Judgement and forgiveness
Why do we find it so easy to judge and so hard to forgive?
All posts filed under: Monday Musings
Thoughts to start off the work week
Daydreaming Makes a Comeback
“Life is already too short to waste on speed.”
Don’t create followers, create more leaders
Leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders.
Our Country is Like a Really Old House
With instant communication and connections, one can travel the globe and still face issues from home. We may try to block them out, but they come up in conversations in other countries. In feeds on social media. During sermons.* Even in a toy display in a store window! I’ve been reminded again during my travels that in today’s global world, there are many national issues with international ramifications. Thomas Fingar — the Shorenstein APARC Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, former chairman of the National Intelligence Council, and former Assistant Secretary of State — lectured on the Japan / Korea / China / United States relationships during the Asian portion of my current trip. Fingar provided a realistic and sometimes sobering assessment of future difficulties (many self-inflicted) as we were visiting sites of great beauty and centuries-old history. A few days later I arrived in the U.K. as Prime Minister Theresa May was resigning and the airways were filled with commentary (some from the current resident of the White …
Life-long learners
Some of the most interesting travelers are life-long learners. While taking in the wonders of place, people, and culture on recent trips to Japan, South Korea, and the United Kingdom, I’ve spent time observing my fellow travelers. The reasons for travel vary widely. Some individuals finally have the time and resources to venture to new horizons while others are serious compilers—and completers—of bucket lists. The reasons are almost as endless as the people joining me in visiting the temples, shrines, gardens, mountains, priories, theatres, museums, and much more along the way. Life-long learners take a special approach to travel, just as they do in life. They are curious, to be certain, but most are also risk takers. In The Leadership Machine, authors Michael Lombardo and Robert Eichinger suggest that learners are “willing to feel and look stupid” because they can admit what they don’t know and are eager to move forward to learn. In the working world they are often the ones willing to “go against the grain of what they know how to do and …
Children of the drum
We need to remember the basic things that make us human, helping us work together in community. We need to get to the heartbeat.
In search of the worst case scenario
I have only recently come to accept that I’ve spent my entire life as a worrywart. This is hard to admit, because I worry what people will think of me if they know that I’ve lived a life of constant concern about what can go wrong. Knowing I dwell unduly on difficulty or troubles, will family, friends, and colleagues think less of me? A quote attributed to Mark Twain (and recently repeated during a lecture I heard by a Zen Buddhist monk at Tenryu-ji Temple in Kyoto, Japan) gets at the heart of the issue: “I have been through some terrible things in my life, some which actually happened.” Until recently, I attributed my willingness to dwell on the worst case scenario to good planning. Having an advanced degree in planning led me to rationalize that I was simply trying to make sure things went well by gaming out all the things that could go wrong. But it was pointed out recently that perhaps I’ve taken that to extremes. I could tell I was driving …
How can I miss you if you won’t go away?
Sometimes it’s hard to say good-bye. Last week, former Vice President Joe Biden—at 76 years of age and counting—became the twentieth announced Democratic candidate for President. As many have noted, he’s not even the oldest aspirant in the field. That would be 77 year old Senator Bernie Sanders, running again after coming in second to Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary in 2016. Both white males are vying to replace another white male, 72 year old Donald Trump. So much for the generational change with diverse candidates who look more like America that was to occur when the 47 year old Barack Obama assumed the presidency in 2009. Not to mention the glass ceiling, which remains very much in place. Knowing how and when to step aside for a more diverse, younger generation of leaders is very much front page news for the Democratic Party as the nation heads into another presidential election cycle. A recent Suzanna Danuta Walters op-ed in the Washington Post argues that male politicians “have a responsibility—if they really do want …
A crisis is a terrible thing to waste
A bad report from the doctor. An unexpected shift downward in job prospects. A jarring call in the middle of the night. An unwelcomed story on the front page of the New York Times. Each is a crisis. Crises are inevitable. How we respond says a great deal about our courage and fortitude. It was Stanford economist Paul Romer who coined the famous soundbite, “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” Others have used similar language, including former Intel CEO and Chairman Andrew Grove. When speaking of his company’s Pentium Processor flaw in 1994, Grove said, “Bad companies are destroyed by crisis, Good companies survive them, Great companies are improved by them.” In a recent Politics and Prose presentation, Reed Hundt—author of A Crisis Wasted* and former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission—discussed the global financial meltdown and Great Recession of 2008-2009. While his new book studies the courage and fortitude of those addressing this financial crisis, Hundt goes further to describe key elements in responding effectively to moments of upheaval. First, correct diagnosis of …
Stretch your mind
We have an “almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.”
MORE TO COME... 