The Asymmetry of Life
“Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult-once we truly understand and accept it-then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that […]
Sidezoomers, Lineuppers and Surrounding Togetherness Pressures
I was listening to a recent Freakonomics podcast where they discussed the issue of what to do when a highway merges from two lanes to one. As Cynthia Gorney writes in her New York Times article, The Urge to Merge, this situation presents an ethical dilemma. Do you line up in the remaining lane well […]
Train Your Brain to Better Handle Stress
When anxiety strikes, it can consume you. It not only takes over your thoughts, it takes over your body. Your breathing gets shallow, your chest gets tight and your muscles tense. It’s not fun. I wrote this post with some practical steps on how you can cope with stress, in the moment. However, I recently […]
Which Do You Feed, Anxiety or Hope?
An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside of me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego.” […]
The Problem with Seriousness
Most of what I’ve learned in family systems is counter-intuitive. Dealing with anxiety is no exception. A big takeaway is that the anxiety I feel about a situation has more to do with me and how I function in my family of origin than it does about the content of the situation. This is […]
Trouble Managing Anxiety? Talk to Your Family
The Lord passed before Moses, and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, yet by no means clearing the guilty, but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children’s […]
Vision without Emotional Connection is Narcissism
I learned a long time ago that the leader of an organization needs to spend about 80% of her time in the future. The day-to-day is important, but somebody needs to know where the organization should go to fulfill its mission, whether that’s saving souls, saving the world or making a profit. If you don’t […]
Making a Difference Is Scary
Seth Godin recently had a blog post entitled “Feels risky.” He writes every day and his posts are usually brief. Here is the entire post: “The gulf between “risky” and “feels risky” is huge. And it’s getting bigger. It turns out that value creation lives in this gap. The things that most people won’t […]
When It Comes to Work and Life, Balance Is a Verb, Not a Noun
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven…” Ecclesiastes 3:1 I have written about how I have grown to love daily routines. They provide a rhythm of important habits that help me as a person and as a leader. These include prayer, meditation, exercise, journaling, writing and yes, even […]
