Today is the anniversary of the birth of Helen Keller, a woman whose life was a portrait of resilience. Even today, 143 years after her birth in a northern Alabama hamlet named after a Chickasaw tribal rainmaker, people share her ideas about happiness and leading a useful, productive life. Schoolchildren learn about how she overcame her disabilities and graduated from Radcliffe College, which is now Harvard University. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, her statue stands in the US Capitol building, and a movie about her young life and the teacher who was able to find a way to reach her, The Miracle Worker, won two Academy Awards.
Illness – probably meningitis – when she was less than two years old left Helen Keller deaf, blind, and without language. Since she couldn’t hear, she didn’t have a way to even know words existed. Since she was blind, she didn’t have a way to grasp the abstract concept of objects and their descriptors. The fact...
This week let’s talk about leaders. Sunday is Father’s Day and it’s a good time to look back over your life and reflect on the first leadership style that influenced you. Whether your father was great, good, bad, abysmal, or absent, you learned lessons from him that can serve you now.
There’s an old adage that you may be familiar with: “There are no business problems, only leadership problems.” That’s how important leadership skills are. Businesses rise and fall based on the strength of their leader and that person’s team. Would Apple have been as successful without Steve Jobs? Would Microsoft have been a behemoth without Bill Gates? Would Harpo have become a multi-billion-dollar enterprise without Oprah Winfrey?
Great leaders have some traits in common:
Poor leaders have some traits in common, too:
One word. Five letters. Many meanings. Some angst. Some anger. Some pride. Here are some definitions, according to Oxford Languages:
“Pride” is a word with a lot of conflicted history behind it. Pride was first on the list of the seven deadly sins, yet “pride of place” speaks to giving the very best location to a person or object that is revered. Then there’s the sense of national pride, which is celebrated the world over. Pride can be very confusing!
C.S. Lewis, writing in “Mere Christianity,” said: “A proud man is...
Quick…what does “creativity” mean to you? If you automatically conjure thoughts of crayons and paste, of sculptures and works by Old Masters, and of pottery wheels and hit songs, you’re right…partially right, anyway.
Oxford Online defines creativity as, “the use of the imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work.” That aligns with most peoples’ definition of creativity – more in the direction of art, music, and maybe even interior design and architecture. Creativity is SO much more than that and is a valuable skill that everyone can benefit from developing.
According to the American Psychological Association, writing about ongoing research studies around creativity, most scientists agree that there are two kinds of creativity – little “c” creativity and big “C” creativity. Little “c” creativity is used as an indicator of mental health and relates to...
This week let’s talk about some mental shortcuts many people take, and how harmful they can be to relationships of every kind.
If you’ve watched the news, scrolled through social media, or listened to conversations around you, you’ve probably been exposed to those common mental shortcuts, as well as many others. Our human brains are wired to see the things around us that support what we already believe, strengthening those beliefs and making the shortcuts feel valid.
In addition to being common, the shortcuts cited above are incorrect, unkind, and unloving. When we allow ourselves to rely on the shortcuts our brains want to take, we cut ourselves off from...
Whether there are kids in your home or not, you’re probably thinking about doing something this summer. Because of the rhythm of years in childhood, most of us associate the summer months with vacation time. What are your vacation plans?
Don’t have any? You’re in good company – nearly a third of Americans don’t have travel plans either. Inflation is pricing some of them out of travel, some don’t have anyone to go with them and don’t want to go it alone, and some of them are the same people who lose it every year.
Do you use it or do you lose it? Vacation time, I mean. On average, Americans give back nearly 10 vacation days a year to their employers. I won’t ask a nosy question like how much do you make per year – I’ll just ask you to do the math. Take your daily rate, multiply it by the number of vacation days you didn’t use last year, and think about whether you’d just give that much money away. Because you...
She is revered. She is vilified. She is someone that most of us took for granted, not realizing that she was a person with a life, hopes, and dreams before us, and plans for her own life that didn’t necessarily include us. She is Mother and this Sunday is her day.
Relationships are difficult at times, and many people have difficulties putting their “Mom relationship” into perspective. For those of us whose moms are no longer alive in a physical body, this week can be tough, and for those who resent or even hate their moms, this week can be even harder in many ways. All that serves to make this week before Mother’s Day a challenging one for many of us to find emotional peace and balance. It can be done, though – the same tools that help you put other things into perspective work for this, too.
Neuroplasticity came into being as a field of study when doctors watched patients re-acquire skills lost after a stroke. Researchers studied the process our brains...
This week’s topic might make you roll your eyes. That’s OK. This week’s topic may make you think, “I’ve tried and it doesn’t work for me.” That’s OK, too. Keep reading for the why’s and how’s about adding … gasp! … meditation to your daily routine.
There are a lot of reasons people give for not meditating – they don’t understand what it is, they don’t understand what it does for them, and maybe they think they don’t have time for meditation. Let’s take those reasons, one by one:
What is meditation? It’s simply quieting your mind for a few minutes while remaining awake. That’s all. Most major religions have meditative practices, though meditation itself isn’t a religious activity. You don’t need special clothes, music, flexibility, or space to meditate – comfy clothes, a comfy chair or couch, and a space you can be undisturbed for a short period of...
If April showers bring May flowers, you know it’s time for peek-toes, flip-flops, and bare feet very soon! That’s probably why today is National Mani-Pedi day – gotta get those foot-tootsies summer-ready. Yes, even if you’re a dude, the benefits of carving an hour or so out of your day for pampering is a highly recommended experience.
Taking care of yourself with things like manicures, pedicures, facials, and massages can sometimes feel self-indulgent and maybe even wasteful. It’s not – taking care of yourself is giving yourself permission to relax as you allow someone to help you look and feel your best. Making time and space in your life to do things to help you live well and be healthier is, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, the perfect way to manage your stress, increase your energy, and reduce your risk of illness.
There – did that get your attention? NIMH wants you to get a mani-pedi this week!
Self-care helps your...
Today is so taxing! If you’ve noticed that people are cranky, distant, or just plain missing, it’s probably because today is the day Uncle Sam demands his due. It’s tax day, and those who waited until the last minute have discovered that there aren’t a lot more minutes left to get all that paperwork handled.
As irritating as it can be to do make-work for the government and perhaps write a big check on top of it, there are other irritations often found in the workplace that you may have to deal with on a daily basis. Here are the top 5 things that team members do that annoy their coworkers:
In the post-pandemic world, people tend to be more stressed and touchier about the idiosyncrasies they find in their co-workers. Whether in person or...
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