Category Archive:
Leadership

Life Is Mysterious, Be Curious

Life Is mysterious Be Curious

In our efforts to help our children and ourselves become better, we need to avoid the pat answer trap. We may get tired of answering our children’s questions, but we need to guard against dampening natural enthusiasm and curiosity for life. Asking questions, especially why, leads us to grow—intellectually, physically, socially and emotionally. Asking questions […]


Potential Is A Stretch

potential is a stretch

Potential is about possibilities. It is the distance from where we are to where we want to go. To reach our potential, our undeveloped promise, is always a stretch. Everyday we have to be reaching for the next step, making the next decision, committing to the next action. That takes courage. “One isn’t necessarily born […]


Character Strength Promotes True Growth

Character Strength Promotes True Growth

Building a better you is the first step in building better relationships, better families, better communities, as well as building a better America and a better world. It all begins with an individual’s choice of what to do next, what to do now. Choice is an action, not a reaction to the set of circumstances […]


Making Lemonade Out Of Lemons

making lemonade out of lemons

The problem with problems is that wherever you go, there they are. Problems have a shadowing type of effect. They follow you around until you get them into the light of full day. Everyone has problems or bad experiences. One of the hard lessons I had to learn is that it didn’t matter how good […]


Planning To Succeed

Planning To Succeed

“This is not a dress rehearsal,” our friend Nancy says. “This is the real thing.” And how right Nancy was. Life is not a dress rehearsal. All we have is the current moment. Our time is now. In his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey tells us that time management is […]


Create A Place To Thrive

create a place to thrive

Funny how certain conversations stick with you. When I was 16-years-old I was visiting with a college professor whose children I babysat. He asked me about my college plans and the classes I was currently taking. I told him I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. “Ah,” he said, “you […]


Little By Little Does The Trick

little by little does the trick

Buckminster Fuller requested that this phrase be placed on his headstone: Call Me Trimtab. What is a trimtab you might ask? On a boat the trimtab is a small but vital part of the rudder mechanism. On an airplane the trimtab is an adjustable tab on the trailing edge of the elevator control surface that […]


Quiet Time Is Important

quiet time is important

Do Be Do Be Do. We get so busy doing that we neglect to stop and consider our being. A quote from Kurt Vonnegut reminds me of that innate human need to maintain balance between doing and being. “To be is to do – SocratesTo do is to be – SartreDo Be Do Be Do […]


Something Worth Growing

something worth growing

A few years ago I read in a book a description of a young man who finally saw himself as “a gift worth wrapping.” This young man’s life had been full of heartbreak and loss, with not much positive feedback about his strengths. His weaknesses, and there were many, were harped on by his guardians, […]


Knowing Who Your Child Is

knowing who your child is

Wouldn’t it be great if we had an internal compass to let us know what direction we were headed? Actually we are born with a tendency to attach positively to the people, objects, ideas and nature that surround us. Our preferences for interaction with our environment create our compass. Unfortunately, we can’t read this compass […]