Want to get into shape?  Karel has guest Marie-Josee Shaar back again this time providing advice on the exercise part of her Sleep, Food, Mood, and Exercise system.  Make sure to visit Marie-Josee's website and sign up for her amazing newsletter.

Need advice on getting that next job, a new position in your current organization, or any other situation where you'll be evaluated and assessed?  Karel devotes this episode to outlining 10 practical tips for preparing for and handling the interview.

Want to learn to achieve a deep state of relaxation?  Karel provides this special episode with guided instruction to achieve deep progressive muscle relaxation. This episode can be listened to whenever you would like to achieve deep relaxation and it is recommended that you only listen to it in a private and quiet setting with no distractions. The background music used on this episode is Antonio Vivaldi's Sonata 5 Largo (I & III) performed by the Telemann Trio and is used courtesy of Musopen (musopen.org).

Confirmation bias is the cause of many of the problems in relationships, communities, and the world. Learn how to recognize and start to conquer it.

Do you tend to take things personally more than you should?  Karel devotes this episode to a listener request to address the topic of taking things personally. After discussing some developmental and individual difference dimensions related to the topic and some relevant quotes, he provides advice for improving in this important area via a top 10 list.

Do you have difficulty with sleep?  Karel has guest Marie-Josee Shaar back again to do a follow-up drill-down episode on the topic of sleep. Check out Marie-Josee's website at SmartsandStamina.com.

Do you want to improve your skills for managing people either in a formal management position or an informal one (as a parent, coach, etc.)?  In response to a listener request, Karel devotes this episode to providing practical advice for becoming more effective in the management of people.

Do you tend to be too passive or too aggressive? Do you want to optimize the effectiveness of your communication?  Karel devotes this episode to providing advice on becoming appropriately assertive.

Are you dealing with a difficult person in your life? In response to a listener request, Karel provides 10 suggestions for dealing with difficult people.

Do you have to work with others in groups? Pretty well everyone does. Do you want to improve the teamwork exhibited by those teams? In response to a listener request, Karel devotes this episode to the various ways teamwork can be optimized.

Do you think about the insights you've gleaned from your parents and family?  Have you captured and communicated them?  Karel recommends that you do and provides a top 10 list to provide you some advice on how to do it.

In response to a listener request, Karel provides a brief recap and review of each of the podcast episodes recorded to date, episode 1 through to episode 44.  See which episodes you missed or want to listen to again.  Also, consider recommending a particular episode to a friend or the whole series.

Do need help in getting advice and finding a mentor.  That's the focus of this episode.  Karel goes through the top 10 list of suggestions for approaching getting appropriate help and also giving it as well.  Please refer to the show notes for episodes 32, 42, and 40 for contact details for people you can contact for professional advice as well.

Are you stuck or in a rut?  Are you finding that you're not able to get going effectively on the improvements you'd like to make to your life?  This episode is devoted to getting you unstuck so that you can make effective progress on whatever improvements you'd like to make in your life with a practical set of top 10 items.

Joining Karel for this episode is Marie-Josee Salvas Shaar.  While most other episodes deal with a single topic, this one is different in that it deals with four topics and, importantly, the integration of them together - sleep, food, mood, and exercise.  Refer to the top 10 list on this site and visit Marie-Josee's website for more information.

Take some time to step back, reflect, and provide feedback.  Karel gives a preview of what topics are on the candidate list for future episodes and then provides a top 10 list for reflecting and providing feedback on this and other podcasts and similar technology mediated content and conversations.

Learn to develop Psychological Capital during this episode when Karel has special guest Kathryn Britton back again.  Kathryn was also on Episode 16 and talked that time about Positive Psychology.  This time she focuses on Hope and Resilience the latter of which she has also recently co-edited a book on which is available at Amazon.  She is also available for individual coaching sessions. You can reach her at Theano Coaching.

Do you find that the meetings you lead and/or attend aren't as effective as they could be?  Karel provides a context for evaluating the cost of a meeting and the resulting need for increased effectiveness and then provides a top 10 list of practical advice to use in making meetings you lead as a formal leader or as an emergent one much more effective and enjoyable.

In this episode, Karel takes the approaches, methods, and techniques used in product design and applies them to designing the product, you.  The quotes and top 10 list provide you a way to think about and approach self-improvement by designing your life.

Have you wondered how long it should take to develop a skill into a habit?  In response to a listener request, Karel addresses the very important topic in this episode.  He describes the factors that determine the length of time that it takes and then summarizes the rules of thumb for simple and complex behaviors as well as what it takes to get to mastery.  The top 10 list for this episode provides advice on optimizing the realization of the development of skills into habits.

In response to a listener request, Karel reviews key points from ten previous episodes in order for you to assess your progress, celebrate successes and identify additional areas of continued and intensified focus.

Want to improve the presentations you give?  Whether you're in school or beginning your career and just starting to give presentations or you're a veteran presenter, Karel provides advice on how to improve the overall effectiveness of your presentations.  He addresses the following topics: audience, objectives, three main points, duration, slides/structure, graphics/text, audio-video/animation, humor, practice, and delivery.

Does your life feel out of control? Are you not spending time on the things you think are important in life? In this episode, Karel summarizes some insightful quotes and then reviews ten ideas for optimizing the balance and integration of the work and non-work aspects of your life.

Want to improve your electronic communication?  Karel devotes this longer than usual episode on the topic of electronic communication which includes everything from Facebook and Twitter to texting, instant messaging, e-mail, conference calling, and video conferencing.  Karel provides advice on increasing your effective use of these mechanisms as well as how to limit them as well.

Karel is joined on this episode by special guest UK Psychologist Mandy Kloppers who discusses the important topic of self-confidence.  Mandy shares her favorite quotes on the topic and outlines her top 10 ideas for increasing self-confidence. Mandy also recommends the book Mind over Mood as a particularly good source of information on this topic. If you live in the UK, you can also checkout the innovative service she founded called text-tonic. If you live outside the UK, you can still visit the website but for now can't make use of the mobile/cell phone service itself.

How are the various relationships in your life doing? Karel focuses this episode on the topic of relationships - taking stock, increasing, decreasing, and deepening them across all contexts and roles within your life.  He also provides advice on improving the quality of relationships, something that is so important to the overall quality of all our lives.

Having trouble staying focussed with everything going on in your life?  Karel devotes this episode to the topic of getting and staying focussed and shares his thoughts and ideas so that you can improve your approach to this important aspect of your life.

Want to further develop and hone your leadership skills?  Whether you're a political or business leader, a little league coach, a parent or student, a formal designated leader or an emergent one, the advice Karel provides in this episode will help you improve your leadership skills. The problem with the initial mp3 file for this episode is now fixed. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Want to make New Year's resolutions that will last?  Karel devotes this episode to providing advice on determining how to select appropriate resolutions and how to make sure that you'll be able to successfully carry them out.

Want to get better at expressing gratitude?  Most people don't express gratitude enough.  Karel summarizes some good thinking on this topic and then provides 10 ideas for understanding gratitude and getting good at expressing it yourself.

Do you have the necessary level of resilience to deal with the changes happening in the world?  Karel outlines the concept of personal resilience in this episode and provides ten ideas to develop into habits that will increase your capacity to deal with major changes, the results of them, and ways to turn challenges into opportunities.

Want to make sense of blogs, mini-blogs, and podcasts?  Karel devotes this episode to describing the current trends in blog and podcast technologies (Google Alerts, Twitter, iTunes) and providing specific advice on how to find the content that is of interest to you using these technologies.  The top 10 list for this episode provides Karel's specific recommendations of blogs and podcasts.  Feel free to provide any recommendations you may have for blogs and podcasts via comments on this site or in an e-mail to [email protected].

Feeling stressed?  Karel devotes this episode to a set of ideas and skills to develop into routine habits to help you manage stress on a day-to-day basis.  After summarizing the ever popular insightful famous quotes on the topic, Karel starts by helping you understand your circle of influence then describes a series of practical techniques and encourages listeners to try them and assess progress in using them.  He also briefly outlines but doesn't provide the detailed instructions for practicing a technique called Progressive Muscle Relaxation.  Here is some further information on this technique.

How are things working out for you?  Every once in a while it's good to take stock of how things are going.  Inspired by a listener suggestion, Karel takes this episode to review key ideas from previous podcasts and provide additional perspectives on them in order for you to check your progress and make any necessary mid-course corrections.

Haven't been getting certain things done?  Many people procrastinate and don't know how to stop.  In this episode, Karel reads some insightful quotes on the topic of procrastination and then takes listeners through 10 ideas for dealing with it and developing life-long habits to prevent getting into cycles of procrastination. He also summarizes the feedback received regarding the format of the podcast which strongly favored sticking with the current 30-40 minute length and content. Thanks so those of you who provided feedback.

Is your life getting too complicated?  Most people experience this and don't know how to go about dealing with it.  In this episode, Karel reads the usual famous quotes to get started and then summarizes 10 ideas for taking stock of your life and systematically simplifying it.  In response to a listener request, the famous quotes are now going to be made available starting with this episode right in the mp3 file along with the top 10 list.

Everyone wants to be more creative but few know how to go about it.  After reviewing some insightful and thought-provoking famous quotes on the topic, Karel details 10 ideas for fostering creativity.  The approaches are applicable to work situations involving products, services, and processes but equally to your personal and home life.  At the end of the episode, Karel also asks for input on a suggestion for improving the podcast series by providing short 5-8 minute daily refresher podcast episodes.

Many people hang on to resentment, hurt, and anger.  Many people also haven't experienced the power of helping others.  This episode provides you with 10 ideas for skills to develop into habits so that you can appropriately and regularly express forgiveness and compassion.

After the basic needs in life are met, many people still look for something else that will make their life everything that it can be.  Maslow's hierarchy of needs provides a context for this and his work on self-actualization outlines the attributes people have who have achieved the highest levels of personal fulfillment.  Karel summarizes Maslow's hierarchy approach and then uses it as the basis for a proposed set of 10 ideas for you to develop into self-actualization skills and, in time, habits.

Most people find themselves getting angry and reacting in ways that they later regret.  After providing some description of what happens in the body and setting the context with some insightful quotes, Karel details ten ideas for skills to develop into habits that can help you to control your emotions, like anger, rather than them controlling you.

A new area in the field of psychology is Applied Positive Psychology.  Karel interviews Kathryn Britton a professional coach who specializes in this area. Kathryn describes the major career changes she made to become become an expert in Applied Positive Psychology.  She outlines its history and the major themes it addresses given practical examples of each.  Discussion in the episode mentions Kathryn's website, blog, and the newsletter to which she is a regular contributor.

Some people just dream of success while others actually achieve it.  After reading some insightful quotes on the topic, Karel summarizes 10 ideas for you to develop into skills and in turn into habits to increase the likelihood of you being clear about what success means to you and then systematically achieving it.  He also reads a comment from a listener regarding a previous podcast which includes the recommendation for a book titled "Screamfree Parenting" by Hal Runkel.

The sexes are different.  Karel reviews some surprising recent research findings regarding gender differences, provides some personal context for the topic, and then summarizes 10 ideas for developing some good skills in this area which can be honed into life habits.  Karel deals with topics having to do with equality, ideas for cross-gender learning yielding optimized androgyny, and advice regarding the celebration of one's gender including its strengths and advantages.  Karel recommends the book "Why Gender Matters" by Leonard Sax which can also be found at audible.com.

Technology pervades all aspects of our lives.  This episode provides you with advice to make technology work for you rather than you being a slave to it.  Karel gives advice on how to control the inputs, which are often technology interruptions, and the outputs, which are your ways of taking action.  He also provides his usual list of 10 items to consider in this case to optimize the aspects of your life that have to do with technology.  During the podcast, Karel mentions several products or tools.  Here are the links to those that were mentioned, audible.com, post-it notes, Facebook, and Google Reader.

Tom Friedman wrote the best-seller "The World is Flat" and described how the world was becoming smaller and more interconnected as a result of, among other things, the advancement of technology.  After quoting some statistics regarding internet, blog, and podcast use worldwide, Karel makes the case for being more aware of and sensitive to global audiences and cultures.  He summarizes 10 skills that should be considered on this topic for honing into habits in order to more effectively deal with a flat world.  He also makes reference to avoiding cultural faux pas.

Spoken language is one of the most important abilities humans possess but, surprisingly, also often the most neglected in terms of skill development.  The last episode dealt with spoken language as it relates to public speaking, an activity that is most feared by many people.  This episode deals with person-to-person, or interpersonal, communication which everyone does everyday.  After reviewing some insightful famous quotes on the topic, Karel summarizes 10 key habits do develop in order to optimize your interpersonal communication.  These are as as important to a business setting as they are to a non-business one.  Further honing these skills into habits will dramatically improve your communication skills and, in turn, your overall effectiveness and the quality of your relationships with others.

Being effective at public speaking is among the most important skills to have yet most people fear speaking in public and lack some of the skills to be effective at it.  Karel provides advice regarding 10 valuable habits to develop in this important aspect of life.  He discusses relevance to work as well as non-work settings.

This episode deals with the important topic of fitness both in terms of doing it for life and gleaning the benefits that include a better and longer life. After reading some famous quotes on the topic of fitness, Karel provides 10 things to think about regarding fitness. The first three deal with ways of thinking about the importance and the benefits of optimal fitness and the remaining seven deal with the development of specific fitness habits. This guidance assumes that you are in contact with your doctor to ensure that there are no medical reasons that would prevent you from engaging in an exercise program.