To Affect the Quality of the Day
"Either way, there I am with recently-turned-eight year old Neha under the Coral Jasmine tree; I reach over and shake the trunk gently and she tilts her head up and watches the white sudden swirl of blossoms falling like stars, like snowflakes with an expression of perfectly mingled awe and delight (my day is Made in that moment). And then we both bend to the sweetly-scented task at hand. I find m... posted on Sep 28 2011, 2,904 reads

Why Collaboration is Risky -- And Worthwhile
"Why is teamwork so difficult? Because collaboration is actually a pretty risky business. Perhaps, like me, you are generally of the mindset that two heads are better than one. But because your ideas frequently get co-opted, there's a risk-reward imbalance that makes you reluctant to engage. Or maybe you've reached out to a potential collaborator only to have your lack of expertise exploited. So, ... posted on Sep 27 2011, 13,592 reads

6 Ways to Boost Your Helping Habits
"Just last year, a survey of 4,500 American adults showed that 73 percent agreed that "volunteering lowered my stress levels," 89 percent reported that "volunteering has improved my sense of well-being," and 92 percent agreed that volunteering enriched their sense of purpose in life. These benefits are available even -- or perhaps especially -- to those in the midst of crisis. A recent study by my... posted on Sep 26 2011, 12,588 reads

The Flip Side of Your Signature Strength
"As an executive coach interested in exploring what drives people to successes and failures, I have worked with hundreds of ambitious people including business executives, sports legends and Nobel laureates. One key discovery I made repeatedly over the last fifteen years is that there is a common driver to the successes and failures of the people I studied. I call this driver, the 'Signature Stren... posted on Sep 25 2011, 12,109 reads

Wind Powered Art
Beautiful art can inspire a person to see life in a totally new way. Theo Jansen is the Dutch creator of what he calls "Kinetic Sculptures," where nature and technology meet. Essentially these sculptures are robots powered only by the wind. Amazingly, these machines are made completely of recycled items. The 'stomach' of the sculpture is made with retired plastic bottles that capture the air pumpe... posted on Sep 24 2011, 6,706 reads

6 Tips for Raising Non-Competitive Kids
Competition, according to author and lecturer Alfie Kohn, is defined as any situation where one person can succeed only when others fail. Kohn is convinced that we've all bought into dangerous myths about the value of competition in our personal lives, workplaces, society, and economic system. He laid out his arguments in his 1986 book No Contest: The Case Against Competition, and he's been spread... posted on Sep 23 2011, 18,320 reads

Unexpected Gestures of Compassion
"Through some incredible good luck no one was seriously hurt but the experience was very frightening. There was so much smoke that my first thought was to just get out of my car as fast as I could. I could hear the children from the car behind me screaming and crying as I was trying to claw my way out of my car. When I got out, I could see their mum was frantically trying to comfort her shaking c... posted on Sep 22 2011, 4,239 reads

Food Abundance from Food Waste
Every week they provide food for as many as 1,500 households in Marin County (CA). They don't charge for the food. Nor do they get paid themselves. Who are these people and why do they do this? They are two community elders, Ruth Schwartz and her husband Curt Kinkead, supported by a team of about 100 volunteers. They do it because Curt "gets fed by the joy he sees in the people who come to collect... posted on Sep 21 2011, 9,941 reads

Why Does Beauty Exist?
"Why does beauty exist? What's the point of marveling at a Rembrandt self portrait or a Bach fugue? To paraphrase Auden, beauty makes nothing happen. Unlike our more primal indulgences, the pleasure of perceiving beauty doesn't ensure that we consume calories or procreate. Rather, the only thing beauty guarantees is that we'll stare for too long at some lovely looking thing. Museums are not exactl... posted on Sep 20 2011, 4,026 reads

How to Transform Negative Emotions
"The word emotion comes from the Latin emovere, meaning to 'move through or out.' So in its original form, there isn't any trace of clinging to, or rejecting, these movements. But instead of allowing emotions to move through and out of us, we often feed them with negative thoughts and end up giving them long-term residence. In short order, the guests take over the house, leaving us reeling and una... posted on Sep 19 2011, 68,136 reads