A few days ago I listened to Doug Stevenson—teacher of the Story Theater Method—share how he improved his relationship with his young step-son. Doug related how hard he was trying to communicate with his teenage stepson and that nothing seemed to work. His communications were being ignored, or mis-understood and he was getting nowhere fast….
My sister told me about Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford commencement address where Jobs told three stories about his life that bring powerful perspecitve to education, work and life. Here’s my take on those three stories. 1. Education – don’t be a sheep about it I think most people know that Bill Gates was a Harvard…
On April 5th, 2011 I ended a 17month affair with the DVORAK system of typing. It really was more than an affair as I officially stopped using QWERTY (after some three decades of cold hard typing) and began my first tentative and clumsy keystrokes on a DVORAK keyboard. I quit QWERTY because DVORAK seemed much…
My last post dealt with the very real consequences to you of the bad habit – and it is a bad habit – of taking things personally. If you tend to take things personally, others around you will notice and will take care to either avoid sensitive topics or avoid you all together. Either way…
Have you heard the joke where this guy walks into the doctors office and says, “Doc, it hurts everytime I do this,” as he demonstrates bending his arm at elbow; to which the doctor replies “Well stop doing that.” (Groucho Marx?) Taking things personally is just like that. It hurts when we do it and…
In my last post I wrote about the Consequences of Gossiping and like most things in life there are many shades of grey. Below there is an amusing story about gossiping that suggests that while you are well advised to remove yourself from gossip it is not wise to be completely oblivious to it. Here’s…
The essence of practice is the consciousness or intention you bring to the practice – something that you willingly choose to participate in every day. Long held practices take on a life of their own and if there is no clear purpose to the practice we call them habits. For some gossiping is a habit,…
In the quest to improve performance we’ve gone through several useful philosophies about what to manage, specifically we’ve been told to practice managing: time people projects energy These are all valuable management philosophies but they do not acknowledge the most fundamental practice: the practice of managing commitments. What are commitments? Commitments take several forms e.g….
Everybody loves simplification so here are two simple principles you can use in the practice of your life; two principles you must own to get more from life—and by “own” I mean not just understand and explain, but know and act from (without thinking) like an extension of your own mind and body. These principles…
Seems like an odd question to ask. The answer is, well … do your best; give it everything you’ve got. What does that mean, everything you’ve got? I hear people say they gave it 100%, and others say that they gave 200%. Hmmm. Makes me wonder if they have any idea what percentages mean. All…
Have you ever listened to the pharmaceutical adverts on TV? As the soothing voice says “Absolv, when taken immediately after upsetting your partner can bring on feelings of contriteness that a puppy would envy. Clinical studies have shown that 77% of users of Absolv are forgiven for extreme transgressions including not sharing with housework, coming…
Many moons ago a senior director at my old company sat with me talking about my career and said, “Peter your problem is you have no ambition.” That felt like a slap across the face because at the time there was no one working harder than I was and prior to coming to the head…
As we drove along the winding road to Maracas beach in Trinidad, my friend Ilene said to me, “You know, I’ve come to realize that there’s only one thing you really need to get when you have a boss.” “Really?” I replied; my sense of intrigue and wonder stimulated because Ilene is one of the…
If you find yourself blaming someone for some unwelcome outcome or a broken relationship, you might want to consider that nothing is ever 100% anybody’s fault. Accepting this requires an ability to expand your perspective on any situation. For example, in criminal justice it may be relatively easy to prove who robbed the convenience store…
Do you think you should acknowledge people for just doing their jobs; for just doing what they’re supposed to? Many people would say no, of course not. They’re doing the absolute minimum required and it’s only service or results over and above the norm that should be acknowledged or rewarded. If you think this way…
The essence of practice is the consciousness or intention you bring to the practice – something that you willingly choose to participate in every day. Long held practices take on a life of their own and if there is no clear purpose to the practice we call them habits. For some gossiping is a habit,…
If you take a telescope and look upwards and outwards, you’ll soon gain a healthy perspective on how small, how insignificant we and our planet are in the grand scale of our galaxy and the universe. You’ll be similarly amazed if you take a microscope and look inwards; there’s an entire universe of cells, atomic…
You heard me! It’s big, it’s round, it’s talked about, it’s yours. So learn to love it. Would like to say this is a quote from “Embracing Your Big Fat Ass: An Owner’s Manual,” but I haven’t read it … yet. I probably won’t but it is possible. While big fat asses may not be…
What is your concept of the truth, and why is it germane to the practice of your life? Well think about it. If you live your life according to things that you believe are true, and they’re only partially true or flat out wrong, what do you think the impact would be on your life?…
