Misfit Entrepreneurs
Imagine Walt Disney at the age of nineteen. His uncle asks him what he plans to do with his life, and he pulls out a drawing of a mouse and says, "I think this has a lot of potential." Or Springsteen. After a show one night, his father, who hated the guitar, asked him what he thought he was doing with himself. How does he tell his father, "I'm going to be Bruce Springsteen"? All great things begin... posted on Aug 3, 5326 reads

Tenzin Palmo: Cave in the Snow
At the age of 20, Venerable Master Tenzin Palmo left her home in London to pursue her spiritual path. She eventually became one of the first Westerners to be ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist nun. In 1976, seeking more seclusion and better conditions for practice, she found a cave in the Himalayan Valley of Lahaul, where she lived for 12 years, the last three in strict retreat. Now the founder of Don... posted on Aug 26, 5216 reads

Beauty in Scraps of Metal
Five years after Hurricane Katrina, the sun continues to rise over evacuated homes and empty lots. New Orleans is still cleaning up debris. Yet one local artisan is building up beauty out of the destruction. Stefano Velaska is a survivor of both Katrina and the 1968 invasion of his native Czechoslovakia. At 18, he fled his country and ended up in Louisiana, where he discovered a passion for jewelr... posted on Aug 29, 2104 reads

Six Keys to Excellence
Until recently, Tony Schwartz accepted the myth that the potential to excel is predetermined by our genes- that some people are born with special talents while others aren't. Lately though, his work with dozens of executives reveals that it's possible to build any given skill or capacity in the same systematic way we build a muscle: push past your comfort zone, and then rest. Talent, then, may act... posted on Aug 30, 10517 reads

Why Consistent Contributors Count
Ever wonder why some groups, companies, or communities flourish while others flop? Researchers say it's the influence of a 'consistent contributor'- "a person who always contributes, regardless of others' choices." "The consistent contributor looks for the collective good first and personal good second," explains Risk Management Professor J. Keith Murnighan. The consistent contributor can drive th... posted on Oct 15, 3695 reads

You've Made a Mistake. Now What?
Anyone who has worked in an office (or anywhere, really) for more than a day has made a mistake. While most people accept that slip-ups are unavoidable, no one likes to be responsible for them. The good news is that mistakes, even big ones, don't have to leave a permanent mark on your career. In fact, most contribute to organizational and personal learning; they are an essential part of experiment... posted on Sep 22, 8457 reads

Doing Silence
Allan Hall was seeking still moments. Somehow, he found himself at a London boys' school, where Headmaster David Boddy leads a period of quiet time at the start of each day. For ten minutes, three hundred boys sit in silence. Many close their eyes. All fidgeting ceases. It made Hall think. What do we get from stillness - those moments of reverie, of daydreaming, in an ever more noisy, busy, and st... posted on Sep 21, 4219 reads

The Green Guerrillas
India has developed its own version of guerrilla gardening - the greening of spaces without asking for the owner's permission. It seeks to thwart the builders' grasping reach by buying plots of land before the builders, in order to preserve green spaces that are still not swamped with concrete. Actor Atul Kulkarni teamed up with four cousins to build a forest on 24 acres of barren land in Maharash... posted on Oct 1, 3244 reads

Bilingual Babies Learn in the Womb
Babies who hear two languages regularly when they are in their mother's womb are more open to being bilingual, a study published this week in Psychological Science shows. Researchers tested one group of newborns who only heard English in the womb and the others who heard English and Tagalog and the infants exposed to two languages during pregnancy showed an equal preference for each one.... posted on Nov 14, 2443 reads

Social Ties Boost Survival by 50 Percent
The benefit of friends, family and even colleagues turns out to be just as good for long-term survival as giving up a 15-cigarette-a-day smoking habit. Despite this hyperconnected era, social isolation is on the rise. More people than not report feeling that they don't have a single person they can confide in - a percentage up threefold from 20 years ago. In fact, the decades of research that Juli... posted on Jan 2, 1727 reads

How Consumers Power Innovation
In many fields, the user is often the innovator. In the space of scientific instruments, 77 percent of the innovation comes from end users. Yet we generally believe the opposite: that users satisfy their own, personal needs while manufacturers dominate innovation. As a result, our understanding of intellectual property tends to protect manufacturers, not users: firms are likely to patent their (in... posted on Dec 28, 1889 reads

The Secret Powers of Time
Time just passes by, regardless of how we feel about it... right? Not according to Philip Zimbardo. He's been studying how people think of time for decades and has some amazing findings. For instance, did you know your cultural background could determine how fast you walk? Or that children's use of technology makes class pass by more slowly? Here's an animated look at how our time-orientation shap... posted on Oct 13, 15319 reads

How to Recycle: An E-Waste Odyssey
Did you know that in New York, it's illegal to throw rechargeable batteries in the trash? Or that many office supply stores will accept your used printer cartridges? While many people know that e-waste is supposed to be recycled, items like cellphones, batteries, televisions, digital clocks and broken computers contain sensitive chemicals that can't just be tossed in the trash or landfill. But rec... posted on Oct 27, 3358 reads

Life Without Lights
In a world where many of us have computers, televisions, and household appliances running well after sunset, it may be hard to image life without lights. Yet 1.6 billion people in the world do. After spending two years as a volunteer in rural Ghana, Peter DiCampo decided to photograph the perspective of communities that fall dark with the setting sun. These vivid images reveal faces of children re... posted on Oct 29, 3583 reads

Oliver Sacks: A Neurologist Examines 'The Mind's Eye'
Neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks has spent his career examining patients struggling to survive with a wide range of neurological conditions: Tourette's syndrome, autism, Parkinson's, musical hallucinations, Alzheimer's disease and phantom-limb syndrome. But in his latest book, "The Mind's Eye," Sacks turns the tables on himself. He writes about being diagnosed with a rare eye tumor and the subs... posted on Nov 4, 4217 reads

25 Visionaries Changing Your World
Nelson Mandela didn't always look like a visionary. For 27 years, he simply looked like a prisoner, locked up for antiapartheid activism. What seemed like a long exercise in futility is now legend: after his release, he became his country's president, and today is an icon of commitment and compassion. Fortunately, visionary thinkers aren't always imprisoned, but they are often ridiculed, marginali... posted on Nov 15, 25753 reads

Teens Become Civil Servant Guitar Stars
After overhearing her children talk of starting a rock band and noticing that nothing ever came of their dreams, Sandra Rizkallah and her husband, Tom Pugh, decided to help. Starting with five teens, the group soon evolved into a full-fledged nonprofit that has affected 400 students. But it's become more than just music. Throughout the year, the teens put on benefit concerts, donating the proceeds... posted on Nov 5, 2116 reads

100-Year-Old Doctor Still Making Rounds
Dr. Walter Watson of Augusta, Georgia sees a few patients every day. Then, he drives himself down the block to University Hospital where he still serves as chairman of his department. Why is this significant? He's 100 years old. From his first delivery in 1944 until 1995, Dr. Watson ushered in a small army of satisfied customers. Today, they're known simply as the "Watson babies." Having delivered... posted on Nov 21, 7361 reads

A Class of Their Own
Over the last weeks I've been to two separate memorial services for teachers - in one case also a headmistress - from my years in secondary school. Margaret Gray was a splendid woman who died aged 97, alert and engaged to the end. Fueled by a quiet but powerful personal faith, she worked tirelessly for girls' education, rising to be the headmistress of the voluntarily-aided state grammar which I a... posted on Dec 19, 4291 reads

How a Wandering Mind Affects Your Mood
When researchers at Harvard University tracked the happiness level of iPhone users, they discovered that, for almost half of our waking hours, our minds are wandering. Using an iPhone app, participants rated their happiness on a scale of 0-100 and included what they were doing, and whether their mind was wandering beyond the task at hand. The results reveal that a wandering mind has a bigger influ... posted on Dec 3, 8891 reads

Smiles for the Morning Commute
"If people think I'm crazy, I don't care." Arms spread wide, feet tapping and hips swaying, Erica "Happy Lady" McElrath of St. Louis greets daily commuters on the street corner while rocking to the beat of her headphones. McElrath, who lost her full-time job in January, now spends her days doing what she loves: dancing in the street. "I don't want money. I come out here to make people smile." Her ... posted on Dec 17, 10086 reads

Beyond the Known Territory
Sean McNiff, who's an art therapist, says in his book, Art and Medicine, "The commercial art world is allied with a particular set of economic values, and we make an error when we perceive this context to be the exclusive, or the highest, realm of art." That speaks to something I found it very difficult not to feel hampered by. The market side of art, art as a commodity, kind of rules the experien... posted on Dec 24, 1976 reads

Tiny House Movement
As Americans downsize in the aftermath of a colossal real estate bust, a small but growing number of Americans are buying or building homes that could fit inside many people's living rooms. "It's very un-American in the sense that living small means consuming less," says Jay Shafer, co-founder of the Small House Society. "Living in a small house like this really entails knowing what you need to be... posted on Dec 26, 2690 reads

Compassion Caught on a Late-Night Train
One act of kindness that befell British writer Bernard Hare in 1982 changed him profoundly. Then a student living just north of London, he spins the story of himself during a young, troubled, and disrupted time in life. "... my mother was in hospital and not expected to survive the night. "Get home, son," my dad said. I got to the railway station to find I'd missed the last train. A train was goin... posted on Jan 15, 15110 reads

How to Change the World While Traveling
In 1989, while touring India, Marc Gold found himself "thunderstruck" when he realized he could save a woman from a deadly ear infection by paying the $1 for her antibiotics. "I thought you had to be wealthy to do such things," he recalls. Since then, Gold has trekked through Asia, handing out money to the needy in amounts as little as 50 cents and rarely exceeding $500. In Vietnam, a small donati... posted on Dec 30, 4588 reads

Habits May Be Good for You
For years, Dr. Val Curtis has been persuading people in the developing world to wash their hands habitually with soap. Meanwhile, researchers at Duke and Cornell universities were examining how often smokers quit while vacationing and how much people eat when their plates are deceptively large or small. Those and other studies revealed that as much as 45 percent of what we do every day is habitual... posted on Jan 11, 4000 reads

The Man Who Doesn't Ask for Money
During a two-week period of "self-chosen exile", Vinod Sreedhar made a radical commitment to himself: no more price tags on his work. Everything would be offered as a gift, and he would accept whatever came back his way. After the initial "noble high" of this major life decision subsided, questions rushed in. How will I make a living now? Am I setting myself up to be taken advantage of? After near... posted on Jan 31, 7063 reads

The Best Place for a Break
In the age of multi-tasking, constant communication, and overwhelming stimuli, studies show that a 20 minute walk helps refocus our minds and revive our spirits. Researchers explain, "Nature engages your attention in relaxed fashion- leaves rustling, patterns of clouds, sunsets, a bird, the shape of an old tree. It captures our attention in subtle, bottom-up ways and allows our top-down attention ... posted on Jan 24, 5914 reads

The Blanket of Laughter Cure
About two years ago, LuAnn Kessi started a group called Living Well with Cancer and Healing Through Quilting. The Harlan resident has three aunts who are cancer survivors, and all had been making things to sell to raise money for cancer research. But she felt moved to do more. "You knew that you were doing something good, but we just wanted to help in a more personal way," she said. So she decided... posted on Jan 27, 2806 reads

How Meditation May Change the Brain
"Over the holidays, my husband went on a silent meditation retreat. He said the experience was so transformational that he has committed to meditating for two hours daily, one hour in the morning and one in the evening. He's running an experiment to determine whether and how meditation actually improves the quality of his life," one NY Times contributor writes. Scientists say that meditators like ... posted on Feb 11, 5654 reads

Intelligence That Transcends the GRE
Was Albert Einstein a wise man because of his intelligence? Did Mother Teresa's spirituality make her wise? These are the type of questions that UC San Diego researchers are trying to answer in a new study that attempts to define the abstraction we call wisdom. According to their findings, wisdom is not limited to a high IQ quotient or moral righteousness, but is a form of advanced cognitive and ... posted on May 3, 6862 reads

Change Your Life with a Thank-You Note
It all started three years ago. John Kralik's life was really going down the tubes, personally and professionally, when one day, while walking, he heard an inner voice telling him to start writing thank you notes. So he sent a note of appreciation to his daughter's piano teacher. And then to the woman who cuts his hair. And the barista at the coffee shop, just for trying to remember his name. By t... posted on Feb 19, 12200 reads

The Power of Touch
A pat on the back, a caress of the arm--these are everyday, incidental gestures that we usually take for granted. But after years spent immersed in the science of touch, University of California, Berkeley, psychology professor Dacher Keltner has found that the power of touch is much more profound than we usually realize. In this Greater Good magazine essay, he argues that touch is our primary lang... posted on Feb 24, 43937 reads

There's a Farm in the Front Yard
"I'm 57," Michael says. "Started at 26. And we're just barreling along! If I have to work 7 days a week, I'll do it." Back when Michael and Bob started 30 years ago, there wasn't much about urban agriculture around. Soon, City Farmer had hundreds of pages of original urban agriculture research online, before anyone else did. Today, City Farmer is now Canada's Office of Urban Agriculture, and their... posted on Mar 24, 3138 reads

How to Deliver the Speech of Your Life
Sweaty palms, trembling knees, that feeling of butterflies in the pit of your stomach. Whether you're at a job interview, standing in front of a class, or keynoting a conference, speaking in public can be intimidating. In fact, statistics have shown that people fear it more than death. But is it really that bad? Dan Pallotta used to think so. After a few years of doing it more, something changed.... posted on Mar 14, 9992 reads

Free Music Lessons Build A Priceless Community
Every day, 120 students from the inner city, the suburbs and the rolling hills come to Scrollworks for free music lessons. Many travel over an hour to get there. With her entire retirement savings, Jeane Goforth launched this organization as a fun place for kids from all different socieconomic levels and backgrounds to make friends, and to change their thinking. The ripples are tremendous. "She wa... posted on Apr 3, 1601 reads

Sleep Helps Us Remember What We Need To
You may have heard it before. While we sleep, our brains replay and store the days events into our long-term memories. But it can't keep everything. Of the deluge of information that pass through us each day, how do our minds "decide" what to keep and what to dump? Why can we replay the disagreement with a spouse or the promising job interview, but forget what we ate for breakfast or where we put ... posted on Mar 21, 7170 reads

Human Spirit Rises to Meet Japan's Tsunami
Snapshots from Japan: A woman opens up her home and bathrooms to weary travelers walking hours home. A baker gives out free bread. Customers at the supermarket pick up fallen items and quietly stand in line to buy food. An old man at the evacuation shelter asks, "What's going to happen now?" And a young high school boy nearby responds, "Don't worry! When we grow up, we will promise to fix it back!... posted on Mar 16, 14001 reads

Recycled Cell Phones Save Lives
"It's your trash, but it turns into value, it turns into lives saved really quickly." Josh Nesbit says excitedly. Four years ago, Nesbit noticed that health workers in Malawi often lost important information during their strenuous trips to patients in isolated villages. Instead of walking for hours on end, doctors and patients could instantly text each other if they just had the right technology, ... posted on Mar 22, 2927 reads

The Art of Giving
First there was Ehren. Then Fariba, and Ashley. Ehren Tool: "Literally a woman took a photograph of a bowl that I made for her and sold the photograph of the bowl for thousands of dollars in New York. You can't ask for thousands of dollars for a ceramic bowl. [laughs] But the photograph will last only fifty years; the ceramic piece will last a couple of thousand. So rather than accept five dollars... posted on Apr 19, 2810 reads

When a Homeless Man Used Twitter
A few folks in New York City wondered what it's like to be homeless. So they gave four men cell phones and Twitter accounts to help them share their stories with the world. For Daniel Morales, these gifts would change his life. Three weeks into the project, Morales used the social neworking tool to find his 27-year-old daughter, whom he hadn't seen in over a decade. After posting his cell phone nu... posted on May 1, 8269 reads

Trading Wall Street for the Simple Life
He was a successful currency trader handling a $15 billion portfolio. But something wasn't right. So Henry Quinson walked away from his comfortable life, gave his savings to charity, and joined a rural monastery in France. "I thought the spiritual part of my human life was more important than a career or making money," he explains. For six years, Quinson spent his days in silence and prayer, follo... posted on Apr 6, 3822 reads

8 Things That Are Better Than Free
These days, digital technology gives us easy access to almost anything. So why would we ever pay for anything that we could get for free? Kevin Kelly asks: When anyone buys a version of something they could get for free, what are they purchasing? In a real sense, there are eight things that are better than free. Eight uncopyable values. Kelly calls them "generatives." Things like authenticity, emb... posted on Apr 1, 8682 reads

The Good News Effect
Good news begets better people. That's the conclusion of researchers at the University of British Columbia. In four separate studies, results showed a direct link between a person's exposure to media stories of extraordinary virtue and their yearning to change the world. "If more attention was devoted to recounting stories of uncommon acts of human virtue, the media could have a quantifiable posit... posted on Apr 4, 6860 reads

Meditation More Effective Than Morphine?
Meditation has long been touted as a holistic approach to pain relief. And studies show that long-time meditators can tolerate quite a bit of pain. Now researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center have found you don't have to be a lifelong monk to pull it off. Using a special type of brain imaging, researchers saw significant brain changes even in novices who hadn't meditated before. Their ... posted on Apr 10, 6520 reads

Building Curious Employees
Design thinking is a process of empathizing with the end user. David Kelley, founder of IDEO and Stanford's d.school design program, takes a similar approach to managing people. He believes leadership is a matter of empathizing with employees. In this interview, he explains why leaders should seek understanding rather than blind obedience, why it's better to be a coach and a taskmaster and the eff... posted on May 31, 4768 reads

10 Keys to Happier Living
Happiness matters to all of us. And by focusing our time and energy on things that have been shown to consistently bring happiness, each of us can live rich, rewarding lives. The recently launched project, Action for Happiness, has identified practical actions that anyone can take in their everyday lives -- not only to help boost their own happiness but also to contribute to building better, more ... posted on May 15, 22937 reads

Sometimes It Just Takes a Penny
In this real-life kindness story, a man inspires generosity in a homeless woman after being approached by her for money. Having just heard good news in a friend's life, he offers to buy food for her and shares his inspiration with the homeless lady: "Something nice happened to my friend recently, after a lot of struggles. When you came in, I thought that I should keep that chain of goodness going ... posted on Jun 23, 3076 reads

Four Shelters Later, Still a Star Athlete
After holding together his family through a house fire, six address changes since his sophomore year and a violent encounter with his mother's boyfriend, high school basketball star Marquis Barnett told recruiters he is not about to abandon them now, insisting on staying local. "Marquis is fiercely loyal to his family," said Ron Naclerio, Barnett's coach in New York the past two seasons. Barnett i... posted on Oct 8, 3134 reads

Is the Internet Changing the Way We Think?
Each year, Edge.org poses a provocatively deep question to visionaries in science and culture. Last year, it collected 168 essays relating to the question, "How is the Internet changing the way you think?" In answer, academics, scientists and philosophers responded with musings on the Internet enabling telecommunication, or functioning as a sort of prosthesis, or robbing us of our old, linear mode... posted on May 9, 6427 reads