Morning Briefings

Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

– Luke 12:25

Anxiety is the soul’s greatest enemy, sin only excepted. When the heart is anxious and disquieted within itself, it loses the power to preserve those virtues which are already acquired, and also the means of resisting temptations of Satan, who does not fail to test the strength of that rope.

– St. Francis deSales

Tebow-Mania still breathes. It breathes at least until next weekend, when top-seeded New England will try to stop what it thought it had stopped almost a month ago. Nobody’s going to give the Broncos a chance, and they probably shouldn’t. It doesn’t matter. This strange but irresistible sports story is already sealed in the books. Tim Tebow has won.

– Jason Gay, The Wall Street Journal
Tebow-Mania Blasts Into Overtime

According to the data, middle-aged workers with little or no ‘peer social support’ in the workplace were 2.4 times more likely to die during the study. This new study found that a lack of control at the office was deadly–but only for men.

– Jonah Lehrer, The Wall Street Journal
Your Co-Workers Might Be Killing You: Hours don’t affect health much–but unsupportive colleagues do

Without emotion we are unable to sense risk; with emotion, we can’t control the fear that risk generates. Welcome to the human race!

– James Montier
Just One Thing

When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

– Will Rogers from
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

There’s global competition, technology changes, more regulations than ever before. It’s just complicated. Things are harder today.

– Patrick Lencioni
The Five Temptations of a CEO

When I was a child, I would complain to my mother about various things that had gone wrong, and she would say, very matter-of-factly, ‘Offer it up.” My reaction was, ‘I’m always offering it up, and no good seems to come from it.’ It occurred to me years later that the offer was not intended to be a direct benefit to me, but rather a benefit to the world.

– Fr. Robert Spitzer
Five Pillars of the Spiritual Life: A Practical Guide to Prayer for Active People

When I began speaking to audiences in the business world several years ago, I made a fascinating discovery. The people I met were facing demands and stresses far greater than those faced by any world-class athlete I have ever known.

– James E. Loehr
Stress for Success

Success–which I define as doing reasonably well at your chosen career–has huge demands on those who attain it, particularly in our hyper-competitive culture where conditions can change virtually overnight. The combination of marriage, family and career can be consuming. By the time most of us approach our fourth decade, anything that promises relief gets our attention.

– Bob Buford
Stuck in Halftime