What Does It Mean to Have a Company Vesting Schedule?

If you have a workplace benefits package, some of your perks may come with a "vesting schedule" or "vesting period." It's critical to understand how vesting works and consider it before deciding to leave your job.  

This post will explain different types of vesting and answer frequently asked questions, so you get the most from your benefits at work.

What does it mean to be vested with a company?

Vesting is a legal term that means you have the right to something, such as a payment or benefit. It's typically used in retirement plan language to set a timeline for when a participating employee earns the right to keep employer matching, profit-sharing contributions, or other benefits.

Vesting is an employee retention tool that companies use to keep top talent from leaving. It can be helpful in industries where worker turnover is high or skills are in high demand. By offering you a financial incentive to stay employed longer, you may be less likely to job hop.

Leaving a company before you've worked long enough to be vested comes with negative consequences, such as forfeiting employer-provided stock incentives or contributions to your retirement plan.

So, being vested means you officially get to keep certain employee benefits if you leave your job. Leaving a company before you've worked long enough to be vested comes with negative consequences, such as forfeiting employer-provided stock incentives or contributions to your retirement plan. 

How long a vesting period lasts varies from company to company. However, a typical vesting schedule is from three to five years. Being fully vested means that you get to keep 100% of the benefits, and being partially vesting means you get a percentage of them based on a predetermined schedule. 

Note that you're always 100% vested in your contributions to a retirement plan, no matter when you leave a company. According to federal law, the Employee...

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Vegetables are useless against heart disease? Please.

A curious listener, who may or may not have been my scientist sister (Hi, Pam!) recently forwarded a headline that caught her attention:

"Eating vegetables does not protect against cardiovascular disease, finds large-scale study."

"I thought your readers might come across this and would want to hear your take," she wrote. "At least, I do!"

Just for context, this story was not on some clickbait site but on the blog of Frontiers, a respected science technology platform and publisher. And the headline does faithfully reflect the conclusion of the authors, who found that higher vegetable consumption was not associated with a reduced risk of heart disease or overall mortality. This analysis was done on dietary and health records collected as part of the "UK Biobank" study, which involves almost 400,000 people.  So, these findings are correlations only; they do not prove cause and effect. However, the more expensive and difficult research needed to prove cause and effect often starts with this type of observational finding.

Interestingly, the authors looked at the effects of cooked and raw vegetables independently. Is one form more protective than the other? They found that cooked vegetable consumption was not associated at all with CVD or mortality, but people who ate more raw vegetables were somewhat less likely to develop heart disease or die.

Are raw vegetables better for you?

Proponents of a raw diet might be tempted to seize on this as evidence that cooking destroys the healthful properties of foods and that raw foods are more nourishing. I don't agree with this view. For one thing, raw vegetables can lose up to half of their original nutritional value simply by sitting on your counter for two days—or in your refrigerator for two weeks. Although cooking does involve some nutrient losses, a vegetable that's cooked the day it's harvested could end up retaining more nutrients than a raw vegetable that's been sitting around.

Furthermore, cooking actually makes some nutrients more absorbable. For example, the lycopene in cooked tomatoes is up to 4 times more bioavailable than that of fresh tomatoes.

Nutrients are also lost when foods are dehydrated, frozen, soaked, or juiced. So, when it comes to nutrient losses, unless you can arrange to eat every meal in the field where it was grown, it’s all sort of relative. And even though nutrients are lost, don’t worry—there are still plenty left!

In my view, the biggest nutritional advantage of a raw food diet isn’t the enzymes or the extra nutrients you glean by not cooking your vegetables. Rather, it’s the fact that a raw food diet...

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Why You Need to Build a Strong Upper Back

If we were to ask a thousand random listeners which parts of their body are their favorite and least favorite for strength training, what do you think the answers would be? My guess is that most people would choose the chest as their favorite and legs as their least favorite. 

Legs are definitely my least favorite for strength training and the word “loathe” doesn’t even fully capture how I feel about leg days at the gym. Heavy squats and lunges are no fun and just knowing that I have a leg day coming up brings on a bit of anxiety for me. 

Of course, skipping leg days is not an option because the leg muscles are the largest in the body, and working them has a slew of benefits such as boosting your levels of testosterone and human growth hormone which can help all of your muscles develop. So the best I can do is grit my teeth through leg days and take it like medicine. 

In contrast, chest workouts seem to be a favorite for most people and it makes sense. Chest exercises are relatively simple and you can really feel the “pump” of the muscles as they become engorged with blood after each set. 

Here’s a little secret about me—I like chest days because there's something cathartic about pushing a bunch of weight off my chest. If you don’t know what I mean, try thinking of something a little upsetting, like your toddler dropping your brand new smartphone in the toilet, while performing chest exercises and you might notice that frustration goes away more quickly.  

Based on my experience as a fitness professional, I know that upper back muscles don’t stand out as a favorite for most people at the gym. But they’re a key muscle group that deserves your attention. Keep listening to find out how to build a strong upper back and why it’s important, and stay tuned for a future episode when I talk about the lower back muscles.

Why building a strong upper back is important 

In our society, exercises for muscles on the front of our torso, such as our chest and abs, tend to be over-emphasized, while muscles on the back of our torso, such as our upper and lower back, are not emphasized enough....

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How to Productively Show Off What You've Learned

If you’re anything like me, you’re a sucker for development—personal, professional… if it nourishes my mind I’m all in. 

 

But also, if you’re anything like me, you may have a tendency to overconsume and under-execute. I keep a journal of running bits and bites I pick up as I listen, read, take online courses, talk to mentors, etc. I’m a wealth of knowledge and information. Which may fill a journal, but won’t move me forward. 

 

Learning can be addictive. It feels productive, but sometimes it’s the very thing holding us back. We think “I couldn’t possibly do X or apply for Y job until I learn more.” It’s a game your mind is playing with you. You know plenty. Now go do.

 

My solution? I proactively schedule days, hours, moments, or interactions in which I intentionally take action on an insight or idea I’ve added to my collection.

 

There are so many ways to do this. Today I’ll share a few I love, that work whether you work independently as I do or if you’re part of a team or organization. These are all ways to put your learning to good use, benefitting your personal brand while also delivering value to clients and/or your organization.

1. Host a lunch and learn

One super simple way to action your insight is to host a lunch-and-learn (or a free webinar or topical discussion—call it what you will). 

 

In my world, I spent a few months in 2021 really diving into all the research around the Great Resignation. As a leadership consultant, I had dozens of clients who were concerned not just about retaining their top talent, but keeping them engaged, committed, and well both physically and emotionally. 

 

I went into student mode. I was listening to podcasts, reading research, and talking to colleagues whose expertise was growing alongside mine. And after a few months, I felt pretty knowledgeable on all things talent retention and engagement.

 

So I hosted an open conversation, inviting about 25 Human Resources professionals from a variety of industries to come together for a discussion on the topic. I summarized for them what I had learned and shared how I was applying these lessons in client organizations. Then, I opened the floor for a collaborative discussion, inviting questions from attendees, personal experiences, and other ideas worth sharing.

 

This strategy served to position me not just as a subject matter expert, but also as a generous connector and an educator—all while delivering value to all who attended.

 

So your turn. What have you learned in recent months? Maybe you’ve brushed up on a technical program or have explored new...

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How To Tell Your Kids You’re Getting Divorced

Even if you’ve never said anything to your kids about your relationship troubles, they can feel the tension and know something’s going on. It’s very distressing to kids when they can sense things changing but don’t understand exactly what or why.

Due to what can be an understandably distressing time for separating partners, sometimes you can’t or don’t spend enough time attending to the effects of this stressful disruption on your children. Or maybe you’re so worried about the negative impact on your children that you avoid the topic out of fear. Either way, your child might be left inadequately informed about the break up of their family unit.

Whether you’re at a loss for what you might tell them or you’re trying to protect their innocence, it’s important to remember that without clear explanations your child is left on their own to grapple with their confusion, anger, sadness, and uncertainty about their future. But, if they are well-informed and feel safe coming to you for clarity or comfort with any and all of their questions and feelings, your children can ultimately come through the separation or divorce with resiliency. 

Remain calm, and speak openly and supportively to the kids to reassure them that you can work as a team.

When should we tell the kids we’re splitting?

It depends on your child’s age, of course, but a good rule of thumb is to wait until A) a change in their life is imminent and B) you have as many answers for them as possible so that you’re prepared for the many questions your children will have.

Children under 8 might have more difficulty conceptualizing their life far in the future. For younger children, hold off until you have most of the particulars nailed down and someone is planning on moving out of the family home or into a different bedroom very soon. The younger the child, the more you want to avoid creating an overly prolonged period of time where the child must anticipate and perhaps worry about a change they can’t quite visualize. For older children, you’ll want to give more lead time, particularly if a change of their school or neighborhood is involved in the transition.

You also don’t want your children to find out about your separation from someone other than you, so if you’re beginning to tell your community, tell your kids as well. Ideally, tell your children first, then alert your close community, giving them similar information that you’ve given your kids.

How do we tell them?

You’re going to want to help them understand that you’ll be separating or divorcing, that this is in no way their fault, that reconciliation is impossible, and that you love them and that that fact is never going to change.

They need to know what comes next and what will happen to them in all this. How will this separation affect their lives? You also want to let them know that they can ask you anything and...

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12 Nouns That Are Always Plural

If you’re deep in the world of fashion influencers on Instagram, or have ever caught an episode of a fashion reality show, then you might have heard phrases like "My go-to evening look is a smoky eye and a red lip," or "This outfit could be completed with a tailored pant." If you have never done those things, then bear with me anyway. You get the idea: sometimes there is an assumption of an implied plural when singular versions of words are used. You’d have to be pretty avant-garde to put lipstick on only one lip or eye make-up on only one eye. 

While you’d be more likely to refer to eyes, lips, and trousers outside of fashion terminology, we’re all familiar with what one eye looks like. But what is a singular pant or, for British listeners, trouser? They don’t exist. 

"Pants," when referring to the clothing you’d pop on your legs, is an example of a "plurale tantum." That’s Latin for "plural only." In other words, a noun that is used only in plural form. If you’re a native English speaker, you might not even have noticed you’re using them. But here are a whole load of examples that you’ve almost certainly said – and how they ended up as "pluralia tantum."

1. Scissors

The first known uses of the word "scissors" are actually singular – spelled in a variety of ways, including starting with "cy." That was in the 15^th century, and the plural version quickly overtook the former in popularity. While you’d still hear "scissor" as a verb, or to form a compound noun like "scissor kick," you’re unlikely to come across a single scissor. The same is true of many other two-bladed tools – like "pliers," "forceps," "shears," "tweezers" and "tongs."

2. Glasses

When we’re talking about eyewear, the word "glasses" is like "spectacles," "goggles," or "binoculars": today, you’ll only hear them used as plurals. Even those who favor talking about a "red lip" don’t seem to have adopted a "tortoiseshell glass" as of yet. Things get a bit more complex if you pop "a pair of" in front of the words. The "a" suggests you should treat "a pair of glasses" as singular, but research shows that you’re equally likely to come across "a pair of glasses are" as "a pair of glasses is."

3. Jeans

Moving on to bottoms, lots of the names for two-legged garments are pluralia tantum. We have "overalls," "leggings," "shorts," "pants," "tights," and "trousers...

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3 Functions of Emotions

As a psychologist, I receive lots of questions about emotions and how to deal with them. Today, I thought I’d take the opportunity to educate you on the 3 main functions of emotions. There are many times when it appears emotions arise in us only to derail our mood and day, but that’s not necessarily the case. Even the worst emotions can be tools that we can use in our everyday lives as long as you understand what they're trying to tell you.

There are some emotions that are enjoyable to experience and others that feel awful. At times, that leads us to think of some emotions as “good” and others as “bad.” Let’s take that train of thought and see how it can play out if applied in a different scenario. I was re-watching Spike Lee’s film Crooklyn the other week. It’s about a family living in Brooklyn in the '70s. One of the children, Nate, has a broken arm, and his mother insists that he eats the black-eyed peas she made him for dinner because they are full of calcium. This child hates these peas! Well, in walks Dad with cake for everyone and the family is overjoyed—but poor Nate can’t have any cake until he eats those peas.

If you were to ask Nate which was good or which was bad, he would tell you that cake is good and peas are bad. His rationale—and I think most of us would agree—would be that he prefers the taste of cake. However, as his mother pointed out, the black-eyed peas are good because they have nutrients that are necessary for healing. They both serve a function and have a place in our lives. So let's start breaking down some of the functions of emotions and see where they fit.

Emotions motivate us

One function of emotions is that they get us revved up and ready to go. There is nothing that can motivate a behavior faster than emotions. I’ve seen people work harder than they ever had in their lives or give up faster than I can blink all based on their emotional experiences. Emotions get us prepared for action.

In fact, some of our action urges are hardwired in our biology. For instance, the action urge associated with anger is to attack. The action of attack will look different depending on the person. It could be displayed as yelling, hitting, gossiping, intentionally sabotaging someone, or self-harm, to give some examples.

The reason I use the word urge is that you don’t have to act on it. I could have the urge to urinate while walking down 5th Ave in Manhattan, but I wouldn’t wet my pants in the street. I would problem solve the situation which would lead me to find the nearest restroom. While running to the restroom, I could have the urge to yell at people for walking too slowly, but I would try to resist that urge and focus on something else, which allows the anger to dissipate. In some ways, emotions are like the nitrous button in your suped-up Fast and Furious-style...

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Do All Adverbs End in '-Ly'?

Today we’re going to see if we are allowed to “drive slow” instead of “slowly.” May we “jump high” or “sit up straight”? What about the advertising slogan “Eat fresh”? Yes, today is adverb day, with a sprinkling of adjectives.

What are adjectives and adverbs?

An adjective modifies a noun or pronoun. For example, in the sentence “That is a real diamond,” “real” is an adjective that modifies the noun “diamond.” Other examples of adjectives are “devious” and “fair.”

Squiggly eyed the chocolate with a devious smile.

Aardvark reminded Squiggly of his promise to eat only his fair share.

An adverb, on the other hand, modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. Adverbs often have an “-ly” at the end, as in “happily” and “heartily.”

Squiggly happily posed for the cameras.

Aardvark heartily hoped he would get a turn in the limelight.

Such adverbs are usually formed by adding “-ly” to the end of an adjective, as we just did with the adjectives “happy” and “hearty.”

Do all adverbs end in '-ly'?

“Drive slow” isn't wrong because “slow” is a flat adverb.

Other adverbs, however, such as “very,” don't fit this pattern. You might complain, for example, “Squiggly eats very noisily.” In that sentence, the adverb “very” modifies another adverb, “noisily.”

To confuse matters, adjectives can also end in “-ly.” For example, in the sentence “The lonely snail stared up at the moon,” the adjective “lonely” modifies the noun “snail.” Poor Squiggly. 

So you can’t tell if words are adverbs or adjectives just by looking to see if they end in “-ly.” These two letters at the end of a word can be a clue, but you can’t rely on spelling.

What are flat adverbs?

You must have heard the joke “Working hard? Or hardly working?...

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Can You Contribute to a 401k and an IRA in the Same Year?

A podcast listener named Justin says, “I maxed out my 401(k) for 2022 and still have more money to invest. Can I also max out an IRA—and if so, would the contribution also be tax-deductible?”

Justin, thanks for your question, and congratulations on being such a good saver! I’ll answer your question in this post by reviewing the retirement account contribution rules and pitfalls to avoid. 

Can you contribute to a 401k and an IRA in the same year?

The short answer to the question is yes; you can contribute to a workplace retirement plan and an IRA (Individual Retirement Account) in the same year. However, having an extra retirement account changes the tax rules and benefits you receive in some cases. So, keep reading to learn how to take advantage of multiple retirement accounts in the same year.

First, let’s touch on why you’d want more than one retirement account. The primary benefits are saving more for retirement and reducing your current or future tax liability. Those are extremely powerful and why I’m a huge fan of tax-advantaged accounts. So, having more than one retirement account can help you build more wealth.

How much can you contribute to retirement accounts?

For 2022, workplace retirement plans, such as a 401(k) or 403(b), allow you to contribute up to $20,500 or $27,000 if you’re over age 50. If you’re like Justin and max one out with cash to spare, saving more in an IRA is a smart move. 

For 2022, the IRA contribution limits are much lower than workplace plans at up to $6,000 or $7,000 if you’re over 50. All the limitations I’ve covered apply whether you use a traditional or Roth IRA or account at work.

IRA Contribution Rules When You Have No Income

...

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Does the MIND Diet Support Brain Health?

Cheryl writes:

“I’ve been reading a lot about the MIND diet lately. A 50% reduction in Alzheimer’s cases seems pretty significant. Even if it’s not a controlled study, I’m willing to eat a few more blueberries just to hedge my bets. But I’m not ready to give up cheese quite so easily! How strong is the evidence that cheese increases the risk of Alzheimer’s?”

What is the MIND diet?

The MIND diet is a set of dietary guidelines proposed by researchers from Rush University. The diet combines elements from both the Mediterranean and DASH diets—two dietary patterns that have a long track record for promoting health and longevity—with a particular emphasis on foods and nutrients that have been associated either with cognitive health or decline.

The researchers hypothesized that following this diet could keep your brain healthy, preserve your cognitive abilities as you age, and perhaps even ward off dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. To test their theory, they reviewed dietary and medical records for almost a 1,000 people to see how closely their diets adhered to the MIND guidelines and how they fared in terms of brain health.

Their initial findings made quite a splash. In a study published in 2015 in the Journal of the American Alzheimer’s Association, they reported that those whose diets conformed most closely to the MIND diet principles were only half as likely to develop Alzheimer’s as those whose diets conformed the least well. The risk for those whose diets conformed only moderately well still was reduced by a third.

As Cheryl says, that certainly got everyone’s attention.

What’s on the MIND diet?

The MIND diet promotes ten “brain healthy” foods and discourages five foods. Along with the berries that Cheryl mentioned, you’re encouraged to eat plenty of vegetables, especially the green leafy kinds, nuts, legumes, whole grains, fish, poultry, olive oil, and wine. The foods that you’re supposed to limit are red meat, butter, and margarine, pastries and sweets, fried and fast food, and cheese. (Hey, who are they trying to kid here? That’s actually eight categories of foods!)

How strong is the evidence?

The original MIND diet study had a few limitations. First, as Cheryl points out, this was not a controlled study, where one group was put on a specific diet and another group served as a control. This was an observational study. That means that the subjects weren’t given any particular dietary instructions. They just agreed to let researchers gather information on what they ate and to take various neurological tests over time.

The researchers found an association (or correlation) between the MIND dietary pattern and improved cognitive health. But we don’t know how...

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3 Pre-Run Exercises to Prevent Injuries and Boost Performance

Now that we’re in the full swing of spring with more moderate weather, most people are spending more time outdoors engaging in activities such as running, walking, or hiking. It’s a great way to soak in the beauty of spring and enjoy quality time with friends or family while also getting exercise.

The weather here in the San Francisco Bay Area has been spectacular so my partner Farah and I decided to take our preschooler and toddler on their first real hike. We made the 1.8-mile out-and-back hike that included over 100 steps down to a rocky, secluded beach along the Land’s End Coastal Trail in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. 

After spending some time playing in the sand and stacking rocks on top of each other, we made our way back up the trail—with me carrying our toddler of course. I was really feeling the burn in my legs about two-thirds of the way back up the steps and it made me think about how incredible the human body is to be able to perform repetitive movements such as walking, running, and hiking for prolonged periods with relatively few issues. 

Allow me to nerd out for a moment: assuming the average person has a stride length of 2 to 2.5 feet, it takes about 2,000 steps to walk 1 mile. A study published in 2010 of over 1,000 Americans found that participants averaged about 5,000 steps a day, which adds up to over 1.8 million steps a year. 

If you run, walk, or hike two days or more a week for exercise, you can easily more than double that if you combine the number of steps you perform during exercise with the number of steps you perform throughout the day. 

The human body is truly an incredible machine to be just fine racking up that many steps every year. Well, just fine until you start feeling aches and pains that are more than just normal muscle soreness. 

If this is you, don’t worry, you’re not alone, because most people who run, walk, or hike for exercise are bound to experience aches and pains at some point. If you’re one of the few lucky ones who has never had an issue, you’ll still...

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Harness the Power of Your Anxiety with Dr. Chloe Carmichael

If you have days or moments (or years) during which you feel like your anxiety is in charge, or you’re stuck in patterns of self-criticism, double and triple-checking yourself, worrying about the future… then today’s interview is for you. 

 

I talked to Dr. Chloe Carmichael, author of the new book Nervous Energy: Harness the Power of Your Anxiety. With her doctorate in clinical psychology from Long Island University and her years of private practice in New York City focusing on issues including stress management and self-esteem, Dr. Chloe delivers a great piece of news: anxiety and nervous energy can be your superpowers when you learn to harness them for good.

 

In this interview, we discuss what our anxiety may be trying to tell us, and what strategies we might use in the moment to harness its power for good.

 

Listen to the full conversation on Apple, Spotify, your favorite podcast platform, or just click the audio player above.

So, what is anxiety?

“I really think anxiety gets kind of a bad rap sometimes,” Dr. Chloe began. “People will often come and say, ‘Hey, Dr. Chloe, how do I get rid of my anxiety?’ And I want to explain that the goal is not to get rid of it. It's a gift from mother nature. We get it for a reason… It's actually a big source of energy. We just have to learn how to point [our anxiety] in the right direction. So, I think of it as that kind of heightened sense of awareness that we have when we realize that there's some kind of a challenge or a situation that we don't yet have fully resolved. And it's that little tickle from mother nature saying, ‘Hey, let's see how we can figure this out.”

 

In other words, anxiety isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s offering us insight and information that’s ours to pay attention to and make sense of. 

How might a mental shortlist soothe an overactive mind?

Dr. Chloe describes the “mental shortlist” as a great strategy for calming the mind.

 

“Having an active and tenacious mind can be a great thing until it starts to get in our own way,” she explains. She goes on to describe a case from her book in which a man was trying to prepare for an important meeting at work.

 

Once he had done all he could to prepare, he couldn’t seem to quiet his mind.

 

“He reached a point where he was just spinning his...

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Parenting With Somatic Mindfulness With Hakomi Therapist Karen Daley, LMFT

Part of practicing respectful parenting is the ongoing journey of building your capacity to access your reserves of inner calm in the face of your child’s big emotions, their behaviors that irritate you, and your own involuntary emotional reactions. 

One of the most common requests I get from new clients is to tell them how to get their parent-rage to go from a 9.5 on the severity scale down to a 2 during moments of family conflict. The first thing I usually suggest is to get in the habit of attuning to your own body.

Does your body feel one way when you’re happy and one way when you’re angry or when you’re in the presence of someone else’s anger? What about sadness—your own, your partner’s, or your child’s? What sensation happens in your body all by itself?

Surprisingly, learning to tune in to your body’s reactions in the moment can help you begin to understand your emotions, which in turn helps you modulate them when it’s necessary to do so.

To help us understand how this mind-body connection can be helpful to parents, I talked to Hakomi therapist Karen Daley, who uses mindfulness and awareness of the body in her work with clients.

Karen’s private practice in Northern California is called Many Rivers Healing. She is a licensed marriage and family clinician and is also in the process of becoming a Certified Hakomi Practitioner while also enrolled in the Hakomi Teacher in Training Program.

Karen co-developed the Resilience Clinic at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital’s Primary Care Clinic, specializing in bringing caregivers and their children into a weekly circle that fostered deeper relationships and communication between them. The focus included neuroscience, mindfulness, crafting, outdoor experiences, and nutritious snacks in addition to learning about how each of these experiences can be resources for the nervous system. Karen is a parent of an almost-25-year-old, and her loves—besides her wonderful daughter—are her plant and book babies which she tends to daily!

Here are some key takeaways from our conversation:

• Hakomi is a type of psychotherapy that privileges the somatic experience.
• It’s about taking a read of what's happening in our bodies to then figure out what kind of resource we need at any given time.
• Parents tend to have a belief that the busyness of everyday life means that it’s a privilege to make time to check in with yourself—but in fact, it’s an important thing to do.
• Checking in with yourself allows you to be able to regulate your responses so that you can soothe your nervous system and help your child develop that same capacity.
• In Hakomi therapy, while the client tells their story, the therapist looks for a moment to offer the person a “missing experience”—an experience they needed in childhood from or with...

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3 Ways to Improve Personal Time Management

Today, we're going to talk about establishing healthy routines. As any of my patients can tell you, it's a topic that I harp on routinely—and for good reason! I find that what fascinates most people about psychology is doing the in-depth work and digging into the whys. But what I tell my patients is that without a solid foundation, you can't always get into that deep stuff in a way that's beneficial to you. It's hard to contemplate the meaning of a fire when it's actively spreading and burning down your house! This is where healthy habits and routines can come into play.

What is a healthy routine?

You might be wondering—what does a routine encompass? The answer to that question is everything! I basically have my patients schedule everything that isn't a bathroom break because that's how you build habits. A good routine is built around time blocks, which is a chunk of time that you've designated for a type of activity. For example, I might have a time block for my routine of getting ready for work, or a time block for writing and recording this podcast. Each time block is made up of tasks, which are the individual things that we do within the time block. There are typically two types of tasks, recurring and one-time tasks.

Your values should be displayed in your routines. For instance, if you have a value to attend to your relationships, then you should have time blocked into your schedule to spend time with others. If being physically healthy is a priority for you, then you should have time blocked and tasks related to exercise, medical appointments, and grocery shopping to ensure that you have time for it. If faith is important, then perhaps having blocked times for religious services, religious reflection on your own, readings, and volunteering might be healthy for you.

We're more likely to keep routines if we can connect them to what we value because then there is buy-in. Values are also important because we don't always like the tasks related to upholding our values and we often need reasons for why we do what we do. I dislike the task of exercise, for example, but value physical mobility, mental clarity, and investing in long-term quality of life. Consequently, I engage in exercise because it's tied to my values.

How to build time blocks

Let's talk a little bit about how to actually build a routine. I suggest everyone start with time blocks for morning and bedtime routines, as how you start and end your day is crucial. I also recommend time blocks for household chores, free time, and time for others. This is not an exhaustive list whatsoever, and you should explore what kind of time blocks might work for you. For example, a student may have time blocks for study time.

Assigning colors to different time blocks is helpful in organizing your schedule, whether it's pen and paper...

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How 'Green' Became Green

The original Earth Day Proclamation in 1970 refers to “our beautiful blue planet,” and the first Earth Day flag consisted of a NASA photo of the earth on a dark blue background. But the color of fields and forests prevailed, and today when we think of ecology and environmentalism, we think green not blue.

The connection of the color green to growing things is found in nature, of course, and the word green has “associations with verdure, freshness, newness, health, and vitality [that are] are widespread among the Germanic languages,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary. So in Old and early Middle English, we find forms of the word used to refer to the color of living vegetation, grass, and to grassy areas or leafy trees.

The meaning was extended to refer especially to tender or unripe vegetation and then more generally. The expression “green cheese,” for example, from the late fourteenth century, refers to cheese that still needed to be aged. The notion of green as unripe provided the basis for its later extension to people, so by the mid-sixteenth century, green could be used to refer to immaturity, rawness or inexperience.

In medieval and Renaissance literary symbology, green retained that sense of immaturity. Green became the color of young love as well, and sometimes of fickleness, and it was the color of both the sea and of fortune. Green was also associated with “greensickness,” referring to the jaundice of chlorosis, a type of anemia common in young women.

By William Shakespeare’s time, green had a variety of symbolic possibilities, and he used most of them in his plays. In “Love’s Labor’s Lost,” Don Armando’s page Moth jokes with his master, who is discoursing on famous loves:

Armando: O well-knit Sampson, strong-jointed Samson!…I am in love too. Who was Sampson’s love, my dear Moth?

Moth: A woman, master.

Armando: Of what complexion?

Moth: Of all the four, or the three, or the two, or one of the four.

Armando: Tell me precisely of what complexion.

Moth: Of the sea-water green, sir.

Armando: Is that one of the four complexions?

Moth: As I have read, sir, and the best of them, too.

Armando: Green indeed is the color of lovers; but to have a love of that color, methinks Sampson had small reason for it. He surely affected her for her wit.

Moth: It was so, sir, for she had a green wit. (I. ii. 72–89)

The four complexions mentioned are the four...

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Is 'Funnest' a Word?

Researching the word “funnest” and its close relation “funner” turned out to be a lot less fun than I had hoped — or at least more complicated.

First, the easy part. Everyone agrees that “fun” was originally just a noun. For example, you could say, “We had fun,” which is the grammatical equivalent of “We had cake.” Fun is more of a concept whereas cake is more of a thing, but they're both nouns. “Cake” may jump out at you more as one of those people-places-and-things concrete nouns we’ve talked about before, but “fun” is also a noun. It’s an abstract noun.

‘Fun,’ the Adjective

But now we head down the slippery slope of fun because many modern sources grudgingly (2) accept that “fun” can also be used as an adjective, as in “Squiggly throws a fun party.” (1, 3) In that sentence, “fun” is an adjective that modifies the noun “party.” It was a fun party.

How "fun" made its way from a noun to an adjective is a great illustration of how language can change over time. Nouns can be used to modify other nouns, and when they are they're called attributive nouns. In the phrase "sugar cookie," "sugar" is a noun, but it's being used in an attributive way to describe the cookie. Attributive nouns do the same thing as adjectives. You could say, "I ate a sugar cookie," or "I ate a yummy cookie." The sentences are constructed the same way, but "sugar" is an attributive noun and "yummy" is an adjective.

The Oxford English Dictionary notes a few uses of "fun" as an attributive noun such as "fun fair" and "fun-fest" in the early 1900s. It was probably from there that "fun" worked its way from noun to adjective. In English, nouns often end up becoming adjectives too. (1, 2)

A few sources note that using "fun" as an adjective is a generational thing. It's much more acceptable to children, (3) youngsters, (4) slackers, (5) and people who were born after 1970. (6) A Google Ngram search, which shows how often words are used in the books Google has scanned, shows that writers started...

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What Happens If You Get Named a Personal Representative?

Kyann M. says, "My father passed away, and I became the executor of his will. He was married to my stepmother when she left him in June 2020 because he had dementia, and she didn't want to take care of him anymore. They lived in El Paso, and we filed for a partition agreement, which is like a legal separation in Texas.

I had his power of attorney and took care of all the bills, and was also named his executor. Later, I realized how unprepared I was for being an executor. I think it would be so helpful for you to explore in an upcoming podcast preparing to care for elderly parents and what to expect if you have to take over their estate. It's certainly been an eye-opener."

Kyann's question hit home because my father recently died, and my family had to deal with his estate and the probate court, even though he had a will. Handling an estate can be complicated and even more stressful because you're simultaneously grieving for a loved one. 

The estate and probate laws vary significantly depending on the state where you die, but typically allow plenty of time to complete the necessary paperwork. However, depending on the size of the estate and any outstanding legal issues, going through probate can take over a year. So, it's wise to get started as soon as you're ready to face it. 

In many cases, you need the advice of an attorney or should hire one to help you navigate the probate court. So I interviewed Lauren Blair, an attorney, writer, and litigation expert for FreeAdvice.com, who's practiced law for more than 25 years. Her article Personal Representative' Duties–What Are They? covers frequently asked questions about being named a personal representative, executor, or executrix, that everyone should know. 

The Right Way to Talk to Your Aging Parents About Their Money

Lauren and I had a great conversation to answer Kyann's question and help Money Girl listeners understand the often complex legal...

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Zero Waste Cooking with Rosanne Rust

Earth Day is this week (April 22) and I often take this opportunity to talk about the impact of food waste on the planet and its climate.

Anxiety about climate change has never been higher. And yet, we consumers are often told that our individual efforts—whether that’s installing energy efficient light bulbs or driving hybrid cars or even giving up meat—will never add up to enough impact to make a real  difference. For that, we need the sort of system-wide impacts that can only be achieved with public policy change. 

But reducing food waste is a place where individual consumers can have a really big impact—because most food waste occurs at the consumer level. In terms of reducing greenhouse gasses and slowing global warming, reducing food waste may be one of the biggest lever we have as consumers.

I know that a lot of the people listening to this podcast are reducing their consumption of animal products based on the belief that this will reduce the environmental impact of their diet or food choices. And this is an area of some controversy. 

Many animal agriculture advocates point out that the methods used to measure environmental impact of foods are not always comparing apples to apples (or apples to animals), and that the environmental impact of the processing involved in creating highly processed plant-based alternatives is not always taken into account by these comparisons.

But whether we’re buying beef burgers or Impossible burgers, if we end up throwing food away, we are wasting that energy and those resources and incurring those environmental costs for no benefit.

In this episode, registered dietitian Rosanne Rust joins me to talk about how we can all reduce food waste.

Rosanne is an internationally recognized nutrition expert and communicator and a prolific writer, with 8 books and counting. Her latest is Zero Waste Cooking for Dummies—but don't let the title fool you. Although it is certainly accessible and approachable (just like Rosanne), there is nothing dumbed down about this book. It is an amazingly comprehensive and wide-ranging effort, weaving everything from agricultural practices to nutritional factors, time management, and budget considerations into this larger toptic of reducing food waste!

Click on the audio player to hear my conversation with Rosanne, in which we discuss:

• Reducing food waste is not necessarily about giving up all processed foods or animal foods, but making the best use of whatever foods you choose to include in your diet.
• The role of inventory control: knowing what you've got on hand and its shelf-life and making meal decisions based on that.
• The role of meal planning and shopping lists when life so...

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What's the point of regret?

Hey listeners, Dr. Jonathan Su here, the Get-Fit Guy. I'm taking a break from the podcast this week, but in the meantime, I wanted to share an episode of a brand new podcast with you.

It's called Curious State, and it's all about discovering the unexpected gems of knowledge that exist all around us.

This episode features bestselling author Daniel Pink to help answer the question, What is the point of regret?

I loved Daniel's answer, and I think you will too.

If you enjoy Curious State, you can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you're listening to Get-Fit Guy.

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5 Red Flags to Watch For During a Job Interview

My friend Emma recently interviewed for a position with a company she’s always admired from afar. She showed up (virtually) excited, well-prepped, and hoping for the best.

She called me right after the interview to debrief. But there was flatness where the excitement should’ve been. She sounded way more “meh” than “woohoo.”

“I’m still not sure what just happened,” she said. “They want me to meet with an executive panel next, but something about the experience is making me hesitate.”

Right now, we’re living in a buyers’ market—meaning companies are having to work twice as hard to attract talent, and if you indeed are a talent, you’ve got all the leverage. So if you’re on the hunt for your next gig, you can—and absolutely should—be very choosy.

Of course, there’s a lot you won’t know about a company until you’re already inside it. But there are some signals you can keep an eye out for during the interview process. And if, like my friend, you feel your spidey sense tingling… definitely give it a listen.

Here are some red flags worth watching out for.

1. Interviewer energy is “off”

Whoever is interviewing you—regardless of their level or title—should be showing up as an ambassador of the company’s brand.

People express energy in different ways—I’m not suggesting that you expect choreography and jazz hands. But I am saying that you deserve to feel like the interviewer wants to be there and is fully engaged in your conversation.

Have they shown up—whether in person or on-screen—calmly, with smiles, seeming to have time for you? Or do they seem anxious, frantic, racing around, or exhausted?

Even in a virtual interview, you can watch for signals of focus, eye contact, and how calmly they're breathing. One frantic person may be an exception. But if it seems like the norm, be wary.

Emma told me her interviewer seemed distracted and anxious—and was not-so-discreetly multi-tasking. Which left Emma feeling like a to-do needing to be handled rather than a talent to be courted. Not a good look for that company.

2. Interview questions feel like “gotcha” traps

When I graduated from college, certain big companies were infamous for asking questions like “How many dog hairs are there in the world?” or “How long would a piece of string need to be in order to circle the earth twice?”

Crazy, right? Granted, answering these questions well didn’t mean answering correctly. Because who could possibly know? These questions were designed to give the interviewer a glimpse into your thought process.

But also, let’s be honest: they were a little bit designed to make you sweat, to show the interviewer how you showed up under pressure.

The good news is that you don’t have to put up with that line of inquiry anymore. An interview should challenge...

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