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 (26,125 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 (21,160 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)

How to Build Trust and Lead Effectively, by Knowledge@Wharton
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 (12,627 reads)

Jean Vanier: The Wisdom of Tenderness, by Unknown Yet
following is the audio and transcript of an onbeing.org interview between Krista Tippett and Jean Vanier. May 28, 2015 KRISTA TIPPETT, HOST: It took me a while to put a name to the rare quality that is palpable in Jean Vanier’s life and presence. It’s a wisdom of tenderness. He’s a philosopher and a Catholic social innovator and simply one of the great elders in our world today. The L’Arche movement, which he founded, centered around people with mental disabilities, is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this month. And, Jean Vanier has just won the Templeton Prize. He has devoted his life to the practical application of Christianity’s most... posted on Feb 23 2018 (12,599 reads)

Margaret Wheatley: Warriors for the Human Spirit, by Tami Simon
Wheatley is a writer and management consultant who draws upon systems analysis, chaos theory, and other diverse fields of study to inform her work. She is the author of Leadership and the New Science and Who Do We Choose to Be?, among others. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon talks with Margaret about the cycles of life and history, especially as they apply to the chaotic contemporary world. Margaret emphasizes that we need to see our present moment with clear eyes, even if doing so might court despair. Tami and Margaret speak on the need to create "islands of sanity" within our communities and what it means to become a warrior for the... posted on Mar 29 2018 (27,692 reads)

Warriors for the Human Spirit, by Tami Simon
Simon: This program is brought to you by SoundsTrue.com. At SoundTrue.com you can find hundreds of downloadable audio learning programs, plus books, music, videos and online courses and events. At SoundsTrue.com, we think of ourselves as a trusted partner on the spiritual journey, offering diverse, in-depth, and life-changing wisdom. SoundsTrue.com: many voices, one journey. You're listening to Insights at the Edge. Today my guest is Margaret Wheatley. Meg is an American writer and management consultant who studies organizational behavior, her approach includes systems thinking, theories of change, chaos theory, leadership and the learning organization—partic... posted on May 17 2018 (16,320 reads)

How to Help Teens Find Purpose, by Patrick Cook-Deegan
I was 14 years old, I boarded a plane for a weeklong backpacking trip in the Rocky Mountains. I had already been to the Rockies a few times with my parents, but this time I was headed out to a “primitive skills week,” run by the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies. For a week, we were to live as close to the land as possible. We crafted our own bowls and knives, made fires with bow drills, caught fish with our own hands, and stalked elk for hours. I remember coming over a mountain pass and looking down at what looked like hundreds of ants moving around in a beautiful open meadow. As we started coming down the hill I realized they were elk—hundreds of elk sca... posted on Feb 16 2018 (268,381 reads)

Toward a New Conception of God, by Jacob Needleman
the present highly publicized debates about the nature and the existence of God, both sides tend to treat God as a purely external entity said to be accessible only by faith—faith, in this case, defined merely as belief unsupported by evidence or logic. Entirely missing from these debates is the idea of God as a conscious force within the human psyche which is accessible through deep self-examination. A study of the psychological disciplines at the heart of all the great spiritual traditions of the world shows us, however, that the process of precisely guided self-examination brings about a knowledge that is as rigorous and as supported by evidence as anything science has to offer. ... posted on Aug 2 2018 (13,910 reads)

Bring Your Whole Self to Work, by Mike Robbins
Your Whole Self to Work: How Vulnerability Unlocks Creativity, Connection, and Performance (Hay House Inc., 2018, 224 pages). Portions of this essay are excerpted from the book with permission from the publisher. Have you ever wanted to speak up about an issue or situation at work, but were afraid to? Or wanted to share something about yourself, but worried people might judge you? Or pretended to understand something professionally that you really didn’t? If you’re anything like me and most of the people I know, you could easily answer yes to some of these questions. However, to truly succeed in today’s business world, we must be willing to bring our&nb... posted on Sep 30 2018 (8,205 reads)

The Boy Who Wanted to Go to School, by Maria Henson
Shimelash (’20) is kneeling on a dirt floor near an open doorway where a plastic bottle filled with holy water is suspended by a string to bless all who enter this home in the Ethiopian highlands. Because Wubetu is here, the four children of this house are especially blessed today. Their mother, Wubetu’s friend Abeju Messele, is tending a fire in the corner. She crushes coffee beans with a long pestle to prepare coffee for guests, an ancient and ongoing ritual of hospitality in Ethiopia. The smoke mixes with the fragrance of coffee beans to fill the room, cold and damp during these rainy months, leaving children with perpetually runny noses and shoulders wrapped... posted on Nov 13 2018 (19,737 reads)

Unlearning Together, by Martin Winiecki
perception, thinking, effortless achievement and healing are inherent to life—they happen by themselves. When we observe children learning to walk or speak, ecosystems regenerating themselves, or animals self-organizing, we notice there’s a masterful way of functioning that’s fundamentally different from our dominant culture. Encaged in a reality bubble of fear and separation, as Westerners in particular, we’ve culturally barred ourselves from life. True unlearning is the process of bidding farewell to such detrimental cultural programming, fostering imagination and awe in relation to life, discernment and empathy in relation to our world, and community and ... posted on Dec 30 2018 (8,158 reads)

Thinking About New Year's Resolutions?, by Ted Fischer
end of the year is always when we reflect on what we have done and what we have left undone. And, of course, it’s time to start thinking about those resolutions for the new year and what we will do differently. Our New Year’s resolutions usually target minor vices—eat fewer snacks, drink less, stop smoking, exercise more—whatever your particular self-admonitions may be. But it is too easy to get lost in the particulars—and in the negatives. In setting out our resolutions, we should first step back and take stock of what we really want, what we consider the good life to be, and then think about how best we might achieve it. Well-being is more than ju... posted on Dec 31 2018 (7,303 reads)