but judge others’ behavior as clear signals of their glaring character flaws. “So if I trip on the sidewalk, it must’ve been uneven,” Hershfield said. “But if you trip, you’re clumsy.” You need to follow this writing advice because you’re a beginner; I, Professional Writer, am above it, and that lede wasn’t coming to me because … because I just needed caffeine, or something. In a roundabout way, Hershfield is in the advice business. Part of his work focuses on ways to nudge Americans into saving more for retirement, and when I interviewed him several months back about his work, I asked him if he was drawn to this line o... posted on May 30 2017 (7,779 reads)

the same time, Stargate empowers its players to run the show. The seven members of the first season, for instance, signed off on the firing of three cast mates who missed several rehearsals. “Young folks who have been in the system are not accustomed to having a voice and setting the tone,” observes Elkin, who watched the actors “get in touch with themselves” while crafting a “lyrical piece of art.” Stargate’s teachers are successful show business pros, who include four-time Emmy-winning writer Judy Tate and guest artist Lemon Andersen, a convicted crack-dealer-turned-monologist who has appeared in several Spike Lee films. Rehearsals a... posted on Apr 23 2017 (7,717 reads)

she has a loving husband… I wonder if she has realized what a special gift her extra sensitivity is, even with the pain that it brings her. Being sensitive is having more information come in than the average individual, on a certain level. And I wonder if she's found enough support-- that she hasn't gone into this deep despair and disability. That is what this sensitivity can lead to if it isn't supported in the right way. One therapist said to me, and he'd been in the business 40 years, “My practice took a whole different shift when I stopped looking for the diagnosis, the label, the problem and started looking for the person's strengths.” What were... posted on Apr 25 2017 (16,928 reads)

Food not Bombs, the street theatre part really became a hook for people to ask questions. So then we decided to dress up as hobos. We had found out the Bank of Boston was funding the building of nuclear power plants so we will go to the stockholders' meeting and have a big pot of soup out of the groceries I was recovering. We went to the shelter and I explained what we were doing and people there thought this was great so all these people turned up at lunch. Maybe 75 of them along with the business people and stockholders and our friends were all eating outside of this stockholders' meeting. It was so magical that we decided to quit our jobs and just do this. The actual homeless guy... posted on Jul 7 2017 (8,544 reads)

by her childhood, she excelled at El Cerrito High School, impressing teachers in her Advanced Placement classes and filling her schedule with softball games and dance rehearsals. By senior year, however, she felt her foster family was pressuring her to move on. “All this time, I looked at them as being my own family. I did everything that you’d expect of a child, going to school, not getting into trouble, applying to college,” Bolnick says. “I came to see it as a business transaction: them being paid [by the government] for taking care of me, and me getting the benefit of being a child in their custody.” Disgusted, she left and spent the summer living at... posted on May 27 2017 (8,757 reads)

significant homeless population. In 2016, between 6,000 and 7,000 residents lived on the streets. That number, while small in comparison to homeless populations in cities such as New York and Los Angeles, is noticeable in medium-sized Tulsa. Former panhandlers work as day laborers as part of the “There’s A Better Way” program in Albuquerque.Photo courtesy of There's A Better Way The visibility of panhandlers is worrisome to those in Tulsa’s business districts, says Bynum, and city residents want change. After Bynum’s election, his social media accounts were flooded with a Washington Post article about Albuquerque’s ... posted on Jun 10 2017 (8,632 reads)

school,” she says. “So I spent my days being one of few black people, and I spent my nights being in a predominantly black neighborhood. I believe that really shapes the work that I do, because I’ve always been a bridge-builder.” Today, Harris is building bridges in the Bay Area as the co-founder of Hack the Hood, an Oakland-based nonprofit that introduces young people of color to careers in technology by training them to design and build free websites for small businesses. The participants, who range in age from 16 to 25, learn crucial skills for the 21st-century economy, and the local businesses establish an online presence that they otherwise might not hav... posted on Jun 18 2017 (6,857 reads)

women make the products in the following months. We collect the product in March and sell them through different crafts festivals and online stores.” The SHEN range of products includes stationery and bookmarks, woollen socks, jewellery and crocheted items. Every year, 10 women from the programme participate in Delhi’s popular Dastkar festival to showcase and sell their products. The event gives the women an opportunity to interact with customers and also learn about running a business enterprise. As the women carve their path toward self-sufficiency and empowerment, they also step forward to protect their local ecology and wildlife. Image courtesy Munmun D... posted on Jun 24 2017 (14,421 reads)

6 percent of U.S. workers checked their work email when they or their spouse were in labor.   Technology can bring happiness. Anyone who’s found the perfect meditation app or downloaded a grandchild’s photo won’t doubt that. But technology can also bring anxiety, stress, and frustration. And that seems to be a given, too, making us throw our hands in the air. We accept that technology will always be a mixed bag and we have to take the bad with the good. "I worry that maybe our happiness is getting left behind." According to Amy Blankson, author of the new book The Future of Happiness: 5 Modern Strategies for Balancing Productivity a... posted on Jun 25 2017 (12,423 reads)

great, but the technology great and the service great.” TreeHouse aims to make sustainable options appeal to more than just die-hard environmentalists. “If we want healthy and sustainable homes to be the norm, they have to be better than conventional homes. And everything around the process has to be better,” Ballard emphasizes. That’s part of why he decided to start a for-profit company to accomplish his environmental goals. “If you’re in a for-profit business, all of your assumptions are tested all the time,” he says. “It forces you to very quickly arrive at what works to affect change.” Ballard has ambitious goals for TreeHou... posted on Jul 5 2017 (8,908 reads)

car. These two guys looked at me, looked at her, and then opened the door and ran out. The girl got in the car, frantically started the engine, and raced off.   Then I looked across the street and saw that these two guys were now mad at each other, yelling and starting to punch each other. I was still in my “pause" mode. I'm like, here I am; so what am I going to do? A familiar voice inside my head, the voice of reason and common sense, says, "This is not your business. These are big guys. You can't do anything about this. They have to sort it out themselves. Get out of here!”  Then there’s a second voice, coming from a deeper place.... posted on Jul 3 2017 (10,038 reads)

that have occurred during the growth of that community? Wu De​: Through Global Tea Hut people around the world donate energy in the form of $20 a month and other people donate tea, living teas or organic plantation tea. Each member receives a tea of the month, a small gift, and a magazine that describes the tea, where it comes from and if possible, the farmer. The whole thing is this huge gift process because almost all of the teas are donated so we’re not running a business. It’s just a big gift exchange and through it we fund our center where people connect with each other. The magic of it is that we’ve found 70 or 80 independent sources and we h... posted on Aug 5 2017 (9,876 reads)

interests and your passion develop over time. I want to disabuse people of this mythology of ‘it happens to you and if you’re lucky, you find it, and then that’s all you have to do.’” Angela Duckworth is a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania and the bestselling author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. She is the Founder and Scientific Director of a non-profit, Character Lab, and in 2013 was named a recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship. Recently, she joined Adam Grant for an evening of conversation as a part of the Authors@Wharton speakers series. Adam Grant is the bestselling author ... posted on Jul 14 2017 (12,757 reads)

do you anthologize silence? It’s here too between the pages.” MS. HOWE: It’s interesting. I’d forgotten that, the people who couldn’t be there. Well there’s a silence in the center of everything, right? Maybe that’s the thing we don’t like or are afraid of, that silence and the center of everything. MS. TIPPETT: Well, what was it you said a minute ago that was so beautiful about — we were just talking about the craziness, business. We’re not familiar with silence anymore. We don’t know what to do with it. MS. HOWE: We used to be. We used to be. It is so recent really that mechanisms have brought all... posted on Jul 23 2017 (8,765 reads)

news, of course. In 1873, John Stuart Mill observed, “Those only are happy who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way.” And yet this new research reflects a broader shift in our culture. Across the country—and around the world—educators, business leaders, doctors, politicians, and ordinary people are turning away from the gospel of happiness to focus on meaning. As I followed these meaning seekers on their journeys for my book The Pow... posted on Jan 25 2018 (36,043 reads)

we headed west. So now, when I suggested we push on to Needles fifty miles down the road, she balked. "We'd get in at mid-night and who says we'd have any better luck?" She was still on French time and struggling to stay awake.       My confidence about finding lodging was gone. We were part of a shadowy crowd of travelers all competing for a few rooms. The Marriott, I'd been told at the last place, was worth a try. It was new and had just opened for business.       Kingman is a desert town. In August daytime temperatures in the 100 degree range are common. Still, at 3300 feet elevation, it's consistently at least ten degr... posted on Aug 22 2017 (9,534 reads)

attended a funeral recently for a central Pennsylvania farmer, Roy Brubaker, among several hundred mourners. One of the testimonials came from a young farmer who said something like this: “Roy is the one who taught me what success really is. Success is having the capacity to always be there for your neighbors. Any time someone called with a problem, Roy would put down what he was doing and be right over to help.” This farmer had been Roy’s intern. When he went into business for himself and became Roy’s competitor, Roy helped him along with advice and material aid, and even announced his new competitor’s farm share program to his own mailing list. At ... posted on Nov 9 2017 (16,074 reads)

would pay a basic, livable stipend to every man, woman, and child who is a legal resident of a country. Although to capitalist ears this sounds like a recipe for apathy and a reward for laziness, in the places it has been implemented it has, instead, unleashed creativity. Freed from concerns about basic survival, people have used their unconditional basic income to care for children or aging parents, volunteer for favorite causes, pursue creative work or other passions, and start their own businesses. Recipients have also been able to take low-paying temporary jobs offered by employers—knowing that the wages, added to their basic income, will be adequate to make ends meet. Guarant... posted on Nov 26 2017 (21,062 reads)

of shifting human consciousness and being a four minute mile breaker because this guy let the press run for 10 more seconds. It's like he gave me an apple and it was enough for him in that moment to give me that apple. That was a delicious, honey crisp apple and that moment was defined and complete in itself. Those seeds have led to hundreds of thousands of cards, meaningful moments, more meaningful than I've ever had with strangers. It led to thousands of dollars of orders for his business. It lead to connecting the dots to be inspired to create this vision of transforming advertising to offer a gift of a meaningful moment. I think that the essence of ServiceSpace is around ... posted on Oct 25 2018 (5,482 reads)

all do, of course. But don't be caught up that. Of course you'll be caught up. And you'll fall, and you'll pick yourself up. And you'll go back. That's what the spiritual path is.      “Live your life as those who are ambitious” means, don't be afraid to come out of the cave.      Don't be afraid to unwind your legs if you've been meditating for a long time. Don't be afraid to get into public service, into business, to be a doctor, a lawyer—whatever your calling is.      Don't be afraid to live that life just because you look like everybody who is doing it for money or fame or ... posted on Nov 8 2017 (15,712 reads)