Apple CEO Tim Cook gives kudos to his predecessor and company founder Steve Jobs for helping him to think differently which I caught recently in Fortune.

“… skills, like the importance of being able to evolve from past beliefs—a trait he said few leaders actually possess. Cook explained that Jobs valued people who could admit they were wrong, encouraged lively debate, and enjoyed being challenged by other workers.

Yet Steve Jobs was famously uncompromising, but his perspective on “being wrong” was deeply tied to his commitment to results over ego.

Cook says “He would flip on a dime … I’ve never seen anyone with a greater capacity to change his mind than Steve.”

In Jobs’ own words”:  “I don’t mind being wrong. And I’ll admit that I’m wrong a lot. It doesn’t matter to me too much. What matters to me is that we do the right thing.“

Imagine if we transformed being wrong from a sign of weakness into an advantage.

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The Washington Post interviewed Sonja Lyubomirsky, a professor of psychology at the University of California at Riverside, and relationship expert Harry Reis, a psychologist at the University of Rochester, about their recently published book, How to Feel Loved and it turns out showing your other side is critical.

We think that to be loved, to feel loved, we need to make ourselves more lovable: “I just need to show them how wonderful I am and hide my shortcomings.” And that’s actually not what works.

To feel love, you need to be known and also know the other. And so if I’m only showing the tips of my whole self, just the positive part, I’m not going to be known. And if you don’t really know me, I’ll never really feel loved by you, because I’ll always wonder, “If you really knew me, would you still love me?

As author Brene Brown puts it “True belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.”

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Apple founder Steve Jobs wouldn’t let his kids use an iPad (that his company invented) and that “We limit how much technology our kids use at home.”

YouTube cofounder Steve Chen he wouldn’t want his kids consuming only short-form content” because it equates with shorter attention spans.

Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Snap’s Evan Spiegel, and Tesla’s Elon Musk say they limit  their children’s access to devices. The Gates children had to wait until 14 before getting a phone and they banned phones at the dinner table entirely.

Children in the U.S 8 to 18 spend seven and a half  hours a day watching or using screens.

The life of a parent can be difficult but even the folks who fed the digital revolution protected their children from its addictive downsides.

But there is good news rising: 94% of university students now say they want to reduce their phone usage to improve mental health and grades. 70% of adults under 30 are cutting back.  Students who successfully cut screen time in half (from 5 hours to 2.5 hours) saw an improvement in attention spans equivalent to reversing 10 years of age-related decline.

Even current Apple CEO Tim Cook agrees:  “I’m convinced that the more we value our time and our attention, the more we will realize that they are our most precious resources.”

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Euphoria and Grey’s Anatomy Actor Eric Dane died last week of ALS.  In a posthumous Famous Last Wordsepisode, he spoke directly into the camera with words intended for his daughters, Billie and Georgia.

He admitted to wasting years “wallowing and worrying in self-pity, shame, and doubt,” and noted that ALS stripped away the ability to obsess over the future or the past.

He reminisced about watching his daughters play in the ocean in Santa Monica and Hawaii, calling those moments “heaven.”  He used this to illustrate that happiness isn’t a destination, but the quiet moments of presence he previously overlooked.

He left his daughters with four core pieces of advice, the first of which was a directive to “stay grounded in the present moment, because it is the only place where life actually happens”.

And ended with “This disease is slowly taking my body, but it will never take my spirit… I hope I’ve demonstrated that you can face anything. You can face the end of your days. You can face hell with dignity. Fight, girls, and hold your heads high.”

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Billie Eilish: “I’m getting older, I think I’m aging well. I wish someone had told me I’d be doing this by myself”.

The 80+ Hockey Hall of Fame was started by 88-year old Fred Merchant last year, for players still playing into their 80s and older — 35 men and one woman have been inducted so far.

80-year-old hockey players lace up their skates, proving that physical vigor isn’t reserved for the young. Meanwhile, in rural fire stations, 16-year-old cadets like Abby Weaver don 50 pounds of firefighting gear, proving that civic responsibility isn’t reserved for the “experienced.”

These two groups share an uncommon trait: refusal to follow the script. The seniors reject the sedentary life, while the youth reject the digital distraction. Whether it’s a 3am emergency call or a third-period puck battle, they remind us that grit is ageless.

As Serena Williams says “I’ve never let anyone define me. I just go out there and show them what I can do.”

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The world can be brutal today – public figures talking trash and not holding back to be considerate of feelings or previous social norms.  This can be very upsetting for young people getting mixed messages.

Former Mayo Clinic professor of medicine Amit Sood says humility is not a lack of confidence, but a quiet, grounded strength that fosters deep connection.  Humility allows us to step outside the “ego-trap” of constant self-evaluation, creating space for curiosity and compassion toward others. By recognizing our own limitations and the vastness of the world around us, we reduce our internal stress and open ourselves up to genuine growth and learning.

Humility is what may be missing these days yet it remains the ultimate tool for emotional freedom:

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is thinking of yourself less; it is the transition from ‘What about me?’ to ‘How can I serve?'”

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Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath testified before Congress that Gen Z is not as smart as previous generations when it comes to attention, memory, literacy, numeracy, executive function and general IQ so he says in a recent New York Post piece.

He blames phones. Horvath says “Humans are biologically programmed to learn from other humans and from deep study, not flipping through screens for bullet point summaries.”

I see good news in my college classes where young students are very aware of the burden of battling screen time.  They want to spend more time in the present.  Are disconnecting more.  Using less social media or deleting apps altogether.  They are very smart and they’ve gotten the message that life, if not learning, is best lived in the now with real people and social situations.

The very self-awareness Gen Z shows about screen damage is itself evidence of intact — even strengthened — executive function and metacognition, not cognitive decline.

Arianna Huffington noted how tech industry monetizes distractions when she spoke to Colby College students in 2016 and said “Your attention is the most valuable currency of the digital age.”

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Our ancestors had to make some pretty drastic accommodations as the world progressed to where we are today.

In prehistoric days, you couldn’t be too content if you wanted to survive which led to what is called the negativity bias – where we focus on the negative to remind us to pursue the positive.  Sounds good, but it tends to cause our brains to wander and forget about all the good in our lives – that tires us out and we then get fatigued brain.

The brain is designed for safety.  We have to train it to be happy as former Mayo Clinic physician and author Amit Sood says “because our system is biased to focus on the negative, threats, imperfections, regrets.”

“Happiness is a skill.”

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You can live 2 months on a good compliment and sometimes hardly get through the day on negative input.  A compliment is not flattery.  It refers to something specific that you did well.  It’s not about looks or something superficial, it’s something meaningful.

Negativity sticks with us like heartburn.  A compliment can be enjoyed with pleasure for a long time.  Knowing this, why don’t people give more good compliments?  In studying stress, the feeling of not being good enough seems to always pop up.

As Mark Twain put it:  “I can live for two months on a good compliment.”

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I ask my music business students to bring a new song with them every class that helps them stay positive, upbeat and less anxious.  This week, one class member played Duke Ellington’s Reflections in D.  Interesting choice by a Gen Z student choosing a Greatest Generation musical talent.  Here’s what he said:

“I chose this song because it has always felt like my “rock” since I was in elementary school. My father is a very big fan of Duke Ellington, and would often play his records around the house. This song in particular always stuck with me, and I feel like every time I listen to it I can pick something out that is different and strikingly beautiful. Moreover, Ellington’s expression on the piano feels uniquely human and I find it to be not only entrancing, but extremely touching. The way he moves is very meditative and precise, and I tend to turn to this song in the early mornings to set the tone for my day with a feeling of comfort and security”.

“Where words fail, music speaks.” — Hans Christian Andersen

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