Learning from positive role models is definitely a good thing, however there is great value in learning from anti-role models as well. Rather than needing to make all the mistakes ourselves, we can observe the mistakes of others and learn from those. Don’t misunderstand me,…
The book of Proverbs talks a lot about wise and foolish people. And it is clear that we want to be counted among the wise. The tricky part is many of us think we are acting wise, when we are actually acting foolish.…
Reading books and blogs and listening to podcasts has had a powerful impact on my life over the past few years. All the new thoughts, ideas, and real-life stories have helped me think in new ways and take often scary action in new directions.…
Did you know your brain can learn 7 facts per second, every second, for the rest of your life and still not be one bit overloaded?! In 1968, Pyotr Anokhin of Moscow demonstrated that the minimum number of potential thought patterns the average brain…
I love legal pads. Yes, the bulky, yellow pads of paper which, in the age of smartphones and tablets, seem pretty unsexy and old fashioned. Don’t get me wrong, I love technology too. But technology is only a tool, and it is not the best tool…
In every life, there is a cord of tension stretched between our ideals and our reality, between where we would like to be and where we are right now. Learning to embrace this tension is what this post is about. We really hate tension…
This past weekend, Claudia and I dropped our son, Jude, off at his grandparents and we took off to the little coastal town of Newport, Rhode Island. We were celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary and had a great time unplugging and spending time together…
I’m reading an interesting book right now by Kevin Lehman on parenting titled Bringing Up Kids Without Tearing Them Down. Through years of counseling parents, Lehman has found that every person, by default, parents just as they were parented – unless they learn how and decide to change. He points…
Recently, I had a great conversation with a friend. Afterward, I was telling Claudia how refreshing it was to be around this person. As she and I talked, we identified three key characteristics that made my friend so refreshing and fun to be around.…
The other evening Michael and I sat in our kitchen and colored. We had two 99 cent coloring books and a box of 24 crayons. There was something wonderfully freeing about the limiting pre-drawn pictures of happy puppies and kittens and only having 24…
