Chai and Love, by Soma Basu
is extremely reluctant to even put on a shirt for the photograph. I point out to the hole in his vest. “That’s me,” he says bluntly. I spot the frown on his face. He doesn’t like talking about himself, his family or the work he does. Extremely reticent, he sticks to his schedule of opening his tea shop on the Ponmeni Narayanan Street in S.S.Colony at 4.30 a.m. sharp and serves the day’s first round of steaming chai to about two-dozen watchmen who do night duty in the area. He runs the shop till 11 p.m. selling over 300 cups of tea, coffee and milk besides biscuits, cakes, laddus, murukkus and other savouries. Communication with customers... posted on Feb 15 2014 (27,982 reads)

The Million Dollar Scholar from Southside Chicago, by Rich Polt
Quarles is a “million dollar scholar” from the south-side of Chicago. It’s a rare juxtaposition, but simply uttering those words makes you realize that Derrius is a rare individual. Still in his early 20s, Derrius is proud to relate his “hero’s journey” (a journey he is still very much on), and hopes that his many experiences will inspire others who face their own uphill climbs. From his bio: “As a product of the Illinois foster care system and the south side of Chicago; higher education did not seem like a feasible possibility for him. More accessible were the fleeting opportunities of the urban streets.” When Derrius was four y... posted on Dec 28 2013 (27,252 reads)

How Emotionally Intelligent Are You?, by Carolyn Gregoire
makes some people more successful in work and life than others? IQ and work ethic are important, but they don't tell the whole story. Our emotional intelligence -- the way we manage emotions, both our own and those of others -- can play a critical role in determining our happiness and success. Plato said that all learning has some emotional basis, and he may be right. The way we interact with and regulate our emotions has repercussions in nearly every aspect of our lives. To put it in colloquial terms, emotional intelligence (EQ) is like "street smarts," as opposed to "book smarts," and it's what accounts for a great deal of one's ability to navigate l... posted on May 1 2014 (114,995 reads)

10 Life Lessons Kids Can Teach Us, by Jocelyn Kelley
do children know that adults seem to have forgotten? Children are more confident, more courageous and enjoy life far more intensely than adults. Sometimes it feels that we spend our entire lives trying to return to who we were as children. Here's what we can learn from our younger selves to bring more clarity and joy into adulthood. 1. Every day is a fresh start. "Isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?" - L.M. Montgomery. Wasn't it always amazing how the end of a school day always felt so final, so finished? The break between June and September seemed like a lifetime. Because when you are young, every day feels li... posted on Jul 25 2014 (75,171 reads)

Big Questions From Little People, by Maria Popova
we cry, how we know we aren’t dreaming right now, where the universe ends, what books are for, and more answers to deceptively simple yet profound questions. In 2012, I wrote about a lovely book titled Big Questions from Little People & Simple Answers from Great Minds, in which some of today’s greatest scientists, writers, and philosophers answer kids’ most urgent questions, deceptively simple yet profound. It went on to become one of the year’s best books and among readers’ favorites. A few months later, Gemma Elwin Harris, the editor who had envisioned the project, reached out to invite me to participate in the book’s 2013 edition by... posted on Sep 1 2014 (15,452 reads)

Father Rocky's Safe Haven For Street Children, by MICHELLE BURWELL
Destined for the Streets, Philippine Children at Tuloy are Bound for the Ballet and Culinary Contracts in Dubai. When Alain Ducasse, a world-renowned chef who was born in France but now holds naturalized citizenship in Monaco, visited Tuloy sa Don Bosco School in Manila, Philippines, he had one thing in mind: to raise money to create scholarships for Tuloy students interested in pursuing culinary careers. Ducasse has made guest appearances on MasterChef and is one of only two chefs to have received a total of 21 Michelin stars for his restaurants. His celebrity helped to raise enough funds for ten students to receive two-month scholarships; and it could be the two months that trans... posted on Oct 12 2014 (10,979 reads)

Trash Into Treasure: 6 Cool Things Made From Sea Plastic, by Liz Pleasant
courtesy of Studio Swine's "Sea Chair". A recent study released by The Geological Society of America reveals that ocean pollution has already left a permanent mark in the planet’s geological record. The study announced the “appearance of a new ‘stone’ formed through intermingling of melted plastic, beach sediment, basaltic lava fragments, and organic debris.” This substance was found on Kamilo Beach in Hawai’i, an area hit hard by marine debris due to wind and tide patterns. Discoveries like these clearly prove the gigantic effect single-use plastics (which make up about 90 percent of ocean garbage) have on our... posted on Oct 29 2014 (19,881 reads)

The Art of Stillness, by Pico Iyer
place that travel writer Pico Iyer would most like to go? Nowhere. In a counterintuitive and lyrical meditation, Iyer takes a look at the incredible insight that comes with taking time for stillness. In our world of constant movement and distraction, he teases out strategies we all can use to take back a few minutes out of every day, or a few days out of every season. It’s the talk for anyone who feels overwhelmed by the demands for our world. Transcript I'm a lifelong traveler. Even as a little kid, I was actually working out that it would be cheaper to go to boarding school in England than just to the best school down the road from my parents' house in Calif... posted on Feb 25 2015 (39,017 reads)

Three Benefits To Mindfulness at Work, by Jeremy Adam Smith
new studies point toward three benefits to cultivating moment-to-moment awareness in the workplace. Research says mindfulness works for individuals. But does it work in the bottom-line-driven workplace, or is it just a frivolous feel-good program? This is the question tackled in a growing number of studies. Here are three ways, based on four recent studies, that cultivating moment-to-moment awareness might improve workplaces. Meditation might build self-confidence in leaders Our Mindful Mondays series provides ongoing coverage of the exploding field of mindfulness research. A.D. Amar and colleagues at the University of Westminster measured the self-perception of leadershi... posted on Jan 16 2015 (28,469 reads)

Replace the Gospel of Money: An Interview With David Korten, by Dean Paton
if we measured wealth in terms of life, and how well we serve it? David Korten began his professional life as a professor at the Harvard Business School on a mission to lift struggling people in Third World nations out of poverty by sharing the secrets of U.S. business success. Yet, after a couple of decades in which he applied his organizational development strategies in places as far-flung as Ethiopia, Nicaragua, and the Philippines, Korten underwent a change of heart. In 1995, he wrote the bestseller When Corporations Rule the World, followed by a series of books that helped birth the movement known as the New Economy, a call to replace transnational corporate domination w... posted on Mar 31 2015 (18,212 reads)

My Trouble With Mindfulness, by Jill Suttie
Suttie knows the benefits of mindfulness, but she still doesn't practice it. What holds her back? I can’t say I’m not informed about the benefits of mindfulness. Our Mindful Mondays series provides ongoing coverage of the exploding field of mindfulness research. As a writer for Greater Good, I’ve read countless books on mindfulness and have been lucky tointerview some of the leading scientists in the world who study it. I’ve written articles about mindfulness improving health and wellbeing for kids,teachers, pregnant women, and parents. And I’ve covered its positive effects on over-eating and sexual dysfunction. I know that it’s a powerfu... posted on Apr 13 2015 (31,556 reads)

Are You Cultivating Knowledge, or Just Consuming Information?, by Gregory Ciotti
output demands quality input. As healthy food fuels the body, so does brain food fuel the mind. Garbage in, garbage out as they say. Amidst the “sky is falling” debates over how TV and the Internet are making us mindless drones, this is the real issue to keep in mind — we need to be cultivate more than we consume. It’s an important concept worthy of regular revisiting. To begin, let’s explore a theatrical look on what is at stake when we don’t take our information diet as seriously as our nutritional diet. Drowning in a Sea of Irrelevance Below is a visual adaptation of passages found in the book Amusing O... posted on May 4 2015 (21,045 reads)

Fixed vs Growth: The Two Basic Mindsets That Shape Our Lives, by Maria Popova
you imagine less, less will be what you undoubtedly deserve,” Debbie Millman counseled in one of the best commencement speeches ever given, urging: “Do what you love, and don’t stop until you get what you love. Work as hard as you can, imagine immensities…” Far from Pollyanna platitude, this advice actually reflects what modern psychology knows about how belief systems about our own abilities and potential fuel our behavior and predict our success. Much of that understanding stems from the work of Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, synthesized in her remarkably insightfulMindset: The New Psychology of Success (public library) — an inquiry into t... posted on Oct 9 2015 (26,124 reads)

Welcome to the Empathy Wars, by Roman Krznaric
into other people’s shoes has been a catalytic force for social change throughout human history. Credit: www.intentionalworkplace.com. All rights reserved. You can always tell when a good idea has come of age: people start criticising it. That’s certainly the case when it comes to empathy. Empathy is a more popular concept today than at any time since the eighteenth century, when Adam Smith argued that the basis of morality was our imaginative capacity for “changing places in fancy with the sufferer.” Neuroscientists, happiness gurus, education policy-makers and mediation experts have all been singing its praises. This has, of course, got the ... posted on Dec 14 2015 (12,420 reads)

#MakeVirtueViral: A Graduation Speech for Uncertain Times, by Nipun Mehta
his address to the 2016 class at DRBU, ServiceSpace founder Nipun Mehta makes a case for the power of stilling the mind, deepening awareness and practicing what he calls the 3 S's: small, service, and surrender. Framed in the context of a rapidly changing world that privileges money, fame and power, his talk is riddled with inspiring counter examples. Drawing on insights from revolutionary Do-Nothing farmer Masanobu Fukuoka, Sufi parables, stories from the White House, a bowing monk and more, Mehta's words serve as a clarion call back to humanity's universal values. Below is the transcript. Thank you, all. Thank you, President Susan Rounds, Bhi... posted on May 31 2016 (49,572 reads)

What Mindfulness is Missing, by Kira M. Newman
up, Jim Doty had many strikes against him: an alcoholic father, a mother with depression, a family living in poverty. But somehow—in a journey he recounts in his new book, Into the Magic Shop—he managed to overcome them. Dr. Doty is now a clinical professor of neurosurgery at Stanford University. He founded and directs the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE), where the Dalai Lama was a founding benefactor. As a philanthropist, he has given millions of dollars to support health care and educational charities around the world. He attributes his success partly to a kind woman named Ruth, who took 12-year-old Doty under her w... posted on Jul 5 2016 (57,188 reads)

What is Gratitude?, by Angeles Arrien
people in great numbers choose to practice, integrate, and embody gratitude, the cumulative force that is generated can help create the kind of world we all hope for and desire, for ourselves and for future generations. The application of multicultural wisdom—the shared values and the inherent positive beliefs of humanity—has become known as perennial wisdom. Perennial wisdom has been passed on from generation to generation since the birth of humankind.  It continues to surface among diverse peoples, unconnected by geography or language, yet inextricably linked to what is inherently important in our shared experience of what it means to be human.  Of all the uni... posted on Apr 8 2017 (21,803 reads)

Guy Standing on an Economy that Works for Everyone, by Leslee Goodman
economist Guy Standing, of the University of London, has popularized the term “precariat” to describe a global social class whose most salient characteristic is precariousness. Standing blames neoliberal economic policies, globalization, automation, and outsourcing for the rising number of precariats, who, if not completely locked out of the economy, must increasingly compete for temporary employment at low wages—to the point that they can’t pay off student loans or consumer debt, qualify for mortgages, save for retirement, or make plans for the future. Many are essentially one paycheck away from destitution. Standing’s solution is a 29-plank plat... posted on Nov 26 2017 (21,159 reads)

Getting to Cleveland: Seth Godin on Gratitude, by Katie Steedly
think that gratitude is a profound choice. It is not just something that some people do. There is a way to look at life as a “have to” or a “get to” there are all these things in life we could do because we have to do them, or there are things in life we do because we get to do them. ~ Seth Godin Katie Steedly: Having studied wide-awakeness for a long time, gratitude was everywhere in the literature. I also found it in life. Whether talking about presence, or positivity, or happiness, or even success in general, the subject of gratitude kept making itself known to me from all directions. It became obvious: gratitude is the key that unlocks life’s doors.... posted on Oct 7 2017 (13,405 reads)

Spotlight on Peacemakers, by Shari Swanson
is so easy to stir the stew, to add your own spice and heat to it until it boils over rendering anything inside charred and devoid of nutrition. How much more difficult it is to soothe an angry temper, to see from another's point of view, to broker peace. In this Daily Good Spotlight on Peacemakers, we take a look back at features on remarkable people who have brought peace to tense situations and made peace a priority both in their own lives and in the world about them. Children Children are our hope for the future and also surprisingly powerful present-day agents of change. With their fresh eyes, they see problems and can propose solutions where adults may have lost their ... posted on Oct 18 2017 (10,224 reads)