How Doctors Die
"In his last few months of life after discovering that lung cancer had spread into his brain, my older cousin Torch went to Disneyland for the first time, ate his favorite foods, had no serious pain, and remained high-spirited. Torch wasn't a doctor, but like many doctors who have access to medical care when diagnosed with a fatal disease, he chose state of the art end-of-life care: death with dig... posted on Dec 13 2011, 0 reads

Assuming Value Everywhere
"I noticed that there was one kid who no one was really talking to. He had a serious kind of disability, and some of the kids were kinda scared to approach him. So I went up and introduced myself. And you know what? He taught me some amazing dance moves!" Sharing his presence was a wonderful thing to do, in and of itself, but my 14-yr-old cousin's perspective was even more remarkable. We asked him... posted on Dec 03 2011, 25,471 reads

9 Ways to Serve through Communication
"As I continue along the path of giving, I'm learning of the constant opportunity to act from a space of service. A recent personal insight in this space is how communicating with an intention to serve leads to markedly different behaviors. The behaviors themselves are simply manifestations of the inner desire to serve. Behaviors without the intention may fool people for a while, but in the end ... posted on Nov 28 2011, 23,956 reads

5 Reasons Why Meditation Beats an iPhone
"People buy iPhones to be universally connected and have a ton of cool functions and features at their fingertips. But as the wise monk Rev. Heng Sure once said, everything we create in silicon already exists in carbon. I'd add that the silicon technology is a poor facsimile at best. So how exactly do you tap into the wonderful carbon technology you carry around with you all the time? Meditation i... posted on Nov 22 2011, 47,167 reads

Need to Create? Get a Constraint
"One of the many paradoxes of human creativity is that it seems to benefit from constraints. Although we imagine the imagination as requiring total freedom, the reality of the creative process is that it's often entangled with strict conventions and formal requirements. Pop songs have choruses and refrains; symphonies have four movements; plays have five acts; painters still rely on the tropes of ... posted on Nov 21 2011, 6,824 reads

Stillpower: A Path to Flow, Clarity, and Responsiveness
Sports guru and author Garret Kramer has a unique theory about what separates great performers. Kramer believes that the classic 'grind it out' mentality that we're taught at a young age actually prevents athletes from realizing their potential -- and he's betting it's impacting your performance at work, too. His insights led him to write a book: 'Stillpower: The Inner Source of Athletic Excellenc... posted on Nov 17 2011, 8,092 reads

Toss Productivity Out
"For at least a couple of years, Zen Habits was one of the top productivity blogs, dispensing productivity tips for a nominal fee (your reading time). I'd like to think I helped people move closer to their dreams, but today I have different advice: Toss productivity advice out the window. Most of it is well-meaning, but the advice is wrong for a simple reason: it's meant to squeeze the most produc... posted on Nov 15 2011, 17,107 reads

5 Great Books on the Science of Being Wrong
"The intricate mechanisms of the human mind are endlessly fascinating. We've previously explored various facets of how the mind works -- from how we decide, to what makes us happy, to why music affects us so deeply -- and today we're turning to when it doesn't: Here are five fantastic reads on why we err, what it means to be wrong, and how to make cognitive lemonade out of wrongness's lemons." Cul... posted on Nov 11 2011, 9,274 reads

8 Approaches to Simplicity
Uncluttered, Ecological, Family, Compassionate, Soulful, Business, Civic, Frugal. According to Duane Elgin, author of the classic 'Voluntary Simplicity,' these eight words constitute distinct aspects of simplicity. "As these eight approaches illustrate, the growing culture of simplicity contains a flourishing garden of expressions whose great diversity -- and intertwined unity -- are creating a re... posted on Nov 10 2011, 19,298 reads

Discovering My Own Values
"For most of my life, I believe I inherited my values from my context. Working at Facebook, efficiency and leverage became important to me, along with openness, connectedness, impact. These were the things that kept me up at night. What should've kept me up was my dad's cancer. He'd been diagnosed sometime while I was in college, but I'd mostly pretended he hadn't because that was easier. I assume... posted on Nov 08 2011, 39,172 reads