In my teaching role I have the opportunity to take college students through the forest of mirrors that is the world of political and military deception. The course centers on overcoming self-deception and deceptions induced by others through the application of sound critical thinking skills, awareness of heuristics that are helpful and cognitive bias that […]
Sometimes it is a useful exercise to recount the story of our life, but it can also be an irritating bore. The key to being a good story teller is often found by zeroing in the moral of the story. A good story teaches and informs. It unpacks the lessons of the past and brings
The Stories We Tell Read More »
Overwhelm is a real problem for a lot of people, me included. This emotion can trigger a cascade of thoughts and behaviors that bog us down in the swamp of inaction and stagnation. The swamp of overwhelm is filled with nasty little critters. Thoughts that have us focused on everything that’s going wrong (mental filtering),
Slogging through the “Swamp of Overwhelm” Read More »
When assessing ourselves in the context of developing the life we want to live, it can be useful to take some time and think about the responsibilities and commitments we are obliged to follow. The goal isn’t to judge these obligations as good or bad. It is to assess how they impact our thoughts, feelings,
Conducting a Personal Obligation Inventory Read More »
The “World” is a crazy place and at times it can seem like it is spinning out of control… because it very well might be, and usually is… At times like this, my resolve to stay focused on what I can control is pushed and tested. It is tempting to get into the headlines, the
The World Will Spin, but We Can Stay Steady Read More »
For a lot of people, understanding themselves often stops once they have made a list of likes and dislikes. This list of preferences can be handy, but it lacks depth. What I would encourage you to do is to go beyond just identifying preference and explore your capabilities and capacity. Try starting with these basic
An Honest Measure of Yourself Read More »
I spend a lot of time thinking about what it means to live a life worth living. Over my years of study, reflection, and some experience I think I have landed on one of the key ingredients. The keystone factor in living a life worth living is that YOU must see it is worth living.
A life Worth Living Read More »
You can recover from the vast majority of mistakes. When I teach clients and groups about the stages of change I try to emphasize the high likelihood that once we start taking action to change we will fail… and that failure is OK. It might even be necessary for real growth and development. What I
This morning I was reading about “cultivating indifference” and I had the thought… Hey man, just relax. And that thought really annoyed me. Here is why I think it annoyed me. When we sit in judgement of the things around us we are putting them into categories that might look something like “this is good”
Hey man, just relax… Read More »
Just because you have a temper does not mean you should have a tantrum. Frustration and anger are some seriously powerful emotions, and they can be useful for us… why else would we have them? Problems start to come up when we channel frustration and anger into behaviors that dig us into a hole, slam
Stop Throwing Tantrums Read More »
