A Sister's Deathless Legacy of Love
"After living through an experimental cancer treatment my sister Barb was left unable to work. When she was offered the opportunity to do a mission trip in India if she could come up with $3,000 - she was left thinking there was no way she could go. No way to raise the funds. She asked me to brainstorm with her as to how she could raise money. "The only thing I can do is hug," she told me - and th... posted on Jul 18 2012, 16,217 reads

Awakening Our Collaborative Spirit
"The notion that open and honest collaboration allows thinking to grow as a collective phenomenon can be traced back to Socrates and other thinkers in ancient Greece. Socrates and his friends so revered the concept of group dialogue that they bound themselves by principles of discussion that they established to maintain a sense of collegiality. These principles were known as 'Koinonia' which means... posted on Jul 17 2012, 22,347 reads

The Radical Dissent of Helen Keller
The bronze statue of Helen Keller that sits in the U.S. Capitol shows the blind girl standing at a water pump. It depicts the moment in 1887 when her teacher, Anne Sullivan, spelled "W-A-T-E-R" into one of her 7-year-old pupil's hands while water streamed into the other. This was Keller's awakening, when she made the connection between the word Sullivan spelled and the tangible substance splashing... posted on Jul 16 2012, 34,696 reads

The Second Glance
Have you ever cringed at the sight of a human being who is physically disfigured? David Roche, who was born with a facial disfigurement, spent years trying to hide from himself. At middle age, he discovered his inner beauty, his spirit and his strength, and he has dedicated his life to helping all people find the inner beauty within themselves and in others.... posted on Jul 15 2012, 4,721 reads

Mystery Knitter's Olympic Masterpiece
"Residents of Saltburn, in North Yorkshire, are scratching their heads today after a mysterious 'yarnbomber' wrapped the town's pier with a 50-yard scarf stretching out along the railings. The impressive garment features woollen athletes competing in various Olympic events, from synchronised swimmers to rowers and cyclists, and has delighted young and old alike as the town discusses the good yarn.... posted on Jul 14 2012, 19,898 reads

Vanishing Voices: The World's Endangered Languages
"One language dies every 14 days. By the next century nearly half of the roughly 7,000 languages spoken on Earth will likely disappear, as communities abandon native tongues in favor of English, Mandarin, or Spanish. What is lost when a language goes silent?" This in-depth National Geographic feature probes the beauty, significance, richness and fragility of the world's vanishing tongues.... posted on Jul 13 2012, 5,094 reads

Learning from the Wisdom of the Body
"It's amazing that our interpretation of experiences can generate intense visceral responses. The fact that we get goosebumps when we are inspired or afraid is one of many everyday indicators of just how deeply and intricately connected our minds and bodies are. In fact, the mind and body are an intertwined whole -- and there is great wisdom in the totality of our mind-body experience. There are s... posted on Jul 12 2012, 16,642 reads

Google's Jolly Good Fellow on Inner Peace
Chade-Meng Tan (widely known as Meng) was among the earliest engineers to be hired at Google. When Google allowed engineers to spend 20% of their time pursuing their passion, Meng decided to spend his time on a cause dear to his heart: Launching a conspiracy to bring about world peace. Meng believes that world peace can be achieved -- but only if people cultivate the conditions for inner peace wit... posted on Jul 11 2012, 21,341 reads

Starting A Slow Story Movement
"It is said that we become the stories that we tell among ourselves. This might have been true before we became salespersons. For a few decades now, I think we have become numb to the stories that we tell among ourselves. So stories have become shorter and crisper to the length of a tweet. We are so committed to telling a story to the point that finally what remains is a dimensionless point. There... posted on Jul 10 2012, 15,094 reads

The Importance of Learned Optimism
"[The illiterate of the 21st century,' Alvin Toffler famously said, 'will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.' Martin Seligman's celebrated book, Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life, was originally published 20 years ago and remains an indispensable tool for learning the cognitive skills that decades of research have shown t... posted on Jul 09 2012, 18,043 reads