1. When you find yourself becoming stressed out, make sure to:
   1. Get more sleep (even one more hour a night adds an entire night of sleep to your week)
   2. Manage your time fiercely. Say "no" to time leeches.
   3. Eat better, and drink lots of fluids.

2. One thing about success is that, if you've been working hard, it can sneak up on you. Be sure you are just as prepared for it as you are for failure. Most people don't do that, and find themselves flustered and unable to sustain success when they obtain it.

3. Make sure you are keeping company with people that mirror your value sets. Your social network should challenge you, question you, make you laugh, buttress you against stress, and provide perspective.

4. The antidote to anxiety is action. If you're anything like me, you have a tendency to try to think things through completely prior to taking action. I've learned, however, that life quickly passes you by when using this strategy. When you have enough information to make a decision, make it. Then set out towards doing something to make yourself feel better about whatever it is that you are fretting about.

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1. Napoleon's Privates, by Tony Perrottet
   Want to know what happened to Napoleon's member after he died? Hint: It's in a cigar box, under a bed, in a New Jersey suburb...

2. The Yankee Years, by Joe Torre and Tom Verducci
   An extensive look at the strange dynasty known as the New York Yankees. A must for baseball fans, especially with the coming season.

3. The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels, by Michael Watkins
   Recommended "quick start" reading for all individuals in new positions of leadership.

4. The Gift of Therapy, by Irvin D. Yalom
   The single best "cookbook" style read for therapists in the field. Highly recommended.

We humans are selfish creatures by nature. If you don't believe this, hang out in a mall around the holiday season. Or watch other's behaviors in line at the grocery store, where a simply announcement of "I can take the next person in line over here!" from a cashier results in a mad scramble and collectively raised blood pressure readings.

There is nothing wrong with a little "healthy selfishness," whereby you live in a way that balances your needs with meeting the needs of others and allows for a healthy level of self-confidence. However, there is a lot wrong with living in a greedy and self-preserving fashion on a daily basis.

How do you know the difference between the two? Look at the outcomes. With greed, there is a win-lose outcome hanging in the balance. You get to be the first in line at the grocery store because you were faster with your cart, but you fail to realize that you now appear selfish to others, and that you now have caused that mother of two kids that was in line ahead of you to be even more tardy in returning home. With greed, you also get pangs of guilt. That little voice in your head knows you are being selfish; you're just trying to ignore it, and you rationalize it away as "if I hadn't jumped in front, someone else would have" or "I need to get home, too."

If you want to live in a way whereby you can sleep like a baby at night, you'll need to be able to balance getting your needs met with adding value to the lives of others. There are few awards given for opening doors for others, or for lending a hand in times of trouble, or for sacrificing time for someone in distress. However, there is an immense self-satisfaction that accompanies such actions, along with an improvement in perspective. We're in this together, folks, and heavy burdens are made lighter with the help of others.

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