.
  • End the work day.
  • Change out of work clothes.
  • Sit down for dinner.
  • Turn off the lights.
  • Get into bed.

Happy stacking!

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15 Tweets Accurately Describing The Hellscape That Is Parenting On A Hangover

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If you rang in the New Year last night and are nursing a sore head this morning, you’re probably contending with the fact you’ve now got a day (or two, if you’re really lucky) of looking after your kids while your brain tries to escape your skull.

Never fear though, you’re certainly not alone in your struggles. These tweets are proof that hangovers and being a parent certainly don’t, under any circumstances, mix. But we’ll do it all again next year anyway…

1. This video is *the* most accurate depiction of the struggle we’re all facing right now

2. Trampolining on a hangover is probably not advised

3. See also: potty training

4. Why do we do it to ourselves?

5. There is no respite for a hungover parent

6. Sometimes you have to do whatever works for you. And sometimes that means chips and guac for breakfast

7. Why would anyone ever knowingly drink alcohol knowing this awaits them the following day?

8. Behold: parenting with a hangover 2.0

9. PSA: don’t drink the night before any live action children’s show. It’s not worth it

10. Hideous is an understatement

11. Sometimes you’ve got to celebrate those small wins…

12. We repeat: greasy snacks are essential

13. If you’re not bribing your kids, you’re doing it wrong

14. When your hangover renders you into a horizontal, immovable state, you’re going to have to contend with being sat on

15. All in all, not an experience we want to repeat in a hurry

For those now wondering how on earth they can cope with today’s hangover, check out these tips from parents on how they’ve survived one with kids in tow (the racetrack idea is pretty genius) and if all else fails, take a leaf out of Jenny Hicken’s book…

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The One Mistake That’s Tripping Up Our New Year’s Resolutions, According To A Psychologist

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We all want our New Year resolutions to work, but – every year – it always proves particularly difficult to make them stick.

It’s also hard not to drop any plans you may have had for self-improvement by spring, promising to yourself that you’ll try again when the next January rolls around.

We’ve all been there – trying to make the goals smaller, and rewarding yourself along the way, but nothing feels like it works.

Don’t give up yet though.

Senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Law, Mark Jellicoe, has suggested some more evidence-based techniques which could make 2023 the year you actually stick to those healthier habits.

So, here’s what to do – and not to do – this January.

Don’t tell everyone

We know, the usual wisdom advises you to tell more people, so there’s more social pressure – or more accountability – meaning you might be more likely to actually follow through.

But, Jellicoe sats: “There is growing evidence that would suggest doing this can be detrimental.”

Jellicoe suggests that the act of telling someone about the goal – and the subsequent praise you may receive – could “lead us to deceiving ourselves that we have already achieved” it.

So you might end up not actually ending attempting the goal with as much gusto as you may have beforehand.

Do manifest (a little)

A trend which has emerged in recent years suggests if an individual really wants something, they tell themselves actively they already have it to push their mindset into a more optimistic one.

It’s like a wider interpretation of the phrase, “dress for the job you want not the job you have”.

But, as Jellicoe points out that “manifesting is no magic bullet”, and there is little direct evidence suggesting this would help you realise a goal.

However, he suggests that “several supported scientific approaches” have a similar mindset ascribed to manifestation.

He explains: “It makes sense that if we orient ourselves towards an outcome then we might be more motivated to achieve it, which would invoke the pattern of thinking and behavioural beliefs to help us do this.”

The psychologist also suggests that manifesting was most effective when combined with setting goals.

Do set goals

It’s hard to set out clear, achievable targets – and it can sometimes feel too much like homework.

But, this is one of the most effective ways to make sure you reach that end goal.

Jellicoe suggests looking to the WOOP model – Wish, Outcome, Obstacle and Plan – to make sure the targets you set are realistic.

“This approach encourages us to think about the reality of our situation and the likely obstacles that come between us and our ultimate goals, so we can plan ways to overcome them.”

He suggests combining this with the more classic means to approach your goals – SMART – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timebound, for the best results.

“Resolutions, or goals, are like alchemy. There are many reasons why we fail to achieve our resolutions. Often goals can be too vague or in reality, the resolution might be a wish that we are just not that committed to,” he explains.

3. Know your limits

Jellicoe also touches on the impact ab individual’s personality can have on achieving your goals too.

He advises looking at personalities through the five traditional factors which have been identified within most individuals: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism.

He urges anyone looking to change their habits to find out your personality type online so you can adapt your strategies appropriately.

For instance, those who are more conscientious are more likely to see goals through; but equally that could make someone stick at a goal when it’s no longer relevant.

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What It’s Like Being Me

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I love asking people this question: What is it really like being you?

We can see how people speak and behave on the outside, but what do we know of their interior perspective?

What I love about this question is that it invites real intimacy and empathy. It’s an invitation into trust. I feel honored when someone does their best to answer honestly. It’s fascinating to discover how someone frames and experiences their interior world, at least to the extent they can articulate it.

I thought it would be interesting to answer this question too, if only to see what comes through when I try to answer it.

Centeredness

I love being me and really enjoy my life, which feels rich and rewarding. I feel like I figured out the big rocks and put them in place many years ago. I feel very aligned with the work I get to do and the people I regularly connect with, especially in Conscious Growth Club and the Transformational Leadership Council.

I don’t experience any meaningful doubt about the path I’m on, at least not at the macro level. I like to think carefully about the projects I commit to, but I can’t say that I ever seriously feel like making a significant change in my career path or lifestyle at this point. I’m always interested in upgrades and improvements, but the overall trajectory of my life feels like it’s already perfect for me.

So on the inside, I normally feel very centered and engaged with whatever I’m doing and experiencing. I enjoy a beautiful sense of harmony with my work and life balance. I don’t feel like work and life are separate. It feels more like the work and non-work parts of life are always dancing with each other.

Energy & Enthusiasm

One of the main emotions I experience is enthusiasm.

I love to feel positively stimulated with emotion, not all the time to the maximum, but as nice accents throughout each day. I like to feel amped up and engaged with life.

Partly this is a decision to move away from boredom and dullness. When I feel that the energy of a situation is a bit low for my tastes, I’ll often do something to shift it. For instance, I frequently like to play music and dance around while making meals. I love it when Rachelle does that with me too.

Every day I find something to feel enthusiastic about, usually many times each day. It could be a new business idea, but I’ll also generate enthusiasm for everyday experiences like greeting Rachelle when she gets up, doing a Zoom call, or watching a show together. I’ll even generate excitement about running errands.

My mind has a strong tendency to want to bounce away from boredom and towards feelings of engagement, playfulness, and fun. For me this aspect of my inner reality is solidly implanted.

Raising Vibes

I think this is something I learned from watching movies when I was younger. There are so many movie scenes where a high-energy character walks in, and the whole vibe of the scene changes. Or maybe it’s an unusual character who shifts the vibe of whatever scene they’re in. One example is Bill Murray’s character in Ghostbusters. Another is Val Kilmer’s character in Real Genius. Such characters were basically my heroes when I was younger. You’ve probably seen countless examples of these characters too.

When I interact with people socially, I often think about how I can stimulate them vibrationally… like what I could say or do to help connect them with more enthusiasm for their lives, experiences, and opportunities. Sometimes I feel that my role has been to shake people awake if they’ve been sleeping through life in zombie mode.

I sense that a great key to life is how we manage our energy, which includes thought energy, physical energy, and emotional energy. I think you can include spiritual energy too. I pay serious attention to the flow of energy through myself and through interactions with others. If the energy flow feels off somehow, I do my best to shift it in a more positive and constructive direction.

I think that for much of my life, I’ve felt a strong attraction to certain vibes and a strong repulsion towards others. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten better and better at centering my life around the vibes I like and defending myself from vibes I dislike. I’m attracted to vibes like abundance, playfulness, curiosity, and creativity. I’m repulsed by neediness, close-mindedness, defeatism, and depression.

Thinking Algorithmically

Probably because I learned computer programming when I was a kid, I tend to think of life in terms of interesting problems to be solved and challenges to work through. I live in a world of puzzles to be figured out, and I love chipping away at these. These puzzles could include business challenges, creative challenges, personal challenges, and more.

I don’t worry if problems are solvable. I tend to regard everything as solvable and figureoutable. I generally assume that every problem has multiple solutions, so my mind starts churning on various solution pathways instead of fussing over whether it’s solvable. I’m much more concerned by which pathways seem the most elegant to me. I love to discover shortcuts.

Some problems in my life took me a long time to solve, but I eventually figured them out. It doesn’t bother me if some problems take years or even decades to solve. The time is going to pass anyway, and since I love working on interesting problems and challenges, I enjoy the experience of continuing to chip away at them.

I’m always looking to improve my toolset of problem-solving skills. Tackling interesting problems and challenges helps me improve those tools and upgrade my models of reality.

Belongingness

Imagine receiving thank you messages and expressions of appreciation from people around the world every day of your life. That’s been my reality for the past 18+ years, ever since I started blogging in 2004. That’s probably going to continue for the rest of my life, even if I stopped working.

Recently my book Personal Development for Smart People came out in China, so I’ve been getting a surge in appreciative emails from Chinese readers.

What does this do to my interior perspective? It gives me an unshakeable feeling of belongingness.

When I was younger, I often felt isolated and disconnected, like I was an alien in this world who didn’t belong here. I haven’t felt that way in decades though. Today I feel solidly at home here. I have zero doubt that this is where I belong – on this planet and in this field. I feel like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.

I feel at home whenever I travel too. Foreign locations don’t feel foreign to me. I’m so used to communicating with people from all over the world that it feels like the whole world is home.

Appreciation

I feel like I’m immersed in a reality that’s filled with experiences, people, and items to appreciate. I can’t seem to help feeling lots of appreciation each day. I appreciate my work. I appreciate my home. I appreciate Rachelle. I appreciate living in Las Vegas. I appreciate this community.

I also appreciate the little things in life. I spent time interacting with various objects and tech each day, and I learned how important it is to fill my life with items that evoke appreciation. This week I’ve been working with a bunch of hand tools to hang acoustic panels, and using them makes me smile sometimes because I carefully selected and purchased tools that I’d appreciate – such as a drill, tape measure, level, etc.

For me practicing appreciation was a huge key in shifting from scarcity to abundance, so this attitude of appreciation is indelibly woven into my mindset. Almost always when I touch something physically, there’s a part of me saying “thank you” internally for the experience. This happens when I put my hands on the steering wheel in my car, when I open up my laptop, when I pick up a knife in the kitchen, etc. I sense that we only have so many experiences in life, and I want even the most mundane ones to be infused with appreciation.

It would also be unusual for me to go through a day without saying thank you to someone for something. I love to express appreciation, and I sense that people could always use more of it. I would love to see more people expressing genuine gratitude for all the wonders we get to experience in this life instead of taking so much for granted.

When I die I want my last words to be: Thank you for this life.

Love

A big part of my interior perspective is that I enjoy being in love every day. I know a lot of people probably see me as a more mental creature due to seeing that side of me from my writing, but internally I feel a lot of love energy flowing through me each day.

I really, really, really enjoy and appreciate my relationship with Rachelle. Every day I get to spend with her is sheer delight.

Our relationship doesn’t feel effortful. It feels like a wonderful gift. I think that’s because we’re so ridiculously compatible. I recognize that what we have is very special, and on the inside that makes me feel very lucky.

I feel doubly fortunate that I get to see sides of Rachelle that she doesn’t often share with others. To people who don’t know her well, she may seem shy or introverted, but with me she shares so much playfulness, fun, love, warmth, and affection.

I’ve never had an issue with loneliness. I love solitary time too and don’t feel any significant resistance towards being alone. But I’ve spent most of my adult life in long-term relationships. I think one reason I’ve attracted partners pretty easily is that I just don’t feel needy in this area. I love being in a relationship, but I also love the experience of being on my own. I feel equally comfortable in both worlds.

I think this has been a key to new growth experiences. Don’t try to invite new experiences by resisting where you are. Try to love and appreciate your present reality as well as what you’d like to invite next. Send appreciation in all directions.

That was also a big part of shifting from scarcity to abundance. I wasted so much energy on the frustration of resisting scarcity when I was in my 20s. When I finally let go and surrendered to it – and actually welcomed it into my life as if I’d always be in scarcity till I died – that’s when the floodgates of abundance opened up. Learning to appreciate scarcity was a powerful lesson.

Freedom & Creativity

I also really enjoy my freedom. I haven’t had a job or a boss in 30+ years, so I’ve been on an independent entrepreneurial path since the early 1990s. It was rough during the first several years, but I eventually figured it out.

I don’t normally think of myself as an entrepreneur or business owner though. Those frames feel a bit too dull and mental to me. On the inside I don’t really fuss about my identity.

I love to create all sorts of things, so most days I’m thinking about what I’m creating. I could label myself as a creator, but that feels a bit off too. I’m not particularly concerned with how I’m labeled by myself or others. I’m much more in tune with whatever I’m engaging with in the moment. In terms of my identity, it feels more like water or wind – very flexible and adapting to wherever it goes.

The term “content creator” turns my stomach a bit, like it’s trying to smoosh something beautifully expansive into a small-minded box. It’s like putting a bird in a cage.

For me creativity and freedom are the Wonder Twins of my life. I see both as being essential for my long-term happiness and fulfillment. These are gifts from reality, but they must be claimed and defended.

Some people would say that they need freedom in order to create. I don’t think like that. It’s too limiting, and it points back to neediness, which is something I always want to bounce away from.

I regard freedom as something I can and must create. Freedom is a choice. But freedom without creativity is unsustainable, boring, and meaningless. I feel that I’ve invested a lot in creating freedom and freeing myself to create. On the inside it feels wonderful to be in a place where I can create, share, and express so much. This includes maintaining the freedom to keep creating without interference.

I don’t just think of creativity as doing creative work like writing articles, making courses, or doing workshops. I think of creativity as being the core essence of conscious living. That includes creating freedom, creating a life I love, and co-creating experiences with the right people.

Curiosity

On the inside I’m incredibly curious. I love to learn, grow, explore, and discover. I’m always finding something interesting to delve into. I love the process of discovering what the interior perspective of an experience is like. I’m very open to new experiences, especially experiences that can upgrade my thinking and understanding of life and reality.

Even when I’m not actively writing about it, I’m often doing some kind of personal growth experiment. Or I’m studying and exploring something new. Frequently I’m exploring multiple overlapping curiosities.

I’m currently doing a new dietary experiment involving testing a different macro balance (carbs, fat, protein). My goal is to aim for a caloric distribution of 70% carbs (or more), 20% fat (or less), and 10% protein (or less). This is similar to the 80/10/10 diet I did in January 2008 but with higher fat. It’s going very well so far.

I also recently researched acoustic panels, and this week I’ve been installing them in my home office. I also have some panels to install in my studio and a few in the living room. This will help to improve the audio quality on some recordings, and it will make my studio look nicer since I can finally remove the old sound blankets. I like the look of the panels too. Rachelle helped me pick the colors, and we spent a lot of time working on this together.

Last month I invested in some plumbing upgrades, hiring a plumber to install a new tankless water heater, water softener, and whole house water filtration system. I also did a plant medicine journey with some friends.

Last year around this time, I was exploring home theater systems and invested in a major upgrade there. That was one of my favorite explorations because it totally transformed the experience of watching movies and shows with Rachelle, especially action movies. That gave me even more to appreciate.

One of my biggest challenges is that I can get too curious and open too many new doors simultaneously. I love saying yes to new experiences and explorations, but I also have to practice saying no a lot to avoid overextending myself.

Order

On the inside, my mind feels very sharp and orderly. I’m usually very adept at focusing and directing my mind to advance the projects that I want to work on.

I have many dozens of projects mapped out with action steps (I currently use the Things app for this). Realistically it may take me years to complete all the projects I’ve already identified. Week by week I keep chipping away at them.

I also maintain a quarterly completion log, whereby I document what I’ve gotten done or experienced each calendar quarter. I’ve been doing this for about 5 years consistently, and it’s really helpful for progress visibility. I can see where I moved projects across the finish line. Sometimes I may feel like I didn’t get as much done as I would have liked, but when I review those quarterly logs, I’m usually impressed with how much I actually finished.

My life is typically a mix of pre-planned work plus spontaneous action. I’ve gotten pretty good at taking action both inspirationally and methodically. I love having the flexibility to choose which tasks and projects I’ll work on each day without prescheduling them. Most days my calendar is blank. But I also keep track of many competing priorities to weave in when the timing is right.

I like keeping my physical environment neat and tidy. When clutter piles up, it’s very temporary. I feel a strong desire to keep moving towards greater order. When items and tasks are in order, it frees my mind to think more clearly, to be more creative, and to take more action. I think one reason that I embrace order is that disorder is very distracting for me.

Optimism

I don’t get depressed. Simply never. My mind stays focused on the positive – on inspiring ideas, engaging people, action steps, interesting projects, creative explorations, etc.

I used to get depressed sometimes when I was younger, but I put a stop to that.

I decided a long time ago that depression is a stupid waste of life and that it was critical to defend against the slime pit of depression, self-doubt, and other downer modes of experience. Otherwise it becomes a trap where one can lose years of precious life. I regard depression as a nasty neural pattern – a mental and emotional virus – so I did what was necessary to ensure that my mind just doesn’t go there anymore. I felt that was one of the early personal development battles where I had to win a decisive victory. So this is a virus to which I’ve built a very strong immunity.

There were lots of pieces to this – cleaning up my diet (zero animal products); regular exercise that I enjoy; dropping misaligned people; committing to meaningful and fulfilling creative work; saying no to partial matches; and creating a life rich in intimacy, warmth, and affection.

I really appreciate my past self for putting so much effort into upgrading his mindset and heartset. That was a real challenge for him, but he did a fabulous job of solving those problems one by one. He gifted me with sustainably constructive thoughts and feelings. That’s a huge gift since I no longer feel like I have to fight with myself internally. My mind and emotions feel very harmonious.

Thoughtfulness

I like to be very thoughtful and deliberate in making decisions, especially important ones. I use many tools and processes to work through decisions methodically. For instance, when designing a new course, I follow a step-by-step design template that I’ve developed over the years. It’s one of the bonuses in the Amplify course.

To really know that I can complete a project, especially a big one, I have to reach a point of strong commitment. When I was younger, I left too many creative projects unfinished because I started them impulsively, and I hadn’t put the right level of thought into them up front. Then I’d struggle partway through with thoughts like, What’s the point of finishing this? Or something else would distract me, and I’d lose focus on the previous project.

Today I’m way better at finishing projects. I look at them carefully and analyze them from different angles, often spending weeks or months in the pre-commitment phase. Some projects don’t converge on commitment, but when I’m able to commit, I’m really good at following through all the way to the end.

What this does for my inner experience is that I have super strong creative trust. I know what it takes to complete a sizable creative project. I know how to get myself to the point of commitment, and I’m able to trust myself to follow through and finish. I also know how to recognize when the alignment isn’t there yet, and I shouldn’t commit myself.

It took time to discover the right process for me such that I could make wise decisions intelligently while also avoiding analysis paralysis. Having a process that converges really helps.

Relationships

Internally I think about almost all aspects of life through the lens of relationships. This includes people, tasks, projects, goals, possessions, food, activities, locations, and more.

Instead of thinking so objectively about different aspects of life, I usually favor subjective thinking. I imagine how different decisions will affect my inner experience. I think more about the dynamic flow of events than about the static nature of situations.

You could say that I think in terms of verbs more than nouns. Where is the energy flowing? How is it changing? How do I want to engage with these energy patterns?

When I’m considering a new creative project, I pay a lot of attention to how I’m going to relate to that project while I’m working on it. I don’t just think about the end goal or result. At least 80% of my thinking is focused on what the journey will be like (probably more like 90%+). I want to make that journey beautiful and engaging.

I’ve invested a lot of thought and energy into creating a beautiful and harmonious relationship with my work and life. This includes how I relate to the people who engage with my work.

What I love about this relationship model of thinking about life is that it helped me get really honest with myself. It encourages me to be more forthright about expressing how I really think and feel. Can I share that I’d love to see Vladimir Putin slowly fed feet-first into a wood chipper, while being given frequent espresso breaks along the way? That’s actually one of my intentions.

Defending Against Misalignments

Some of my energy flows into defensive activities, which is a part of my life that many people don’t see. I have standards for the people I want to engage with, and I’m not interested in lowering them to build a larger but misaligned audience.

That’s one reason I tell Trump supporters to begone. I have no interest in serving racist idiots and assholes. That isn’t political. It’s personal. I find such people utterly loathsome, and I want nothing to do with them. I don’t want to invest my energy in dealing with people who disgust me, so I choose not to deal with them. Moreover, I will continue to staunchly defend this community against them, especially Conscious Growth Club. Such idiocy has no place here.

I have to deal with occasional stalker-types as well, including people who clearly aren’t right in the head. That doesn’t get me down. I just see as it part of the experience of working in this field.

If I wanted to be a mental health professional who regularly engages with such people, I’d have chosen that as my career path. I realized a long time ago that I must carefully defend the path that resonates with me, and that requires being very firm in saying no to people and situations that I’m not willing to deal with. We don’t automatically get what we desire. We get what we’re willing to tolerate.

When people fall out of resonance with me, I prefer to just let them go. If someone violates my trust, I drop them from my life, and I really never let them back in because when I did so in the past, they always gave me cause to regret it. “Fool me once” is enough for me. There are so many interesting people to interact with in this life that it seems foolhardy to bother dealing with misaligned scraps. I now realize just how needy and desperate that is. That said, I very easily forgive people and have no interest in holding grudges, but when I close the door on someone, it’s really closed. From my own perspective, I see this as returning their energy back to the Simulator, where it can be recycled. This keeps my energy from getting stuck where it doesn’t want to be stuck.

I’m committed to flowing my energy where it wants to go and engaging with people who want to explore and engage with me in a mutually supportive way. That takes a certain degree of alignment and compatibility. It’s exquisitely joyful and rewarding to serve people who meet that standard. And it’s disappointing at the very least to attempt this with people who don’t.

Some people and experiences are like the perfect puzzle pieces that interlock with us in just the right ways. Even when our interactions are temporary, that kind of alignment is beautiful to behold. In order to invite more of this, I found it crucial to say a hard and definitive no to the misaligned. Otherwise partial matches and mismatches will block so much beauty, wonder, and delight from flowing through.

High-Trust Relationships & Audience Engagement

Years ago I went through the experience of building up lots of followers on social media and being very active on those services daily. It can feel fun and stimulating having so much attention, especially if you enjoy being in the limelight. I also found those interactions too random and chaotic, and I was glad to delete Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram and tighten up my social focus. Seeing what’s been happening on Twitter these days makes me even more grateful to have dumped it in 2014.

After that I went through a process of focusing more on audience alignment than on audience size. That shrunk my overall audience but also made me feel happier and more in tune with my work. It helped me go much deeper into explorations that inspire me and others – less blogging but more courses, workshops, and of course CGC itself. It’s like we become more courageous, more heart-centered, and more genuine when we’re surrounded by the right people.

I’ve gotten used to having an audience for my work since that’s been my daily reality for decades, all the way back to my computer games business. The people I serve are in my mind each day, and I interact with them every day in some way – through email, the CGC forums, Zoom calls, blogging, videos, in person, etc.

To me this doesn’t feel like a temporary situation. It feels permanent, at least as far as my lifespan is concerned. There are people in my audience in their 30s now who started reading my blog when they were teenagers. I know this because many of them have told me so. I expect that even decades from now, many of the same people who are engaging with my work today will still be engaging with it or with the community around this work.

That really makes me think about how to keep serving the people in this community for the long term. I know that the specific people in this community will fluctuate, but there’s clearly a core base of people that feel a sense of commitment and resonance, so I think we’ll be in each other’s lives for a long time to come.

I love engaging with people on the basis of mutual appreciation. I like having an audience that appreciates me and the work and I do, and I love engaging with people that I appreciate too. This is something I never take for granted. It’s something I always want to keep investing in.

High-trust relationships are very important to me. Trust empowers us to explore so much more together. That’s another reason that certain people have no place in this community. We can’t build high-trust relationships with people who serve as enablers of lying and deceit.

Caring

I think one reason I’ve enduring so long in this field is that I genuinely care about the people in this community. That’s an aspect of my interior perspective that I think a lot of people don’t see. Of all the items I’m sharing here, I’d say that the #1 insight I’d love people to know is that I really do care. I want to see the people in this community thrive and enjoy rich and fulfilling lives. Just writing this part makes me teary-eyed.

I work hard at figuring out how to help people grow and how to keep serving them year after year. For me this is a lifelong investment, and I want to keep getting better at it. Sharing ideas is just one piece to the puzzle. Another piece is having a stable community where people can invest in each other (Conscious Growth Club). And yet another piece is continuing to listen for where the latest needs, desires, and growth opportunities are.

The road ahead is going to bring so many fresh challenges and opportunities. I want to help the people in this community intelligently navigate those experiences. I love the challenge of playing that role and figuring out where I can be of service.

A big part of my motivation comes from the people I serve. I don’t write just to write. I always write for people. I create courses for people. I develop workshops for people. I coach people. And it’s not for people in general but specifically for the people in this community – past, present, and future.

Internally I often feel that it’s other people’s energies and intentions that summon me to do the work I do. Somehow they energetically invite me to help them. So I never feel like I’m writing or creating into an empty void. I always feel like I’m co-creating with the energy that invited me to the dance.

I also see an important connection between caring and defense. In order to feel safe expressing caring and building high-trust relationships, I think it’s critical to defend against the opposite. I don’t trust blindly. I test for trust, and when I see it, I keep investing. But when people abuse my trust, they get the sword and shield.

Support & Cooperation

Internally I feel very creatively supported, and I have a very cooperative relationship with life. Life has given me everything I need to do my best creative work. I wanted to be of service to people, and life said a big yes to that in response.

When I was younger, I tried to do a lot of work under pressure, especially financial pressure and time pressure. There was this sense of always trying to scramble to get enough done to make ends meet. That wasn’t a situation where I could do my best creative work.

Back then my mindset and heartset were more competitive than cooperative. I put too much attention on my individual success and accomplishments, even though that just created more stress and pressure for me. I tried to motivate myself with misaligned forms of motivation. I focused too much on end results, and I leaned too heavily on courage and discipline to try to push through difficulties. I wish I had known back then how much more effective it is to focus on the journey and on cultivating a beautiful relationship with it.

Today my life feels very much the opposite of stressful. It’s fun and engaging, but it’s also peaceful and relaxing when I want it to be. Life feels very spacious, welcoming, and encouraging.

I love that I get to spend so much time exploring the richness of life, relationships, creativity, and fresh possibilities. I feel very in tune with the journey I’m on, and I delight in how it’s unfolding each day.

This isn’t an exhaustive list, but hopefully you found some value in one or more of these insights that may be useful to you in your own life or work.

Happy New Year! 🥳 🎉

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Demand for hospitals driven by winter illness means the NHS is being “pressurised like never before”.

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These Are The Most Hilarious Tweets From Parents In 2022

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Brian May, Denise Lewis, Grayson Perry And Rachel Riley Among Stars Recognised In 2023 New Year Honours List

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Damehood:

Denise Lewis (Olympic gold medalist and President, Commonwealth Games

England, services to Sport)

Knighthood:

John Akomfrah (visual artist, services to the arts)

Grayson Perry (artist, services to the arts)

Brian May (Queen guitarist who once told you to shut the fuck up, services to music and charity)

Luke Rittner (CEO of Royal Academy of Dance, services to dance and the arts)

CBE:

Sonia Friedman (theatre producer, services to theatre)

George Fenton (Oscar-nominated composer, services to music)

Pat Jennings (footballer, services to association football and charity)

OBE:

YolanDa Brown (saxophonist, services to music, music education and broadcasting)

Stephen Graham (actor, services to drama)

David Harewood (actor services to drama and charity)

Sophie Ingle (captain of Wales women’s football team, services to association football)

Philip Edgar-Jones (director of Sky Arts, for services to the arts and television)

David Sutherland (The Bean illustrator, services to illustration)

MBE:

Janet Bogle (actor and singer, services to music)

Lucia Bronze (Lioness, services to association football)

Frank Skinner (comedian, services to entertainment)

Ellen Convery (Lioness, services to association football)

Lizzie Deignan (Olympian, services to cycling)

Rachel De-lahay (playwright, services to drama)

Chris Kamara (services to association football, anti-racism and charity)

Kim Little (Scottish footballer, services to association football)

Beth Mead (lioness, services to association football)

Cleo Sylvestre (actor, services to drama and charity)

Christine Rice (opera singer, services to opera)

Rachel Riley (TV presenter, services to holocaust education)

Andrew Robertson (Scottish footballer, services to association football, charity and young people)

Jawahir Roble (referee, services to association football)

Francesca Simon (Horrid Henry author, services to literature)

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China Covid: England to require negative test for arrivals

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The UK says it is acting over concerns about infection data provided by the Chinese government.

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Study discovers triple immunotherapy combination as possible treatment for pancreatic cancer

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Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have discovered a novel immunotherapy combination, targeting checkpoints in both T cells and myeloid suppressor cells, that successfully reprogrammed the tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) and significantly improved anti-tumor responses in preclinical models of pancreatic cancer.

In this study, published today in Nature Cancer, researchers used comprehensive immune profiling in mouse and human pancreatic cancers to systematically identify mechanisms of immunotherapy resistance and investigate potential therapeutic targets. They found that neutralizing several distinct immunosuppressive mechanisms of the TIME dramatically improved survival rates in laboratory models, pointing to a potential treatment option for this notoriously lethal and unresponsive cancer.

“This triple combination therapy led to an unprecedented curative response in our models,” said corresponding author Ronald DePinho, M.D., professor of Cancer Biology. “The prevailing view has been that pancreatic cancer is impervious to immunotherapy, but this preclinical study shows that it can be vulnerable to the right combination therapy. Moreover, the presence of these targets in human pancreatic cancer specimens raises the exciting possibility that such therapeutic combinations could one day help our patients.”

Pancreatic cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer death in the United States, partially because 80% of cases are diagnosed at an advanced stage. Pancreatic cancer is also considered to be “non-immunogenic,” meaning it is unresponsive to commonly used anti-PD-1 and anti-CTLA-4 immune checkpoint inhibitors. This is due in part to the immunosuppressive conditions in the TIME, but the mechanisms behind this resistance are not fully understood.

The researchers used high-dimensional immune profiling and single-cell RNA sequencing to study how the TIME is affected by a variety of immunotherapies. They identified specific immune checkpoint proteins, 41BB and LAG, that were highly expressed in exhausted T cells.

In testing antibodies targeting these checkpoints, the researchers observed that models treated with a 41BB agonist and LAG3 antagonist in combination had slower tumor progression, higher levels of anti-tumor immunity indicators and significantly improved survival rates compared to treatment with either antibody alone or with other checkpoint inhibitors. Notably, these preclinical studies faithfully mirrored the human data in their lack of efficacy of anti-PD1 or anti-CTLA-4 therapy.

The researchers also confirmed these two therapeutic targets are present in human pancreatic cancer samples, with 81% and 93% of patients analyzed having T cells with 41BB and LAG3 expression, respectively.

Because this dual-therapy combination did not completely eliminate established tumors, the investigators also examined efforts to reprogram the TIME to further sensitize tumors to immunotherapy. At baseline, the TIME contained an abundance of myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) expressing CXCR2, a protein associated with recruiting immunosuppressive cells. Inhibiting CXCR2 alone decreased MDSC migration and blocked tumor growth, but it was not curative. This prompted the investigators to consider a combination targeting 41BB, LAG3 and CXCR2.

It was this triple combination that resulted in complete tumor regression and improved overall survival in 90% of preclinical models. In a more stringent lab model that develops multiple spontaneously arising tumors with higher treatment resistance, the combination achieved complete tumor regression in over 20% of cases.

“These are encouraging results, especially considering the lack of effective immunotherapy options in pancreatic cancer,” DePinho said. “By targeting multiple synergistic mechanisms that get in the way of the immune response, we can give T cells a fighting chance to attack these tumors. Of course, we still need to see how this combination translates into a safe and effective regimen in the clinic, and we invite other researchers to build upon these results. We are optimistic that pancreatic cancers, and hopefully other non-immunogenic cancers, can ultimately be rendered vulnerable to combination immunotherapy.”

The authors point out that these particular immunotherapy agents currently are undergoing clinical trials as monotherapies, suggesting potential opportunities to rapidly translate this triple combination into clinical studies.

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute (P01 CA117969, RO1CA240526, RO1CA236864, R01CA231349, R01CA220236, P50CA221707), the Elsa U. Pardee Foundation, MD Anderson’s Advanced Scholar Program, the Eleanor Russo Fund for Pancreatic Research, Ralph A. Loveys Family Charitable Foundation, the Cultural & Charitable Club of Somerset Run, the New Jersey Health Foundation, the Sheikh Ahmed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research, and MD Anderson’s Pancreatic Cancer Moon Shot®.

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