The 'Greener Grass On This Side' Farm, by Neil Patel
Grass   During the second part of our South India trip where we spent three or so days with Ragu and Nisha on their farm near Coimbatore. I've been dreading writing this post because there is so much I want to capture about the experience, and I'm a bit at a loss on how to organize my thoughts and give it all the justice it deserves. The best I can muster is to break my reflections into mini-blogs (blogbites? bloggets? blots?) on particular topics. So here we go: Ragu and Nisha I am so inspired by the path they have taken in their lives. Both were high-flying professionals in Silicon Valley (Ragu a marketing whiz, Nisha a hardcore so... posted on Aug 23 2012 (26,027 reads)

Living with Just Enough, by Azby Brown
now we are all extremely familiar with the litany of challenges we face as a global species, the threats of scarcity which pit state against state and community against community, problems manmade and visible in nature: growing population, increasing urbanization, deforestation, damaged watersheds, over-consumption of resources, energy shortages, waste, pollution....All of us could easily add to this list. We know there will be no easy fixes, no panaceas, but nevertheless as we try to set priorities and search for the most promising ways to approach these problems, many of us find ourselves looking to different cultures and to earlier eras for inspiration. In this regard, the Edo ... posted on Sep 19 2012 (25,865 reads)

How To Work With Someone You Don't Like, by Peter Bregman
[Name has been changed], like me, is a writer, a speaker, and the head of a consulting company. As far as I can tell, he’s professional, well respected, capable, honest, and has a popular following. Someone we both know has asked us to collaborate on a project and there’s clearly a mutual benefit to our working together.]. It all sounds great except for one thing: I don’t like Jeff. Something about him rubs me the wrong way. He seems too self-serving or egocentric or self-satisfied. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I know I don’t like him. I mentioned that to the person who wants us to work together. She told me, essentially, to get ... posted on Oct 22 2012 (43,116 reads)

The Connection Between Business & Poetry, by Knowledge@Wharton
Gioia (pronounced Joy-a) claims to be the only person in history who went to business school to be a poet. Having earned a degree from Stanford's graduate school of business, he worked 15 years in corporate life, eventually becoming vice president of General Foods. In 1991, Gioia wrote an influential collection of essays titled, "Can Poetry Matter?" in which he explored, among other themes, the nexus between business and poetry. Since 2002, he has been chairman of the National Endowment of the Arts where he has overseen programs aimed at making Shakespeare and poetry recitation more popular in the U.S. Gioia, who is a speaker at the Wharton Leadership Conference in Philade... posted on Jan 28 2013 (15,137 reads)

Six Ways To Become A Wise Leader, by Prasad Kaipa and Navi Radjou, Adapted from their book
leadership perspective is based on the sum total of the knowledge, experiences, and choices we made before. It defines us, shaping our thoughts, decisions, and actions. It represents the way we see ourselves and situations, how we judge the relative importance of things, and how we establish a meaningful relationship with others and everything around us.  Smart leaders tend to look at the world through colored lenses that skew or limit their perspective, which affects their decisions and actions. Some have a perspective that's narrowly focused on short-term goals, deepening their depth of knowledge in their domain of interest. Other smart leaders are guided by broadly fo... posted on Apr 2 2013 (40,519 reads)

Life on a Farm, by Luanne Armstrong
act of communication is an act of translation." Gregory Rabassa I live on a farm that was once part forest, part swamp. I live with animals both domesticated and wild, with plants, with flowers, with a garden. My grandparents lived here, my parents, my siblings and I, and then my children too. I walk on the land every day and never get bored. There is always something new to see and learn. In the summer, I sit on my deck, which overlooks a pond, a field, and past that, the lake. Barn swallows nest over my head. Paper wasps build small grey cones among the swallow nests. Once, I was sitting on my deck with a group of young people. A wasp came by to have a... posted on May 9 2013 (17,242 reads)

Nine Things Educators Need to Know About the Brain, by Louis Cozolino
an excerpt from his new book, psychologist Louis Cozolino applies the lessons of social neuroscience to the classroom. The human brain wasn’t designed for industrial education. It was shaped over millions of years of sequential adaptation in response to ever-changing environmental demands. Over time, brains grew in size and complexity; old structures were conserved and new structures emerged. As we evolved into social beings, our brains became incredibly sensitive to our social worlds. This mixture of conservation, adaptation, and innovation has resulted in an amazingly complex brain, capable of everything from monitoring respiration to creating culture. This added com... posted on Jun 2 2013 (149,031 reads)

Uncovering The Blind Spot of Leadership, by C. Otto Scharmer
live in a time of massive institutional failure, collectively creating results that nobody wants. Climate change. AIDS. Hunger. Poverty. Violence. Terrorism. The foundations of our social, economic, ecological, and spiritual wellbeing are in peril. Why do our attempts to deal with the challenges of our time so often fail? The cause of our collective failure is that we are blind to the deeper dimension of leadership and transformational change. This “blind spot” exists not only in our collective leadership but also in our everyday social interactions. We are blind to the source dimension from which effective leadership and social actio... posted on Jul 9 2013 (93,382 reads)

Talking It Out: The New Conversation-centered Leadership, by Alan S. Berson and Richard G. Stieglitz
year, hundreds of thousands of new graduates enter the business world, eager to climb the corporate ladder. Their progress on the early rungs of that journey will often be determined by qualities like hard work, determination, knowledge and technical proficiency. But business consultants Alan S. Berson and Richard G. Stieglitz argue that those same qualities prove less helpful at higher rungs on the ladder, and may even be one's downfall if they are not balanced by a very different set of leadership qualities. They sum up the thesis of their new book, Leadership Conversations: Challenging High-Potential Managers to Become Great Leaders, like this: "As you move into upper leade... posted on Jul 2 2013 (36,665 reads)

Radical Joy for Hard Times, by Richard Whittaker
a recent visit to the Bay Area, I had the pleasure of meeting Trebbe Johnson and found her a charming and intensely passionate advocate for the healing we need both individually and in a global sense. In 1997 she founded Vision Arrow, a program that combines wilderness exploration and the search for meaning. A few years later, she founded a second program, Radical Joy for Hard Times, which evolved naturally from the first. The two programs complement each other. In her notes for Vision Quest she writes, “I don’t know anyone whose life hasn’t been an incredible journey of ups and downs, sorrow in the midst of great joy and, even more amazing, joy in the midst of the deepe... posted on Jul 22 2013 (18,768 reads)

The Body's Grace, by On Being
follows is the transcript of an On Being interview between Krista Tippett and Matthew Sanford: Ms. Krista Tippett, host: Matthew Sanford says he's never seen anyone live more deeply in their body — in all its grace and all its flaws — without becoming more compassionate toward all of life. He's a renowned teacher of yoga. And he's been paralyzed from the chest down since a car accident in 1978, when he was 13. He teaches yoga to the able-bodied. He also adapts yoga for people with ailments and disabilities, including military veterans. But Matthew Sanford has wisdom for us all on the strength and grace of our bodies, as we move through the ordinary s... posted on Jun 29 2016 (30,194 reads)

How To Train Your Brain To See What Others Don't, by Carolyn Gregoire
Darwin had one of the greatest "aha!" moments in all of history when writing his magnum opus On The Origin of Species. After reading a book written 40 years earlier on population growth and resource competition, Darwin immediately saw the connection to the variation among species that he had observed in the Galapagos -- and voila, the theory of natural selection was born. "Darwin reads this book and says, 'Wow, that's it!' That exemplifies the 'aha!' of getting the new piece of information, and seeing the implication and seeing how it fits," cognitive psychologist Gary Klein, author of Seeing What Others Don't: The Remarkable Ways We... posted on Sep 8 2013 (108,246 reads)

Talking Good With Maggie Doyne, by Rich Polt
morning at the age of 18, fresh out of high school, Maggie Doyne awoke with the feeling that she was not yet ready to move into her freshman dorm. Instead, she wanted to defer college for a year to travel and discover her “inner-self.” It was a decision that would change her life in ways she could never imagine. Four countries in and thousands of miles later, Maggie found herself in the midst of a remote, war-torn village in Nepal. She watched in despair as the Nepalese children would break down rocks into gravel and then sell them for one dollar a day just to buy food. Maggie was compelled to take action. One young girl in particular had touched her heart, so Maggie paid ... posted on Sep 17 2013 (71,353 reads)

40 Days: The Productivity of Retreat, by Paul Kingsnorth
order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion." Albert Camus When I was a child, I wanted to be a hermit. I can remember in particular a strange background desire I had for some years to live alone in a pine forest. Why a pine forest? I have no real idea. I have never spent much time at all in a real pine forest (as opposed to the serried ranks of plantation pines which layer the hills of the north of England.) But that was where I wanted to be. I could imagine myself dwelling in the dark, dank heart of a pinewood. Life there, I knew, would be more intense, more magical, than life at home. For a time, as a romantic and imaginative child, I en... posted on Nov 7 2013 (25,800 reads)

Beyond: Eat, Pray, Love, by Chantal Pierrat
Chantal Pierrat elizabethgilbert.com Chantal Pierrat: I have to just take a moment here. I can’t believe I’m talking to you. Elizabeth Gilbert: Oh, you are sweet! CP: I just had to get that out of the way. EG: Oh, you’re lovely. Thank you. I’m sitting here in the airport for Toronto, eating a terrible chicken Caeser salad, and feeling very unglamorous at the moment. So that’s a nice thing to say. CP: What is it right now that is stoking your passion? What perspective or practice is setting you on fire? EG: Returning to writing fiction after thirteen years away from it. Returning to the rootstock of ... posted on Sep 30 2013 (23,671 reads)

The Last Quiet Place, by On Being
for The Last Quiet Places: Gordon Hempton on Silence and the Presence of Everything May 10, 2012 Krista Tippett, host: Gordon Hempton says that silence is an endangered species. He's an acoustic ecologist — a collector of sound all over the world. He defines real quiet as presence — not an absence of sound, but an absence of noise. The Earth as Gordon Hempton knows it is a "solar-powered jukebox." Quiet is a "think tank of the soul." We take in the world through his ears. Gordon Hempton: Not too long ago it was assumed that clean water's not important, that seeing the stars is not that important. But now it is. And... posted on Oct 18 2013 (39,535 reads)

Unlocking the Mysteries of Time , by Maria Popova
Time Slows Down When We’re Afraid, Speeds Up as We Age, and Gets Warped on Vacation “Time perception matters because it is the experience of time that roots us in our mental reality.” Given my soft spot for famous diaries, it should come as no surprise that I keep one myself. Perhaps the greatest gift of the practice has been the daily habit of reading what I had written on that day a year earlier; not only is it a remarkable tool of introspection and self-awareness, but it also illustrates that our memory “is never a precise duplicate of the original [but] a continuing act of creation” and how flawed our perception of time is — al... posted on Dec 12 2023 (20,149 reads)

Voluntary Simplicity, by Duane Elgin
kind of "stewardship" fits our emerging world? When we consider the powerful forces transforming our world — climate change, peak oil, water and food shortages, species extinction, and more — we require far more than either crude or cosmetic changes in our manner of living. If we are to maintain the integ­rity of the Earth as a living system, we require deep and creative changes in our overall levels and patterns of living and consum­ing. Simplicity is not an alternative lifestyle for a marginal few. It is a creative choice for the mainstream majority, particularly in developed nations. If we are to pull together as a human commu­nity, it will... posted on Oct 22 2013 (54,792 reads)

Camille Seaman: We All Belong to Earth, by Richard Whittaker
first thing that captured my attention upon stepping into Camille Seaman’s home was one of her stunning photos, a large framed print centered on one wall.  And then I noticed two large, wolf-like dogs in kennels. They regarded me silently. About forty-five minutes later, having looked at scores of Seaman’s sublime Arctic and Antarctic photos, she let one of the dogs out. It came over quietly to check me out. As I looked down at the animal’s long face and erect ears, it wasn’t apprehension I was feeling—let’s call it mobilized attention. The dog looked up at me and I was mesmerized. I’d never seen eyes like that in a dog before. Yellow, and t... posted on Dec 1 2013 (22,292 reads)

When You Listen to a Child, by Rachel Macy Stafford
younger daughter and I were the first ones to arrive home from an evening swim meet. Although I knew my husband would be arriving shortly with my mom and older daughter, my heart was heavy that I had to come home first. I had an overwhelming feeling of dread about what I might find. My dad, who was visiting from Florida, had fallen ill that afternoon and was not able to go to the meet. Although he’d promised not to descend the stairs while we were gone, I couldn’t help but worry about my 74-year-old diabetic father during the swim meet. That feeling of angst I’d endured for hours was now going into overdrive as my daughter and I ascended the stairs. We expec... posted on Nov 26 2013 (88,747 reads)