James' World 2

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Susan,* a client of Luis’ and a mentee of Kristin’s, managed her team with a fundamental belief that it was her job to “protect” them. Her belief was grounded in good intentions. She wanted her team to be happy and successful in a highly demanding and fast-moving organization. However, her approach constantly put her in the position of intercepting challenges, wanting to become a shield for her team.

Perhaps this behavior endeared Susan to her team initially, but it had other unintended consequences, especially as the team’s scope of responsibilities grew. Her peers and cross-functional colleagues didn’t see her as collaborative, partly because she was often perceived as a blocker. Her behavior led her team to adopt a disempowered stance, and they became dependent on her to fight their battles. Worse, it put a lot of pressure on her to be present in all major decisions. As her overwhelm mounted, her performance slipped, both in terms of her ability to stay on top of key projects and to show up at meetings with a calm, clear perspective. Ultimately, the behavior caused senior leadership to view her as volatile and not in control.

We call leaders who engage in this kind of behavior “umbrella managers”: well-intentioned leaders who want to protect their teams from all inclement organizational weather. But this type of leadership comes with a heavy price for the manager, the team, and the organization:

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Every career is made up of choices. But sometimes, even when we know we made the right decision, we find ourselves longing for a forgone role or career path. How does this sort of dwelling on the road not taken affect us in the workplace? And what can employees, managers, and organizations do to help workers who may be experiencing some internal conflict with respect to their chosen careers?

To explore these questions, my colleagues Jason Colquitt, Erin Long, and I surveyed more than 300 U.S.-based workers and their coworkers across a wide range of professions and seniority levels. We asked the workers how satisfied they were with their current jobs, how often they thought about other paths they could have taken, and the extent to which they felt able to determine the trajectories of their lives and shape their work. We then asked their coworkers how often these employees engaged in helpful, collaborative behaviors, and how often they exhibited behaviors that suggested a withdrawal from work, such as showing up late or distracting others.

Through these surveys, we found that many workers spend a significant amount of time dwelling on alternative professional paths they could have taken — even years after the decision is made. In fact, just 6% of the participants in our study reported never or almost never thinking about other paths they could have taken, and 21% reported thinking about these questions often or even almost always.

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[Image: courtesy of LinkedIn]

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Photo illustration by Derek Brahney

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He had only $106 left to his name. 

His acting career was going nowhere. He couldn’t afford the rent on his cheap Hollywood apartment. He even tried to sell his dog because he didn’t have enough money to buy dog food. 

To take his mind off things, he decided to watch the world heavyweight title fight. Reigning champion Muhammad Ali was facing off against Chuck Wepner, a relatively unknown club fighter. The fight was supposed to be an easy win for Ali. But defying all odds, Wepner fought for 15 rounds before being knocked out. 

Against one of the greatest boxers of all time, this supposed nobody held his own. Inspired by this triumph of the human spirit, the actor decided to write a screenplay. Since he couldn’t get acting jobs in other people’s movies, he would create a lead character for himself to play. He grabbed a Bic pen, lined sheets of paper, and started writing. 

He finished the script in just three and a half days. 

One day, on his way out the door from another failed audition, he turned around and, on a whim, mentioned his script to the producers in the room. Intrigued by the premise, the producers read the script, loved it, and offered him $25,000 to purchase the rights. But they had a condition: They wanted a big-name actor with a big box-office draw to play the lead. 

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Sylvester Stallone and his dog, Butkus, in a still from the 1976 film Rocky [Photo: United Artists/Courtesy of Getty Images]

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Perhaps it was the fact that my daughter was in her final year of high school while I was reading “The Tale of Genji,” a 1,300-page tome written more than 1,000 years ago by a lady-in-waiting at the court of a Japanese emperor. But when I reached a pivotal scene, a few lines of poetry nearly undid me.

Hikaru Genji, the titular hero, had asked one of his many wives to give up their daughter to be raised at court by another woman. As the little girl’s mother, Lady Akashi, watched the toddler climb into a carriage waiting to spirit her away, she recited a classical waka poem:

Its future lies in the far off distance
This pine seedling being taken from me
When will I see it spread its splendid shade

“Shedding tears,” I read, “she could say no more.”

In those lines, I foresaw my own grief. Soon I would be saying goodbye to a daughter, too, when we would leave her at a university thousands of miles away.

I had picked up “Genji Monogatari,” as it is known in Japanese, out of professional interest. As the Tokyo bureau chief for The New York Times, it felt like a gap in my knowledge never to have read the work by Murasaki Shikibu that is often described as the world’s first novel and a touchstone of Japanese literary history.

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References to Genji in Japanese art are one measure of its resonance over time. Here, a detail of “Murasaki Shikibu Gazing at the Moon,” a scroll by Mitsuoki Tosa held by Ishiyamadera Temple.

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If you’re wondering what an “ultra-processed” food is, you’re not alone. It’s a complicated topic.

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Yet soy foods are also burdened by an unsavory reputation. Ms. Bragagnini’s clients, for instance, routinely ask if soy foods are linked with cancer, a concern stemming from their relatively high levels of isoflavones, plant-based compounds that are structurally similar to the hormone estrogen.

The presence of isoflavones has also led to the worry that soy might negatively affect fertility or give men more feminine characteristics.

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Credit…Joyce Lee for The New York Times

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Strong glutes aren’t just for show. Vital for optimal movement and athletic performance, the gluteus maximus is the largest, most powerful muscle in the human body. Together, the gluteal muscles help to stabilize the upper body and pelvis and assist in hip flexion and locomotion movements like walking, swimming, jumping, and my sport of choice, running.

For a few years, I was just a runner. I logged 35–40 miles each week and regularly participated in half-marathons. Although I’d previously lifted weights regularly for over a decade, I decided to drop my strength workouts altogether in favor of yoga a couple of times a week because being sore after weightlifting hurt my pace. All I cared about was running. But that was a mistake.

The lack of resistance training rendered my gluteal muscles almost nonexistent; the muscles were technically there, but not strong enough to support my heavy mileage. I developed chronic lower-back issues. Twice-a-week chiropractor visits and massage sessions kept me going, but it wasn’t sustainable. I was over being in pain.

When I finally saw a physical therapist, he suggested a strength-training routine with an emphasis on the glutes. So I hired a personal trainer. As part of a full-body weight training routine, my trainer introduced me to a new move: the hip thrust. Sitting on the ground with my back against a flat bench, I put a light barbell over my hips. Then, with my chin tucked and my feet flat on the floor (and in line with my knees), I squeezed my glutes, raising my hips to full extension. It wasn’t easy. At first, I could only do 40 pounds.

Five years later though, my personal record is 300 pounds. The best part? Those glute gains have eradicated my back pain.

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Illustration/animation by Rob Donnelly.

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A lot of people find it difficult to embrace the idea of regular exercise, even though they know it’s good for their physical and mental health. Yet committing to a workout routine doesn’t necessarily entail going to the gym or running around your neighborhood.

Gardening is a great example of a popular hobby that’s accessible and can also be used as a workout.

Working in your garden or yard is a source of moderate to vigorous physical activity in younger adults while providing low to moderate physical activity in older adults, research has shown. The pastime is also a muscle-strengthening activity, according to the US Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, and one of the physical activities with the lowest injury rates.

More good news: Puttering in your garden just two hours a week could help boost your mood, while the communal gardening that’s proliferating in communities and schools provides social benefits that can alleviate stress and help combat isolation and even dementia, according to studies.

With all these benefits, gardening for fitness will be a trend this year, predicts Rishi Mandal, San Francisco-based co-founder, and CEO of the fitness coaching app Future. “Our clients at Future have already been asking their coaches to add gardening and landscaping activities into their routines,” Mandal said, “because it’s easy to access, fits into their lifestyle, and offers meditative benefits.”

This demand fits with the overall interest he’s seeing among clients for less intensive fitness routines that are accessible and mesh with an on-the-go lifestyle.

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Gardening is a popular outdoor activity that can help build muscle strength and burn calories, according to the US Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans. Joshua Resnick/Adobe Stock

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