On New Year’s Day, 2016, I looked at my bookshelf and thought it was time to read the stack of books that was piling up, most of them top fiction recommendations from others. It was time to re-enter the world that had inspired me to write in the first place: The intersection of imagination, craft, and storytelling. So I committed to emptying … Read More
Love In The Age of Hyperbole: Our Culture vs. Love
According to Billboard magazine, the greatest love song of all time is the Diana Ross and Lionel Richie duet “Endless Love,” in which she sings, “You’re every breath that I take/You’re every step that I make.” Spotify reports the most popular wedding song is John Legend’s “All of Me,” in which he proclaims, “Give your all to me/I’ll give my … Read More
The Quick-Start Guide to Healing Trauma and Psychological Wounds
A Framework For Transformation Over the course of writing The Truth, I came to develop a very specific take on healing trauma, specifically developmental trauma, as I slowly but surely reduced my own. As an overall framework for psychological healing, think of the childhood pain and shame we store—and the dysfunctional behaviors and thoughts created by them—as cancerous tumors attached to the heart … Read More
Why You Need a Ulysses Strategy
Too many people I’ve met this week are telling me something like this: Me: So what are your resolutions this year? Them: I’m not making any this year. Me: Why not? Them: Well, I would just make the same resolutions I made last year. And it’s depressing to know I didn’t do them. Others making resolutions confessed that deep down, they … Read More
How to Survive Family Holidays
During college, after returning from winter break, I griped to a friend: “It was great being home…for about two hours. But then my mom started pushing all my buttons and I was over it.” “Do you know why she pushes your buttons?” he asked. “I have no idea.” “Because she’s the one who put them there.” The holidays are here. … Read More
FIVE WAYS TO HAVE A BETTER RELATIONSHIP WITHOUT CHANGING YOUR PARTNER
Before writing The Truth, I thought that relationships were about finding the perfect–or at least the best–partner. Since writing The Truth, I now realize that they’re about becoming the best possible person you can be. And the success of a relationship has very little to do with the other person, but it is all about you and how you relate … Read More
The Truth: Officially A New York Times Bestseller
HarperCollins has confirmed that The Truth made the New York Times Bestseller List. Thank you — to my incredible street team. And of course to each of you who went out and picked up a copy, told a friend about it, supported bookstores, or came (or plans to come) to one of the tour stops. This would not have been … Read More
The Truth: In Stores Today
It’s a strange process to release a book, or anything, into the world. Already, the first articles about the new book are turning into a strange narrative that is so far from The Truth. So in preparation for you to read the book today, I want to tell you what my thoughts are on The Game and The Truth. Just so whatever … Read More
The Truth Tour Dates
On October 13, 2015, my first book of new material in 6 years, The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships will be hitting your favorite bookstore. And now that I’ve submerged from writing, let’s hang out. Mark your calendar—or type in your calendar or talk to your calendar. I’m going on tour. It’s a weird tour, I’ll admit. Basically, as it … Read More
Enrolling: How We Manipulate Our Friends Into Helping Us Lie To Ourselves
I’m going to attempt to explain a concept I came up with while writing The Truth, and watching people who were struggling with personal issues—including myself—resist huge opportunities for growth and change. It was almost as if we were holding a bar of gold and saying, “This isn’t real gold. It’s garbage, right?” And all our friends would look at … Read More