Hello and welcome to the upgrade, the podcast from the team at LifeHacker, where we help you improve your life one week at a time.

I'm Melissa Kirsch, editor-in-chief of LifeHacker. And I'm Alice Bradley,

Lifehacker's deputy editor. And today we're talking about how to be tougher. You know, how not to be a

baby. We're joined by our old friend, divorce attorney James J. Sexton. Yes, we have him on speed

dial. We love him. James tells us the five steps to developing a thick skin, emotionally, that is.

We're meant to sometimes suffer physically, emotionally, and we can endure that suffering.

Alice and staff writer Nick Douglas talked with Les Stroud, the creator, producer, and star of the hit TV series Survivor Man, about just how one

becomes an expert in surviving, as well as the one aspect of survival that he finds nearly

impossible to endure.

You know what it is in the end? Handling the cold and the bugs and survival is just a matter

of logistical detail.

But first, it's time for a new segment we're calling Go Ask Alice or Melissa.

Welcome to Go Ask Alice or Melissa, wherein Alice and Melissa solve each other's problems.

Today, I ask Alice for advice on how to be brave.

I'm ready.

So, did you ever read this book called In the Night Cafe by Joyce Johnson?

No.

Okay.

So In The Night Cafe came out in 1989 and it is a fantastic novel.

In The New York Times, Philip Lopate described it as a vivid romance set in that

yeasty period of Bohemian Lower Manhattan,

the early 1960s. Yeasty. I just had to tell you that because he used the word yeasty in a book

...