are born alone. You die alone. The value of the space in between is trust and love,” Louise Bourgeois wrote to a friend in contemplating how solitude enriches creative work. But solitude — the most creatively fecund kind of which the psychoanalyst Adam Philips termed “fertile solitude” — is only one flavor of aloneness. The physical state of being alone can also be colored by the dramatically different psychic conditions of isolation and loneliness. In a beautiful forgotten essay titled “The Loneliness of Moses,” only ever published in the out-of-print 1998 anthology Loneliness (public librar... posted on Aug 21 2017 (7,089 reads)

sad to report that in the past few years, ever since uncertainty became our insistent 21st century companion, leadership has taken a great leap backwards to the familiar territory of command and control.  Some of this was to be expected, because humans usually default to the known when confronted with the unknown.  Some of it was a surprise, because so many organizations had focused on innovation, quality, learning organizations, and human motivation.  How did they fail to learn that whenever you impose control on people and situations, you only succeed in turning people into non-creative, shut-down and cynical workers? The destructive impact of command and control ... posted on Oct 3 2013 (27,506 reads)

her essay “There is No Hierarchy of Oppressions,” black lesbian feminist poet Audre Lorde wrote: “I have learned that oppression and the intolerance of difference come in all shapes and sizes and colors and sexualities; and that among those of us who share the goals of liberation and a workable future for our children, there can be no hierarchies of oppression.” Around the world, women’s movements have long recognized the wisdom of that thought, which emphasizes the way social movements benefit by recognizing the intersections between different forms of oppression. In their letter “Women for Women in Ferguson,” the National Domestic Workers All... posted on Nov 15 2016 (17,105 reads)

18, 2018 Tami Simon: This program is brought to you buy SoundsTrue.com. At SoundsTrue.com, you can find hundreds of downloadable audio learning programs plus books, music, videos, and online courses and events. At SoundsTrue.com, we think of ourselves as a trusted partner on the spiritual journey, offering diverse, in-depth, and life-changing wisdom. SoundsTrue.com. You're listening to Insights at the Edge. Today my guest is Priya Parker. Priya is a facilitator and strategic advisor. She's the founder of Thrive Labs, at which she helps activists, elected officials, corporate executives, educators, and philanthropists create transformative gatherings. She work... posted on Sep 19 2019 (7,043 reads)

rip-off Have you or any of your loved ones experienced our health care system lately? If so, how was that experience for you? Were you pleased with your care? Were you able to access the system easily? Did it treat you with dignity, respect, and competence? Did you feel well after your engagement with the system? And were you satisfied afterward that you got what you paid for? Or did you feel like the system failed you? That it addressed your acute illness but not your overall health? That it moved you around like a cog in a vast machine? That it never met your unique need? And ransacked your pocketbook in the process? According to a study by Fidelity Investments, a m... posted on Aug 25 2018 (9,421 reads)

you consider mindfulness to be just another buzzword or New Age fad, think again. Mindfulness has been around for centuries and has now made the transition from Tibetan monasteries to the corporate boardrooms of America. In "The Mindful Revolution," a recent TIME magazine article, Kate Pickert says that already many devotees see mindfulness "as an indispensable tool for coping—both emotionally and practically—with the daily onslaught." Is it worth your while, as a business owner, to pay attention to this trend? The Meaning of Mindfulness One of the best definitions of mindfulness comes from Jon Kabat-Zinn, professor of medicine emeritus at the Univ... posted on Jun 1 2014 (143,428 reads)

is not an individual property, but is a property of an entire web of relationships. It is a community practice. This is the profound lesson we need to learn from nature. The way to sustain life is to build and nurture community. A sustainable human community interacts with other communities — human and nonhuman — in ways that enable them to live and develop according to their natures. Sustainability does not mean that things do not change. It is a dynamic process of coevolution rather than a static state. Because of the close connection between sustainability and community, basic principles of ecology can also be understood as principles of community. In part... posted on Jun 17 2014 (18,413 reads)

Unified is transforming its schools by embedding social-emotional learning into the district culture—one adult at a time. Last week, The New Yorker reported that Mark Zuckerberg’s 2010 gift of $100 million to the Newark School District hadn’t really improved the schools—with most of the money having been spent on labor contracts and consulting fees. CASEL Meanwhile, on the opposite coast, Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), an urban district with demographics and challenges similar to Newark’s, has taken a very different tack to school reform—and it’s not costing $100 million: The district... posted on Aug 16 2014 (23,591 reads)

been more than a decade since I started exploring the intersection between excellence in leadership and contemplative practices like meditation. The leaders I worked with, first as vice-president of a Fortune 200 company, and then in my work as executive director of the Institute for Mindful Leadership, came from different cultures, professions and backgrounds. They were influencers in small and large organizations, teams, community groups and even their own families. Despite their differences, they had some things in common. They had bright minds, warm hearts and were drawn to leadership roles because they wanted to make a difference. They were also often overbooked, overw... posted on Feb 18 2015 (28,263 reads)

following is an excerpt from Authentic Conversations: Moving from Manipulation to Truth an Commitment, Berret-Koehler Publishers, 2008 We were consulting with a large East Coast newspaper grappling with a multimillion-dollar shortfall and the plagues of the industry in general: declining circulation, shrinking advertising revenue, and increasing newsprint prices. The problems of this newspaper were compounded by changes in the region’s demographics, which raised questions about whether the paper’s content was relevant to the readers in their market. Layoffs seemed inevitable. Hundreds were likely to lose their jobs. In preparation for a large group meeting about the... posted on Oct 22 2017 (12,008 reads)

is not an individual property, but is a property of an entire web of relationships. It is a community practice. This is the profound lesson we need to learn from nature. The way to sustain life is to build and nurture community. A sustainable human community interacts with other communities — human and nonhuman — in ways that enable them to live and develop according to their natures. Sustainability does not mean that things do not change. It is a dynamic process of coevolution rather than a static state. Because of the close connection between sustainability and community, basic principles of ecology can also be understood as principles of community. In part... posted on Feb 28 2018 (10,424 reads)

Wharton management professor Adam Grant sat down to write his new book, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know, he wanted to make the case for why executives should reconsider their approaches to how to manage people in a modern workplace and embrace new ideas, based on systematic evidence. Grant is an internationally recognized thought leader in management and workplace dynamics, best-selling author, and the co-director of Wharton People Analytics. In an Ivy Exec webinar called “Inside the Mind of Professor Adam Grant” sponsored by the Wharton MBA for Executives Program, Grant sat down with Wharton Dean Erika James, an organi... posted on May 30 2021 (5,151 reads)

following are my opinions, and do not reflect the opinions or policies of any particular prosecutor's office. (Laughter) I am a prosecutor. I believe in law and order. I am the adopted son of a police officer, a Marine and a hairdresser. I believe in accountability and that we should all be safe in our communities. I love my joband the people that do it. I just think that it's our responsibility to do it better. By a show of hands, how many of you, by the age of 25, had either acted up in school, went somewhere you were specifically told to stay out of, or drank alcohol before your legal age? (Laughter) All right. How many of you shoplifted, tried an illeg... posted on Apr 3 2016 (15,131 reads)

is the dumb silence of slumber or apathy… the fertile silence of awareness, pasturing the soul… the silence of peaceful accord with other persons or communion with the cosmos,” Paul Goodman wrote half a century ago in his taxonomy of the nine kinds of silence. Like silence, sadness too occupies a vast spectrum of hues; sadness too can be menacing — but it can also be beautiful, bountiful in its portality to other realms. Such is the rare, rapturous awareness with which the poet Mary Ruefle paints the color spectrum of sadnesses speckling her slim, miraculous collection of prose poems, meditations, divinations, and deviations My Pr... posted on Aug 21 2022 (5,723 reads)

progress, society doesn't need 'leaders' anymore.  This doesn't mean that we won't have great men amidst us.  I think great men will come and they will be vital for progress of humanity, but they will be so great that they will refuse to take up this position of leadership.   People will not follow the great men, but will listen to their thoughts, philosophies and views and through their sharing, society will find its way forward. Take a look at the Bhoodan (Land Gift) Movement, for example. Because it was entirely executed while walking, there was never any centralized leadership. If you think about it, the Buddha too, walked on foot for thousands of... posted on May 2 2018 (5,619 reads)

was on a plane, flying back to New York from California where I'd spent the week in an intense workshop, The Radically Alive Leader, led by Ann Bradney. In the aisle across from me, a mother was sitting with her two daughters, one about five years old, the other about seven. I happened to look over as the mom was working with the younger daughter on a math problem. I listened for a moment and soon found it hard to breathe. She was furious at the girl for not knowing the answers to her math problems: "Why don't you know that? What are you learning in school? All you do is watch TV!" The little girl began to cry. When she did, her mom's fury escalate... posted on May 7 2012 (25,653 reads)

be a successful leader or entrepreneur, we need to become intimate not only with our strengths but also with our blind spots, those aspects of our personality that can derail us. John C. Maxwell defines a blind spot as "an area in the lives of people in which they continually do not see themselves or their situation realistically." All of us have blind spots. A Hay Group study shows that the senior leaders in an organization are more likely to overrate themselves and to develop blind spots that can hinder their effectiveness as leaders. Another study by Development Dimensions International Inc. found that 89 percent of front-line leaders have at least one blind spot in th... posted on Sep 18 2013 (37,958 reads)

get to meet a lot of amazing, powerful leaders in our work here at Conscious Company — and yet some people stand out even more from that rarified group. Lynne Twist is one of those standouts. She’s a rare combination of driven and playful; flexible, yet clear. She brings a laser-sharp focus to living her values. She’s relentless in her pursuit of changing the dream of modern society, and it’s not all talk — she’s authentic about living it day to day. She sees the core worth of every person she’s with, whether they’re a billionaire or a poor orphan (and she’s spent plenty of time with each). If you’re with her, she... posted on Dec 7 2018 (10,471 reads)

recently came across an excerpt from the “The Power Paradox” by Dacher Keltner. The paradox, he says, is that whenever any of us find ourselves in a position of leadership, a position where we can make a positive difference for others, “the very experience of having power and privilege [can lead] us to behave, in our worst moments, like impulsive, out-of-control sociopaths.” The way out of the paradox, he says, is using “power that is given to us by others...” Reflecting on this, I shared the following story at that week’s Awakin Circle I attend in the bay area: In the early 1990s I was excited to land a job as a principal with a prestig... posted on Aug 19 2016 (14,888 reads)

the recent Thanksgiving break, I had the opportunity to meet with friends of extended family members, a couple who are engaged in both disaster relief and community planning work. She is from Nepal and he is from the U.S., and together they relayed a story about their time visiting Nepal during the devastating earthquake of 2015. The two of them were hiking in the mountains when the 7.8 magnitude quake struck. Shaken but not hurt, they made their way back to Katmandu as quickly as possible to check in on family members and then to offer their assistance to others. Originally assigned the task of loading water jugs on trucks, they then volunteered and were enlisted for their... posted on Feb 4 2017 (25,279 reads)