ChatGPT: A Partner in Unknowing, by Dana Karout
Karout is a leadership trainer and researcher working at Harvard and across the US and the Middle East, who teaches and coaches based on the principles and practices of adaptive leadership. Her work aims to build the capacity of individuals and communities to hold conflict and navigate complexity across various levels of authority. She holds a Bachelors of Engineering from the American University of Beirut, a Masters in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School, and is an incoming PhD candidate at UC Berkeley, where she will research the pedagogical and theoretical implications of generative AI. Vartika Sharma is a collage artist and illustrator based in New Delhi, India. Inspire... posted on May 15 2024 (3,246 reads)

Six Ways to Boost Your Helping Habits, by Stephen G. Post
to live a longer, healthier life? Stephen G. Post explains how to reap the benefits of practicing altruism.   In 2008, I lost my job of 20 years and uprooted my family to pursue a new position. The move strained my marriage, my relationship with my son, my sense of well-being. Like many Americans in their 50s who thought they were more or less past any financial worries, I found myself anxious for the first time in years.  I know my story is not unusual. These are hard times. Much of our nation, and our planet, is confronted with environmental and economic upheaval. It can be difficult to believe that things are going to get any better anytime soon. mangostock ... posted on Sep 26 2011 (12,640 reads)

7 Spiritual Perspectives on Personal Leadership, by Swami Chidananda and Prasad Kaipa
is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you is determinism; The way you play it is free will. – Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, 1st Prime Minister of India (1889-1964)   How do you deal with change? How comfortable are you with what is on your plate? Are you creating or are you resisting? The quality of your leadership depends on how you deal with the cards that you draw and how you succeed using what you got! In this brief article, we present an approach to increase your personal mastery and leadership effectiveness drawing from ancient spiritual wisdom from around the world.   Integrity: Integrity, at its best, is alignment between thou... posted on Dec 15 2011 (65,233 reads)

Seeing in the Dark, by Timothy Ferris
way that can be named is not the eternal way. " -Lao Tzu, first century B.C.   The awe-inspiring sight of a sky full of stars can render us speechless—and understandably so. Two very different entities are involved, and they're both rather mysterious.   At one extreme stands the individual observer, peering through a telescope or simply staring up at the stars. To ask who is doing the observing is to raise one of the oldest questions of philosophy. "Know yourself," said Socrates, although he made the mistake of assuming that one had to accomplish this before trying to learn about the rest of the universe. (Rejecting a scien... posted on Apr 2 2012 (7,452 reads)

Contemporary Leaders of Courage and Compassion: Competencies and Inner Capacities, by Monica Sharma
short of a new level of worldwide leadership and commitment for sustainable and  equitable change will suffice to create a better world today and for future generations. For the first time technologies and resources exist to transform   our   situation and generate lasting results. The choice is ours.   Hundreds  of transformational leaders are producing results in 60 countries on every continent. I currently focus on 40 of these courageous leaders around the world. My journey over 20 years has been profound, walking alongside many courageous and compassionate leaders -— leaders walking different, yet similar, paths! Their profile: women... posted on Jul 20 2012 (17,671 reads)

Why Creative Thinking is Inclusive Thinking, by Michael Michalko
Einstein was once asked what the difference was between him and the average person. He said that if you asked the average person to find a needle in the haystack, the person would stop when he or she found a needle. He, on the other hand, would tear through the entire haystack looking for all the possible needles. With creative thinking, one generates as many alternative approaches as one can. Creative thinking is inclusive thinking. You consider the least obvious as well as the most likely approaches, and you look for different ways to look at the problem. It is the willingness to explore all approaches that is important, even after one has found a promising one. Mos... posted on Aug 3 2012 (102,368 reads)

What Death Taught Me About Life, by Thao Phi
part of my summer internship with ServiceSpace.org involved initiating conversations with people I didn't know, and one question I'd ask them is what do they know for sure in life? Something they know with certainty. When I was initially asked this question, the immediate answer that came to mind is death. Death is everywhere. And I don't mean death is everywhere in some cynical or morbid sense, but death is an inevitable part of life. Rather than seeing death as something good or bad, it is just something that happens. When I was 12, I attended a boarding school that was also a temple. My parents came to pick me up to for winter break. My mom wa... posted on Aug 30 2012 (40,001 reads)

Transformation by Design, by Melissa Hoffman
don't have to understand chaos theory to appreciate the new species of corporate organization that Dee Hock has unleashed on the planet, an organizational paradigm that could very well represent the next step in the collective evolution of the human family. You don't even have to know anything about corporate structure, nor do you have to nurse a secret passion for institutional reform. All you have to do is take a long look at a snowflake, reflect on a forest, ponder the neurons in your brain—or use your Visa card—and you will begin to appreciate the intricate, manifold hive of pulsing impulses and multidimensional parleys of information that give rise to everything ... posted on May 30 2013 (35,035 reads)

Orchestra of the Wild, by Bernie Krauss
a Sand County Almanac essay called The Great Gavilan, Aldo Leopold wrote: There are men charged with the duty of examining the construction of the plants, animals, and soils which are the instruments of the great orchestra. These men are called professors. Each selects one instrument and spends his life taking it apart and describing its strings and sounding boards. This process of dismemberment is called research. The place for dismemberment is called a university. A professor may pluck the strings of his own instrument, but never that of another, and if he listens for music he must never admit it to his fellows or to his students. For all are restrained by an ironbound taboo whi... posted on Jul 26 2013 (21,701 reads)

Using Emergence to Scale Social Innovation, by Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Frieze
spite of current ads and slogans, the world doesn't change one person at a time.  It changes as networks of relationships form among people who discover they share a common cause and vision of what's possible.  This is good news for those of us intent on changing the world and creating a positive future.  Rather than worry about critical mass, our work is to foster critical connections.  We don't need to convince large numbers of people to change; instead, we need to connect with kindred spirits.  Through these relationships, we will develop the new knowledge, practices, courage, and commitment that lead to broad-based change.  But networks are... posted on Sep 2 2013 (35,363 reads)

Mark Twain's Top 9 Tips for Living A Good Life, by Henrik Edberg
no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.” “Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.” “When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it’s a sure sign you’re getting old.” You may know Mark Twain for some of his very popular books like Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. He was a writer and also a humorist, satirist and lecturer. Twain is known for his many – and often funny – quotes. Here are a few of my favourite tips from him. 1. Approve of yourself. “A man cannot be... posted on Sep 29 2013 (590,251 reads)

Pamela Sukhum & The Beautiful Project, by Anne Veh
Sukham's warmth and openheartedness invites us all to find the artist within and to experience life and all it’s infinite possibilities on a path for beauty and truth. In this Awakin call conversation, hosted by Bela, Pamela shares her journey from one captivating story to the next, beginning with a life changing realization that she needed to leave a stable career to trust an inspiration… to paint. It was a joy to moderate this call, being introduced to Pamela through the kindness of Pavi a year earlier. The two artists share the same title for their work, Infinite Vision! Pamela trusts her heart, from moment to moment, inspiration to inspiration, connection to co... posted on Apr 9 2014 (26,400 reads)

6 Ways Being Mindful Can Make You a Better Leader, by Bruna Martinuzzi
you consider mindfulness to be just another buzzword or New Age fad, think again. Mindfulness has been around for centuries and has now made the transition from Tibetan monasteries to the corporate boardrooms of America. In "The Mindful Revolution," a recent TIME magazine article, Kate Pickert says that already many devotees see mindfulness "as an indispensable tool for coping—both emotionally and practically—with the daily onslaught." Is it worth your while, as a business owner, to pay attention to this trend? The Meaning of Mindfulness One of the best definitions of mindfulness comes from Jon Kabat-Zinn, professor of medicine emeritus at the Univ... posted on Jun 1 2014 (143,990 reads)

4 Ways to Be More Present in Travel, by Audrey Scott
          Travel is like a good, challenging book: it demands presentness—the ability to live completely in the moment, absorbed in the words or vision of reality before you." – Robert Kaplan It’s de rigueur to speak of “creating memories,” particularly when it comes to travel. This tendency has only been intensified by and through social media and online sharing. Similarly, we’ve written about creating a story-filled life, the idea being that experiences rather than material goods are what truly shape who we are. While I still believe that implicit underlying premise to be ... posted on May 7 2014 (16,384 reads)

Elizabeth Gilbert On Big Magic, by Tami Simon
my guest is Elizabeth Gilbert. Elizabeth is an author, essayist, short-story writer, and novelist.In 2006, she wrote her landmark memoir, Eat, Pray, Love, which spent 199 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and sold over 10 million copies worldwide. Her latest novel, The Signature of All Things, is a sprawling tale of 19th-century botanical exploration. O, The Oprah Magazine named it “the novel of a lifetime.” Elizabeth Gilbertis a featured presenter at Sounds True’s 2014 Wake Up Festival. She’ll be speaking on the topic of “Big Magic: Thoughts on Creative Living.” The Wake Up Festival takes place August 20th–24th in Estes Park, Col... posted on Sep 16 2014 (24,187 reads)

Seven Ways To Inspire Healing After Disaster, by Michele Rosenthal
I was a teen growing up outside New York City, my mom was a big country and western fan. I remember the collective groans from my brother, Bret, and me as she ferried us and our friends to after-school activities to the honky-tonk sounds of what I heard as hillbilly twang. One of my mom’s favorite songs was about what to do when you face challenges in life. The lyrics were simple: “There ain’t no easy horses but you gotta learn to ride.” Mom reminded us of that often. Many years later, Bret and I were living in New York City on 9/11. Afterward, our parents begged us to move to the suburbs, where they hoped we’d be out of danger. For Bret and me, leav... posted on Aug 9 2014 (15,541 reads)

Sources of Light, by Karen Horneffer-Ginter
born with millions of little lights shining in the dark And they show us the way One lights up Every time you feel love in your heart One dies when it moves away" -- Michael Passenger Like so many of us, I felt such sadness in hearing the news of Robin Williams' death. Although I'm aware that creative, bright, and humorous people are as susceptible as anyone (maybe even more susceptible) to depression, there's something about the uniqueness of Robin Williams' gifts that makes me wish he could have been spared emotional anguish. I'd also like to imagine that anyone who played such incredible characters as the therapist... posted on Nov 25 2014 (18,099 reads)

9 Ways the Culture of Watching Is Changing Us, by Barry Chudakov
constant use of cameras, TVs, computers, and smart devices is affecting our thoughts and behavior to a degree we may not even realize Watching and being watched are no longer confined to how newborns bond with their mothers or apprentice chefs learn from sushi masters. Watching now changes how we identify ourselves and how others understand us. “Selfies” are not an anomaly; they are personal reflections of a wholesale adoption of the new culture of watching. We are watching so many—and so many are watching us in so many different places and ways—that watching and being watched fundamentally alter how we think and behave. While 50% of our neural tissue is d... posted on Sep 11 2014 (33,925 reads)

Conscience and Courage, by Richard Whittaker
Lee Hoinacki: Conscience and Courage One day, browsing through the San Francisco Chronicle, I noticed the announcement of a program being put on by Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown. Among the list of topics were two evenings devoted to medieval philosophical Latin. Medieval philosophical Latin? Sure enough, that’s what it said. I'd taken Latin in high school and on no account would I miss a civic program so improbable. It marked my introduction to a remarkable man, Lee Hoinacki.  Hoinacki by turns had been a Dominican priest, a professor of political science and a subsistence farmer. He's the author of four books: El Camino, Stumbling Toward J... posted on Feb 3 2015 (17,325 reads)

Three Words to Help Retrain your Brain, by Knowledge@Wharton
‘Think Like a Freak,’ Start with These Three Words Are you sure it is a bad idea to quit a job? In Think Like a Freak, Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt argue that we are often overly confident about what we think we know, and they recommend a way to think differently to solve problems and make decisions. Wharton management professor Adam M. Grant recently interviewed Dubner about his new book when he visited campus as a guest lecturer in the Authors@Wharton series. In this interview, Dubner discusses why we should say, “I don’t know” much more often than we do. An edited transcript of the conversation appears below. Adam Grant: Your books... posted on Mar 25 2015 (67,238 reads)