20 Tiny Life Stories that Will Make You Think, Smile, and Cry

By Charles Barnard, founder of Success Institutes. Emma’s alarm buzzed at 7:30 a.m., though there was no real reason to get up. […]

Disclaimer: If you’re having extreme thoughts of self-harm or suicide, please seek help immediately. Reach out to someone you trust, go to your nearest emergency room, or contact988 for free, confidential support that’s available 24/7.Pregnancy is so often portrayed as a joyful time where women “glow” in anticipation of the life they’re creating. The truth is, though, emotional distress during pregnancy is more common than most people realize.

The goal is to change your response to what you can’t control — to gradually grow stronger on the inside, so less on the outside affects your inner peace and joy without your conscious permission.The mind is the biggest battleground. It’s the place where the greatest conflict resides. It’s where we all develop thinking habits that put us in direct opposition with reality — where the things we fear drain us but never actually happen.

The risk of developing depression doubles when a teen has ADHD, and adolescence is often the backdrop to initial depressive episodes. Teens with depression tend to withdraw – their irritability, sadness, or negative affect seemingly walling them in beyond reach. Stuck outside those walls, parents seldom know what to say or do to breech their teen’s fortress of isolation.Building interpersonal connections is difficult — and essential – for people struggling with mood disorders.

I’m the mom who forgets about the birthday party. Not in the quirky, lovable, hot-mess rom-com way — just in the regular way, where the invitation has been quietly sitting in my inbox beside its 20,957 best friends.I’m also the mom who doesn’t have one master family calendar but three. Two backups for the one I’ll sure lose.

FREE WEBINAR ON AUGUST 26 Click here to register for “An Adult’s Guide to ADHD Treatment Considerations” with John Kruse, M.D., Ph.D., on August 26 at 1 pm ET.

“What day is it?” asked Pooh. “It’s today,” squeaked Piglet. “My favorite day,” said Pooh.When you first awake, be mindful and take a second to think about what a privilege it is to simply be alive and relatively healthy. Breathe onto the bathroom mirror just to see how amazing your breath looks. The moment you start acting like life is a blessing, I assure you it will start to feel like one.

The most powerful changes happen when we decide to take control of what we do have power over, instead of craving control over what we do not.Holding on is hard. Holding on contributes to stress, unhappiness, relationship issues, and so much more.

And to recharge your energy so you can go after your goals and dreams with renewed motivation and make this a successful day.“With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.” – Eleanor Roosevelt“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep.” – Rumi“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.” – Marcus Aurelius“I get up every morning and it’s going to be a great day.

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.When you can no longer think of a reason to continue, you must think of a reason to start over. There’s a big difference between giving up and starting over in the right direction. And there are three little words that can release you from your past and guide you forward to a positive new beginning.

“Jerry, there is some bad in the best of people and some good in the worst of people. Look for the good!” ~George Chaky, my grandfather

“I have seen and touched and danced and sang and climbed and loved and meditated on a lifetime spent living honestly. Should it all end tonight, I can positively say there would be no regrets. I feel fortunate to have walked 90 years in my shoes. I am truly lucky. I really have lived 1,000 times over.”Those are the opening lines of the final entry in my grandma Zelda’s journal—a 270-page leather-bound journal she wrote small entries in almost every morning during the final decade of her life.

On August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., and delivered what would become one of the most powerful speeches in history, “I Have a Dream.” Speaking to over 250,000 people during the March on Washington, his call for racial equality echoed not only across America but throughout the world.More than just a moment in history, Dr.

My electric toothbrush has seen it all.

We sabotage our best intentions when we saddle new resolutions with these common ADHD traps: thinking too big and expecting overnight change.Ever optimistic, the ADHD brain assumes that it will hit the gym seven days a week, even after a long track record of doing the opposite. It believes it will craft elaborate, gourmet dinners every night after months of DoorDash and frozen pizza. It imagines it will wake up every day at the crack of dawn after a lifetime of hitting the snooze button.When we inevitably fail to overhaul our lives at breakneck speed, we feel ashamed and overlook our efforts.

Not available September 9? Don’t worry. Register now and we’ll send you the replay link to watch at your convenience.Chronic pain is more common in autistic children and teens with and without ADHD than it is in neurotypical youth.

Empathy is the emotional glue that binds all relationships. I’ve never had an adult client come into my office and say, “My parents took too much time to truly listen to me. That really messed up my childhood.”When children refuse and resist, responding with empathy feels unnatural.

August 13, 2025Serotonin dysfunction occurs in nearly three-quarters of psychiatric and somatic comorbidities linked to ADHD, according to a new systematic review published in Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.1The study identified 182 comorbidities in ADHD populations and found strong evidence linking 135 (74.2%) of them, including 91 psychiatric and 44 somatic conditions, to imbalances in the brain’s serotonergic system.“This association confirmed the occurrence of comorbidities within a clearly defined ADHD population (rather than the presence of ADHD within a population with a particular condition), and also confirmed that the comorbidity was a co-occurring condition and not an adverse event elicited by ADHD treatment,” the researchers wrote.The research team examined close to 50,000 papers published between January 2010 and March 2024. Based on the volume of articles and the overall high grade of evidence, they concluded that the top five psychiatric ADHD comorbidities associated with serotonin dysregulation include:The top five somatic ADHD comorbidities associated with a serotonin dysregulation include:The brain’s “feel good” chemical, serotonin is a neurotransmitter that helps regulate mood, impulsivity, and physical functions, such as sleep and digestion.According to a recent study in Nature, serotonin neurons signal to the brain the expected value of near-future rewards.

On the average day happiness is letting go of what you assume life is supposed to be like, and sincerely appreciating it for everything it is.Over the past fifteen years, as Angel and I have gradually worked with hundreds of our course students, coaching clients, and live event attendees, we’ve come to understand that the root cause of most human stress is simply our stubborn propensity to hold on to things. In a nutshell, we hold on tight to the hope that things will go exactly as we imagine, and then we complicate our lives to no end when they don’t.For example, there are a number of times when our minds cling to unhelpful ideals…In all of these common examples the mind holds on tight to something—an ideal—that isn’t real.

“The only people who get upset when you set boundaries are the ones who benefited from you having none.” ~Unknown

The most important decision you will ever make is what to do with the time given to you.I recently received a thank you email from a reader named Hope. She said our work helped motivate her through an arduous recovery process following a serious car accident last year. Although her entire story is both heartbreaking and inspiring, this one line made me pause and think:“The happiest moment of my life is still that split-second a year ago when, as I laid crushed under a 2000 pound car, I realized my husband and 9-year-old boy were out of the vehicle and absolutely OK.”Dire moments like this force us to acknowledge what’s truly important to us.

The words of this Spiritual Art Fiction do not merely tell a fable… they pulse with energy, carrying the weight […]

Eleanor Roosevelt“When you say “yes” to others, make sure you aren’t saying “no” to yourself.” Paulo CoehloWhen you get stuck in the habit of being a people pleaser then that can have a sneaky and negative effect.Not only on you but also on the people around you.Because as you try to please the other people in your life:So trying to please others pretty much all the time is often an even worse choice that one may at first think.But how can you change this behavior and stop being a people pleaser?This week I’d like to share 7 powerful insights and habits that have helped me with that.1. Realize that with some people it isn’t about you and what you do (no matter what you do).Some people just can’t be pleased.

Be OK with walking away. Rejection teaches you how to reject what’s not right for you.As you look back on your life, you will realize that many of the times you thought you were being rejected by someone or something you wanted, you were in fact being redirected to someone or something you needed. Seeing this when you’re in the midst of feeling rejected, however, is quite tough.

You did everything “right.” The grades. The jobs. The grind.You followed the rules and pursued success, maybe even achieved a great version of it.

“Emotions are not problems to be solved. They are signals to be felt.” ~Vironika Tugaleva

Jill Stirk is one of the coaches that we found this month and we did a little interview with her. […]

In the ADHD world, to-do lists are often synonymous with overwhelm. There’s the risk of losing them or forgetting they exist (out of sight, out of mind, right?), filling them with vague goals instead of clear tasks, feeling guilty about ignoring them, and falling into myriad other traps that render to-do lists useless and ineffective.For a better, more effective tool you’ll stick to, try these to-do list ideas.If you find yourself writing the same type of list over and over, why not make a more permanent list that you can refer to repeatedly? Here are a few ideas.[Get This Free Download: Finish Your To-Do List TODAY]Long, vague lists are easy to ignore.

Curiosity. Risk tolerance. Innovative thinking.

Stimulants are the first-line treatment for most people with ADHD, yet few clinicians receive training on fine-tuning medications like Adderall, Ritalin, or Vyvanse to achieve the best outcomes.No practical, modern protocol exists regarding how to efficiently adjust stimulants to optimize their performance in managing ADHD symptoms and mitigating side effects. The only guidance available stems from the Multimodal Treatment of ADHD (MTA) Study, published in 1999, but the MTA’s research methodology often took as long as eight months to determine each subject’s optimal medication and dose.This is completely impractical in the real world, where insurance coverage pays for only two or three sessions of clinical assessment and medication adjustments.