The idea of vacation is pretty sweet, isn’t it? The lazy hours of doing nothing on the beach, the sunset strolls, novels that read smooth as martinis. Reams of free time. Relaxation.

Raise your hand if these scenarios sound familiar: A) You wake up, overwhelmed before your feet hit the floor.

  We’re all drawn to the “10 Things Successful People Do” lists. For good reason—we’re dying to know what we’re doing wrong, and what we should do instead.

  When poet, memoirist, screenwriter, film director, jazz singer, dancer, professor, and civil rights activist Maya Angelou died last week at the age of 86, I reflected on two thoughts.

  You know the rush that comes when you witness an artist do something excellent? To be in the presence of skill so great it becomes joy is, well, it’s transcendent.

  Time magazine recently wrote up a study conducted and funded by the Max Planck Institute in which researchers determined that stress is contagious (here’s their write-up).

  For the past four years, Everest College in Washington has conducted a “Work Stress Survey” to find out what weighs most on Americans about their jobs.

  Something happens at this point in the year: the winter finally releases its frigid death grip, trees sprout their first tender leaves, the world softens and warms.

  One of the biggest takeaways I got from attending Arianna Huffington’s “Thrive” event in New York City last month was this: Everyone knows they’re stressed and knows they must do someth…

  Sure, there are harder jobs than nonprofit fundraising. International diplomacy, say. Coal mining. But asking people for money, and getting them to give it, still ranks as a Sisyphean task.

  Exercise is one of the most potent stress-reducers on the planet—and yet, in the irony of ironies, it’s the one thing far too many of us don’t make time for.

  I’ve always been a champion of sleep, as I know that I’m nowhere near as good without enough of it. No one is. It doesn’t matter how powerful, how successful, or how smart you are.