Too Much Tolerance Can Be A Bad Thing

You may not know it, but you have a tolerance meter -- an internal gauge that tells you when enough is enough. The problem for many is that their tolerance meter is set too high -- that they put up with far too much for far too long. We stay at jobs we hate because it is "comfortable enough," and because changing requires so much more energy. We'll endure critical bosses who never have nice things to say about us because we tell ourselves that they're not "that bad." We'll live paycheck to paycheck for years because we fool ourselves into thinking it's the "best we can do." 

It is easy to fall into the mental trap of mediocrity. Because it doesn't take much to get by, we grow complacent. We stop growing and seeking challenges. We don't push ourselves to succeed. We cultivate a lifestyle well below our potential, but one that is just good enough that it doesn't require much challenge or action.  read more...

5 Ways To Beat Your Shopping Addiction

Alcohol, crack and heroin are known to be highly addictive, but can something as innocuous as shopping be addictive? 

I have no doubt shopping can become addictive and destructive. I've worked with people from vastly different backgrounds who have become shopaholics -- from "sudden wealth" recipients who've come into millions, to the unemployed and destitute who cannot control their shopping addiction. Dr. Drew recently taped an episode on the Ricki Lake Show where he spoke to a young woman who was a self-diagnosed shopaholic. Her shopping addiction can provide valuable lessons for the rest of us.

First, it's important to understand what doesn't work. A shopping addiction is not a disease of intellect; it's a disease of emotion. Unfortunately, most family members, along with mental health and financial "experts," make things worse by focusing on the two areas that usually lead to even more shopping: shame and logic. What's wrong with you?! Don't you know better? How can you be so self-centered and selfish? Trying to use logic -- if you spend too much, you won't have money to make the car payment -- tends to be just as ineffective.  read more...

What the "broken window" fallacy means for you...

Have you heard the parable of the broken window? It's a wonderful example of unintended consequences that applies not only to businesses activity and government regulations, but to individuals as well. Fans of the book "Freakonomics" are given a front row seat to watch the dramatic and always surprising (they are "unintended" after all) effects of unintended consequences. 

But in our haste to laugh and condemn the short-sighted thinking of others, we often don't see the unintended consequences we are creating in our own lives. 

The broken window fallacy, as it is often called, was introduced by French economist Frederic Bastiat in 1850 in his essay, "That Which is Seen and That Which is Unseen." The parable is about a shopkeeper's boy who accidentally breaks a window at his father's store. A bystander commiserates with the shopkeeper, but explains that the broken window is actually a blessing because now the window replacement company gets to earn money replacing the pane.  read more...