a decision” with astounding elegance: I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit. In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to Society. But it sometimes happens that I cannot easily shake off the village. The thought of some work will run in my head and I am not where my body is — I am out of my senses. In my walks I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods? Illustration by Emily Hughes from 'Wild.' Walking, which is available as a free ebo... posted on Jan 2 2015 (30,464 reads)

Day phone call in which Sue gave her the news: I just listened for a long time; she went from crushed to defiant. “I have what everyone wants,” she said. “But no one would be willing to pay.” “What do you have?” “The two most important things. I got forced into loving myself. And I’m not afraid of dying anymore.” With her signature blend of piercing wisdom administered via piercing wit, Lamott writes: This business of having been issued a body is deeply confusing… Bodies are so messy and disappointing. Every time I see the bumper sticker that says “We think we’re humans having spiritu... posted on Dec 30 2014 (37,277 reads)

creature, the smaller by choosing to be a human. And having returned from the woods, we remember with regret its restfulness. For all creatures there are in place, hence at rest. In their most strenuous striving, sleeping and waking, dead and living, they are at rest. In the circle of the human we are weary with striving, and are without rest. Indeed, so deep is our pathology of human striving that even Thoreau, a century and a half ago, memorably despaired: “What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?” But the value of such recalibration of our connectedness in solitude, Berry suggests, is that it reminds us of the ... posted on Feb 1 2015 (27,531 reads)

distinguished aristocratic families. Her chauffeur picked me up in a Mercedes from the dusty city centre and drove me to the sanctuary of one of Guatemala City’s exclusive gated communities for the super-rich. We parked in front of her mansion besides several sleek sportscars.A uniformed maid showed me inside, where Adela,sun-tanned and chic, was busy booking a flight to Miami. Family portraits hung on the walls in gilded frames. She spoke about the pressures on her family’s business interests, the terrible state of the Guatemalan economy, and the difficulties of booking overseas flights. I felt little desire to commiserate with her problems, and felt compelled to contras... posted on Mar 2 2015 (24,454 reads)

my 2013 presentation to global corporate leaders at the Xynteo Foundation’s annual Performance Theatre event held in Istanbul, I thanked these high-ranking corporate executives and board members for having globalized the economy through competition and creative initiative, as that was a necessary evolutionary step for humanity, inviting them to lead the way now to a sustainable future based on peaceful cooperation. I then apologized for my field of science, for providing economists and business leaders only the Darwinian story that has guided them throughout this expansive industrial and globalizing phase, while giving no guidance for the necessary next phase that must now be create... posted on Feb 26 2015 (22,460 reads)

/ or does it matter? / The sunflowers blaze, maybe That's their way. / Maybe the cats are sound asleep. Maybe not. / While I was thinking this I happened to be standing / just outside my door, with my notebook open, / which is the way I begin every morning. / Then a wren in the privet began to sing. / He was positively drenched in enthusiasm, / I don't know why. And yet, why not. / I wouldn't persuade you from whatever you believe / or whatever you don't. That's your business. / But I thought, of the wren"s singing, what could this be / if it isn't a prayer? / So I just listened, my pen in the air." Well, the poems keep coming. MS. TIPPETT: [la... posted on Mar 18 2015 (28,747 reads)

couple thousand press inquiries later, coupled with Ferose's creative weaving within the company, another bold commitment was brewing. More than 20 organizations started hiring autistic employees, and SAP soon announced a major commitment: 1% of its hires would be people on the autism spectrum. Ferose recalls this moment with teary eyes, "Someone came and told me, 'Ferose, your son has just created 650 jobs at SAP.'" UN Secretary General, Ban-ki Moon, is now nudging other business leaders to all make similar public commitments. [A meeting for this is set to happen in early April in New York.]  Everybody is Good at Something. Ferose's journey with that mantr... posted on May 27 2015 (28,103 reads)

meditation or relaxation skills over an eight-week period and were tested on how they handled complex multitasking. Participants who received mindfulness training remained more on task, with less task-switching, and reported better moods, than those who underwent relaxation training or were on a wait-list to receive training. This suggests that mindfulness helps us focus more efficiently on a task. In a 2013 study by Erik Dane and Bradley Brummel, service workers in the restaurant business were measured on mindfulness levels, engagement at work, and their commitment to staying at their present job, with their job performance independently assessed by managers. The researchers f... posted on Apr 13 2015 (31,443 reads)

of Rick Hanson's Just One Thing (JOT) newsletter, which each week offers a simple practice designed to bring you more joy and more fulfilling relationships. We all have issues—including demands upon us, stresses, illnesses, losses, vulnerabilities, and pain. (As Alan Watts put it: “Life is wiggly.”) Of course, many of our issues—in the broad sense I’m using the word here—are related to important sources of fulfillment, such as starting a business or raising a family. Still, there’s some kind of challenge. This “Just One Thing” offers a basic road map for how to deal with issues—for healing, well-being and ef... posted on May 20 2015 (16,398 reads)

an estimated 175 homeless people sleep every night. They won. The decision set a crucial judicial precedent nationwide. Similar food-sharing bans in cities in Colorado, Texas and California have since been challenged, using the Philadelphia example. “It was a good thing because it brought awareness,” Little says. “The folks on the Parkway felt like they had a voice.” The next big project for the Welcome Church is a social enterprise called Welcome Threads, a business run by church members that will create and sell silk-screen products with inspiring messages. The idea is modeled on programs like Thistle Farms in Nashville, where former prostitutes and rec... posted on May 6 2015 (15,531 reads)

will never be enough jobs [in South Africa]. Instead we motivate them to focus on the work that needs to be done in our communities. We have an abundance of work to do but limited jobs. So we focus on turning the work into economic opportunities – into a Hope Economy." So far, RLabs and the IT innovations designed in its incubators have created 20,000 jobs (directly and indirectly), by addressing social challenges through 22 IT-powered social enterprises and 185 RLabs-inspired business products. RLabs has also provided free training to more than 27,000 people and university scholarships to 438. RLabs is building momentum for a "Hope Economy" movement globally i... posted on Apr 20 2015 (173,270 reads)

in reference to our time; when’s the last time you invested in developing the skills you use at work? It could become the single best investment in your portfolio.    *  Experimenting with new interests. You can look at other people’s vacation photos on Facebook, or you could read How to Travel the World on $50 a Day and take the first step in planning that backpacking adventure you’ve put off. You can watch Shark Tank, or you could pick up a few business books.    *  Creating more work/art. We’re all strapped for time. It’s often the case that the most productive thing you can do all day is say “No” t... posted on May 4 2015 (20,930 reads)

for women in a village gripped by poverty, at a women’s prison and at a children’s home with teenage girls. A nervous Kay ventured in with hand-sewing kits and an interpreter. She taught them how to thread needles, to sew in a straight line. Interest soared. Kay bought several sewing machines and soon her students were cutting patterns and making children’s clothes. The most promising students were given their own sewing machines to take home and start their own business. “They were wildly excited and started coming from miles around to learn how to sew,” Kay says. “We trained 24 women from the village on that trip and more than half of them... posted on May 17 2015 (15,860 reads)

the deadline to apply to MIT, I started the application process. And, voila! I got in. People may think it's an overnight success, but that only worked because for the 17 years prior to that, I took life and education seriously. Your overnight success story is always a result of everything you've done in your life through that moment. Two: Believe someone else has the answers for you. Constantly, people want to help out, right? All sorts of people: your family, your friends, your business partners, they all have opinions on which path you should take: "And let me tell you, go through this pipe." But whenever you go inside, there are other ways you have to pick as wel... posted on May 13 2015 (34,666 reads)

in new light through chinks that time has made; Stronger by weakness, wiser men become 4. For those of a more cynical cast of mind, you can't do better than to engage and inspire your team with extracts from Alexander Pope's Essay on Man: 'presume not God to scan/the proper study of Mankind is Man'. Poetry is all about human values, and almost any poem will offer an opportunity to discuss the personal elements behind every problem and every solution in business. What kind of people are you? Poetry will tell.  ... posted on Jul 3 2015 (10,073 reads)

soul. But I think the fullest people, the people most whole and most alive, are always those unafraid and unashamed of the soul. And the soul is never an assemblage of fragments. And it always is. MS. TIPPETT: Maria Popova is the creator and presence behind Brainpickings.org. In 2012, Brain Pickings was included in the Library of Congress permanent web archive. You can listen again or share this conversation with her at onbeing.org. MS. TIPPETT: Like Maria Popova, On Being is also in the business of curation. Each week, our executive editor pulls together the best of what’s happening in all of our media spaces into an email newsletter — connecting ideas from inside On Bein... posted on Jul 15 2015 (11,673 reads)

years, he looked back and realized he achieved all that he had set out to do. He could run an organization and manage lots of people, but it didn’t engage him in the same way anymore. “I had a conversation with him once. He said it just didn’t seem that important to figure out what button should go where on an operative UI.” Kentaro recalls. “Until that moment, that was his primary occupation.”  So eventually, Patrick left Microsoft, went to business school to gain knowledge to start a university in Ghana. In 2002, Ashesi University was founded. Kentaro taught there the first year. Today, they have 400 students at any given point, and man... posted on Aug 12 2015 (14,271 reads)

other people, if they learn to cultivate compassion—for example, by doing traditional meditation practices of loving kindness. This is so encouraging, because it’s a fundamental imperative that we need compassion as our moral rudder. JS: You use the term “muscular compassion” in your book. What do you mean by that? DG: Compassion is not just some Sunday school niceness; it’s important for attacking social issues—things like corruption and collusion in business, government, and throughout the public sphere. It’s important for looking at economics, to see if there is a way to make it more caring and not just about greed, or to create economic p... posted on Jul 9 2015 (20,408 reads)

dropped by 56%, even as “modesty” and “humbleness” dropped by 52%. Our language reflects our lives. Phrases like "community" and "common good" lost in popularity to "I can do it myself" and “I come first.” We moved from We to Me. The archetype of today’s hero is a go-getter, with a nice-guys-finish-last mindset. Our systems are designed to privilege power, where respect is calibrated by our titles and bank balances. As business cards lead our handshakes and hugs, our daily lives have morphed into a relay of commercial intentions. In a rat-race to pad our resumes, we’ve condensed our nuanced experiences into el... posted on Jul 7 2015 (116,827 reads)

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the best-known “number” in economic governance. It drives national policies, sets priorities in the social fields (e.g. there exists a ratio between GDP and how much spending in welfare is considered appropriate by many countries) and ultimately affects the societal landscape of a country (e.g. by determining labour-business relations, work-life balances and the type of consumption patterns adopted by citizens). The type of industrial model supported by GDP dominates physical and infrastructural â€‹geography, from the shape of cities and their relation with the countryside to the management of parks and natural resources. Marketing st... posted on Aug 22 2015 (13,305 reads)