Category: Musings
Parenting, the Biggest Job You’ll Ever Have: Three Ways to Set Your Children Up for Well-Being
I wish you bad luck… from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved… -Chief Justice Roberts in his June 3, 2017 commencement address to his son’s middle school graduation Parenting has been our biggest job and the one for which we were least prepared. As relatively new empty-nesters, now we are enjoying watching our daughter, age 22, and our son, age 20, compose their lives. Here are three principles that have informed our parenting and helped our children tap their potential. Acceptance Acceptance, aka unconditional love, takes work. We assume everyone is on a unique trajectory through life. This idea keeps us […]
Freedom from Worry: How to Move from Control to Faith
I’m a lover of reality. When I argue with What Is, I lose, but only 100% of the time. –Byron Katie My daughter graduated college this May. She’s busy having fun travelling and submitting job applications. She says I ask her too often about her plans. What I consider to be helpful, she considers to be hovering. She’s right, I do worry too much about my kids. My daughter’s career, like her entire life, is “her business.” My angst about being the perfect parent and making sure my kids are set for life is “my business.” Maybe I should be worrying about my plans, not hers. The Cost of Comfort On a recent walk with my friend Tom, I realized […]
Getting on the Fast Track to Wisdom: 4 Ways to Benefit from Difficult Times
Every single thing that has ever happened in your life is preparing you for a moment that is yet to come. -Unknown Jennifer’s voice was tentative. Absent was the ‘Take no prisoners’ energy I had found so inspiring over the ten years I had known her. She loved her work and how her CEO role kept her in the lime light. She quickly shared the intensity of the day when the private-equity investors fired her. She had delivered seven years of strong financial results. Then the company hit two choppy quarters and the investors’ limited patience ran out. I could relate. Twenty years earlier I was sitting across from the Chairman of the Board in an unscheduled meeting as he […]
The Good Life: What to Do When Life Doesn’t Go According to Plan
Everyone has a plan ′till they get punched in the mouth. Mike Tyson Are you living the life you envisioned when you were 21? I don’t know many people over 50 who are still on their “Plan A.” My Plan A went out the window the day my parents told my brother, sister and me they were getting a divorce. We each turned to each other and said, “This happens to other people’s families, not to our family.” Unexpected things happen on the way to realizing our vision of an accomplished career, growing business, sizable net worth, marital bliss, above-average children, and a low handicap. Life is just a series of unexpected events. Life Happens We live our life torn […]
The Happiness of Pursuit: How to Focus Your Life on What Really Matters
Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. ~ John Lennon Do you think you should be happier? In his recent autobiography Shoe Dog, Phil Knight, founder of Nike, recounts a major milestone in both his life and the life of Nike. The year was 1980, it was the night of Nike’s wildly-successful IPO and Phil’s shares in Nike were valued at $178 million. As he rested his head on his pillow to go to sleep he had one overwhelming and unexpected feeling, regret. He knew that while the IPO marked the beginning of a new and expansive stage in the life of his company, it was also the end of one of the most exciting […]
How to Cultivate an Open Mind
Ignorance is never random. ~ Gunner Myrdal We are living in a period of dramatic change. It became obvious on 9/11. The 2008 financial crisis, Brexit and the US Presidential election are more recent markers of a big shift. Humans are changing the way they view morality, religion, politics, education and marriage, just to name a few domains. The old is breaking down and the new is emerging, albeit clumsily at times. When I get rattled I have to remind myself to look at the big picture and recognize I am living in the middle of a broad cycle of human evolution. We typically resist deep change. Most of us settle for the devil we know. Then we get thrown […]
Three Key Ingredients of a Successful Relationship
By Tricia and Brian Gast ‘T is a fearful thing To Love What death can touch. To love, to hope, to dream And oh, to lose. – Judah Halevi or Emmanuel of Rome We celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary last month in Southern Spain. Specifically, we celebrated the friendship, support, depth and intimacy of our relationship. We celebrated the feeling that in some ways our relationship is just getting going and we wonder about its potential. Relationships are often challenging. The first five years of our marriage were not as good as the last five. Yet we are not the same people now that we were in our thirties. We’ve each grown and we relate differently. Our relationship has worked […]
What Truly Will Make You Happy?
Lars Petersson, President of IKEA US, recently presented results from IKEA-sponsored research that indicates Americans are buying less stuff for their homes and that this trend is expected to continue. The research also indicates that American’s are instead valuing experiences around the kitchen table more than cool products for the home and that spending less on stuff is helping American’s realize a dream that goes beyond owning material things. Could it be that we are figuring out the key to happiness? Could it be we are sacrificing one household budget line item for another versus “wanting it all” even if that means spending more than what we can afford? Are we abandoning an empty dream? Is Happiness an Illusion? Over […]
Three Heads are Better than One: How to Tap Your Wisdom Through the Use of Your Three Brains
Neuroscientists have discovered the source of wisdom. Not only are our brains regenerative and plastic, we actually have three of them. We have a brain located in our head, our heart and our gut. The work of the HeartMath Institute* has demonstrated that the area around our heart is loaded with neurology that connects us to our environment, determines our sense of aliveness and expands our access to our intuition. Dr. Michael Gerson, author of The Second Brain is among a growing group of researchers proving that our digestive tract, and in particular our small intestine, contains more neurons then our head. Are You a Head, Heart or Gut Type? We each have a bias to use one brain center […]
The Only Communication Tool You’ll Ever Need
Alphabet, parent company of Google, is developing a device that will help humans get along. It’s called the Arrester. It was created with the premise that if we just stopped saying certain things and started saying other things we would have more satisfying, nonviolent interactions. Research in the field of Positive Psychology indicates that satisfying interactions lead to deeper connections, greater happiness and increased longevity, yet many people lack basic communication skills. Scientists and behaviorists at Alphabet came up with a solution that will solve more important problems than driverless cars. The tiny device is implanted in your torso. It detects changes in your neurology associated with different emotions, anticipates corresponding behavior and verbal expression, and controls your response. For […]
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