who successfully tackle big social, environmental, and economic problems are driven by what I call a moment of obligation — a specific time in their life when they felt compelled to act. These moments become their North Star; they keep them going in a positive direction when everything seems dark. The obligation is not only to the world but also to themselves. Activists or social entrepreneurs aren't the only ones who are moved this way. We all have experiences that deeply inform who we are and what we are supposed to do. But only if we allow them to. Take Socheata Poeuv. She borrowed a bulky video camera from her office job at a television studio a... posted on Oct 6 2017 (10,155 reads)

Sunday morning, and my puppy is curled up in my lap, as she often is. The rainfall outside has subsided for now, replaced only by the occasional medley of bird calls. The hum of my computer, a familiar sound, seamlessly blends into the background. My phone sits in the other room, unattended, until it pings for my attention. My tablet rests in the closet for now, idling before I dive back into one of the three books it currently stores. Look around you. How many devices are bidding for your attention? If someone came into your dwelling space, could they tell what year it was by the technology that immediately surrounded you, or would they have to dig a little deeper? When was th... posted on Oct 11 2017 (13,813 reads)

say that spirits make music  by moving through the breaks  in what is living.  If so, the work of love  is to hold each other and listen. "When I was ill, it was easy to separate myself from others, as a patient surrounded by caregivers. While this, of course, was outwardly accurate, in the truer moments of crisis, we needed each other, and it was hard to tell who was ill and who was well, who was giving and who was getting. In the center of it, we were just tumbled in an authentic embrace that saved us all. "During those days, I had a dream in which love was the fire and experience was the wood. And since, I've come to understand that it is... posted on Feb 1 2018 (14,494 reads)

Grant is a renowned Wharton psychology professor and bestselling author of Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World. He recently joined Ryan Hawk, host of The Learning Leader Show, to talk about what makes an Original, the role of creativity and curiosity in non-conformity, and what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. This conversation has been edited and condensed. To listen to Adam and Ryan’s full conversation, click here. Adam: The most consistent common attribute of people who have been widely successful and done it again and again is that they’re dedicated learners. What’s fascinating about them is, no matter how much... posted on Jan 19 2018 (12,961 reads)

expert Robin Dreeke and co-author Cameron Stauth talk about their book on building trust. Building good teams starts with having strong relationships based on a foundation of trust. But how does one develop that trust at work or in life? Counterintelligence expert Robin Dreeke, who spent decades as a senior FBI agent, knows how to make strangers trust him enough to be recruited as spies. And it’s not about deception or being a ‘yes’ man. In the book, The Code of Trust: An American Counterintelligence Expert’s Five Rules to Lead and Succeed, Dreeke and co-author Cameron Stauth share simple steps to generating trust from all sorts of people. T... posted on Feb 5 2018 (12,777 reads)

Singer is a spiritual teacher, entrepreneur, and the bestselling author of the spiritual classic The Untethered Soul. He has collaborated with Sounds True to release the online course Living from a Place of Surrender: The Untethered Soul in Action. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Michael about the core idea of his teachings: that it is only through complete surrender to the essence of the moment that we experience life's full potential. They talk about what this sense of surrender actually means when it comes to decision-making and day-to-day activities, as well as how to recognize when we are still clinging to resistance. Micha... posted on Dec 22 2017 (48,443 reads)

following is the edited transcript of an Awakin Call with Ulrike Reinhard. You can listen to the full recording of the call here. Preeta Bansal: It's my pleasure to welcome Ulrike Reinhard as our guest this week! Ulrike Reinhard: Yeah, thanks a lot and hello to everyone out there! Preeta: Ulrike is a German publisher, author, a Futurist and she's been involved in a lot of global development efforts throughout her lifetime. Currently, she lives mostly in India, in rural India, where she is the woman behind a skateboard park, that’s in a village; the park has been upending notions of caste and gender, and empowering a community economically. She's been also ... posted on May 18 2019 (3,707 reads)

question is not what to do but how to see. Seeing is the most important thing—the act of seeing. I need to realize that it is truly an act, an action that brings something entirely new, a new possibility of vision, certainty and knowledge. This possibility appears during the act itself and disappears as soon as the seeing stops. It is only in this act of seeing that I will find a certain freedom. So long as I have not seen the nature and movement of the mind, there is little sense in believing that I could be free of it. I am a slave to my mechanical thoughts. This is a fact. It is not the thoughts ­themselves that enslave me but my ­attachment to them. In order to under... posted on Dec 20 2017 (8,063 reads)

would happen if schools focused on kindness and gratitude before achievement and academics? This is a question that Andy Smallman not only entertained, but also acted upon. In 1994, Andy with a group of dedicated parents and their children started Puget Sound Community School [PSCS] “founded upon the belief that people are intrinsically compelled by their own curiosity and desires to learn, and when provided a positive and supportive environment…will enthusiastically pursue meaningful and challenging tasks.”  At PSCS, kindness was not just a concept, it was part of the curriculum—a class. The kindness class became so successful, that Smallman o... posted on Apr 7 2019 (7,893 reads)

from Kent Nerburn's book, Small Graces: Night is closing in. It is time for sleep. I have walked a quiet path today. I have done no great good, no great harm. I might have wished for more — some dramatic occurrence, something memorable. But there was no more. This was the day I was given, and I have tried to meet it with a humble heart. How little it seems. We seek perfection in our days, always wanting more for ourselves and our lives, and striving for goals unattainable. We live between the vast infinites of past and future in the thin shaft of light we call 'today.' And yet today is never enough. Where does it come from, this strange unquenchab... posted on Mar 10 2018 (22,852 reads)

Harrod Buhner is an award-winning author of 22 books on nature, indigenous cultures, the environment, and herbal medicine. He comes from a long line of healers that include Leroy Burney, Surgeon General of the United States under Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, and Elizabeth Lusterheide, a midwife and herbalist who worked in rural Indiana in the early nineteenth century. He says that the greatest influence on his work, however, has been his great-grandfather, C.G. Harrod, who primarily used botanical medicines, also in rural Indiana, when he began his work as a physician in 1911. Buhner, who says his DNA prevents him from working for others, has been a fulltime therapist in pri... posted on Mar 9 2018 (25,031 reads)

in response to the needs of our times—such as helping people transition to a less consumeristic, more sustainable way of living; re-educating people in traditional simple living skills; developing new technologies to convert waste into usable materials; retooling our economy to run on renewable energy sources; repairing and healing our polluted oceans, rivers, and lakes; reforesting our denuded hillsides; paying our artists and musicians and caregivers, and so on. One of the important images I’ve seen in years occurred in the last few months and was posted to the Internet. It was taken by a satellite that left the solar system and looked back, taking a picture of the Earth, i... posted on Nov 12 2020 (29,189 reads)

of the Sheikh Lotf Allah Mosque in Isfahan, Iran. Credit: By Phillip Maiwald (Nikopol) - Own work. I say ‘Allahu akbar’ dozens of times a day. I say it during prayer. I say it as an expression of reaffirmation and gratitude to God. I said it when my daughter was born, and there will be someone to say it over me when I am buried. I say it when I witness beauty. ‘Allahu akbar.’ In 1985, Lutheran Bishop Krister Stendahl, in defending the building of a Mormon temple by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Stockholm, enunciated “Three Rules of Religious Understanding:” “When tryin... posted on Mar 14 2020 (3,725 reads)

Baliga found herself sitting in a room with a murderer and his victim’s parents, who had come seeking something more than punishment for their child’s killer. Sujatha, and the process of Restorative Justice, was uniquely positioned to help. She came to that meeting through rigorous academic training, and also through harrowing personal experience. She grew up in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania where she experienced ongoing sexual abuse by her father. As an adult, after several emotional breakdowns related to the early childhood traumas, she decided to travel to Dharamsala, India to visit the Dalai Lama. Through slim odds, she was granted an audience with the exiled leader. Aft... posted on Mar 5 2018 (19,066 reads)

IN THE BODY: EXPLORING NEW HOPES FOR HEALING Bessel van der Kolk, M.D. is the founder and medical director of the Trauma Center in Brookline, Massachusetts, a professor in the department of psychiatry at Boston University Medical School, and the director of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, which Congress established to raise the standard of care and improve access to services for traumatized children, their families, and communities.  Dr. van der Kolk’s newest book, The Body Keeps The Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma, offers a sweeping and revolutionary new understanding of the causes and consequences of trauma and how to heal t... posted on Apr 21 2018 (62,325 reads)

selected poems below are from Mark Nepo’s book: The Way Under The Way: The Place of True Meeting (Sounds True): INSEPARABLE BY MARK NEPO A small voice swept through the hole in my heart, right there in the middle of a day filled with the sweetness of things outlasting our mistakes. The voice led me to a thatch of berries I had to eat, though the berries were nested in a ring of thorns. But this was the only food that would heal. And everything I’d been through, every path I’d tried, every love I’d lost, every friendship I’d held onto like a handle in a fire, every certainty that had crumbled into doubt—all of it said,&n... posted on Apr 8 2018 (27,343 reads)

was a guy named Ken, who was a homeless guy in Half Moon Bay, where we live. He'd lived under the bridge at Main Street. He lived in his car and he made woodcarvings. So he had all his wood carvings lined up over there under the bridge, and he would just be hanging out there during the day. At the time, I had just gone through a really painful divorce, my life was just kind of very unsettled. I was feeling very unsettled and unhappy, wondering what I was going do, what was going to be in my life. One time, I was walking along Main Street with my son, Adam, who at that time was about 12 or 13 years old. He was just beginning to get interested in drums. He said, "Dad, I... posted on Jan 30 2018 (12,606 reads)

having these horses is to have a four day ceremony with them every single month, and I take new people to them. So I was doing that and Happi was at the camp. And then I got a text message early in the morning, and someone said to me, "If that was my son, I would be crying." And I was thinking, "What are they talking about?" It was someone from camp. So I drove up on the hill, at Pe'Sla, where I could get a signal and be with the horses, and then I just got tons of images. People started sending me things. And there was a live feed going on and there was my son locked onto one of those excavation equipments and they were singing songs for him. And he was singing... posted on Jan 7 2018 (9,331 reads)

is more to life than increasing its speed. – Mahatma Gandhi It’s the status symbol no one talks about, woven into our work, play, homes, and family lives. It takes up space on our calendars, to-do lists, and endless roster of appointments and meetings. It can leave us exhausted or invigorated, constantly tugging at our drive to do more, give back, and leave our mark. It can be a source of increased stress and frequent complaints one minute, and unbridled joy the next. Busyness is the new currency by which we measure our success, our fulfillment, and ultimately, the richness of our lives. “In certain cultures, spending your time relaxing, spending your ti... posted on Dec 26 2017 (21,297 reads)

physicist Richard Feynman (May 11, 1918–February 15, 1988) was a champion of scientific culture, graphic novel hero, crusader for integrity, holder of the key to science, adviser of future generations, bongo player, no ordinary genius. In this fantastic animated adaptation of an excerpt from Christopher Sykes’s celebrated 1981 BBC documentary about Feynman, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out — which gave us the great physicist’s timeless words on beauty, honors, and curiosity and his fascinating explanation of where trees actually come from — Fraser Davidson ca... posted on Mar 4 2018 (9,765 reads)