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An Iteration Mindset: Embrace Failure on the Road to Success
Adopt A Mindset that Welcomes Iteration Iteration is how creation works. If you’re a creator, having a mindset that lets you learn, adapt, and try
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366
Given my total lack of interest in, and knowledge of, numerology, this number has no inherent meaning to me.
![Trauma is a normal human experience. We need to know what to do with it.](https://personalstorycoach.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Pathway-1-300x225.jpg)
Citizens before consumers
One of the challenges of living in a society that encourages its members to …
![Trauma is a normal human experience. We need to know what to do with it.](https://personalstorycoach.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Pathway-1-300x225.jpg)
Marketing
Thanks to those who took me up on the offer to share some of your principles with me.
![Trauma is a normal human experience. We need to know what to do with it.](https://personalstorycoach.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Pathway-1-300x225.jpg)
Identify 10 Principles You Live By
It’s been a useful exercise to articulate a set of principles that support what I’m up to.
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2 Ways to Heal Trauma: The Stories We Tell and TRE
The newest member of our family is a 14-month-old Labradoodle named Charlie.
![Trauma is a normal human experience. We need to know what to do with it.](https://personalstorycoach.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Pathway-1-300x225.jpg)
Changes
I started this blog, along with my new coaching website, last September on my birthday.
![Trauma is a normal human experience. We need to know what to do with it.](https://personalstorycoach.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Pathway-1-300x225.jpg)
In the beginning was the conclusion
I wrote recently about Daniel Kahneman’s delineation of System One (automatic) and System Two (deliberative) thinking.
![Trauma is a normal human experience. We need to know what to do with it.](https://personalstorycoach.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Pathway-1-300x225.jpg)
Myth and reality
Storyteller Kevin Kling says that, when he turns something into a story, it doesn’t control him anymore.
![Trauma is a normal human experience. We need to know what to do with it.](https://personalstorycoach.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Pathway-1-300x225.jpg)
Growing from and toward
The storyteller Kevin Kling notes that, when we are born with a loss …
![Trauma is a normal human experience. We need to know what to do with it.](https://personalstorycoach.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Pathway-1-300x225.jpg)
Empirical thinking
The large and powerful run a greater risk of presuming their own indispensability.
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Setting the bar
A therapist friend of mine has a number of outstanding clients right now …
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The availability heuristic
The availability heuristic recognizes our tendency to think that what we see is all there is.
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Two selves
Each of us has an “experiencing self” and a “remembering self” — and they are very different.
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Beliefs and reasons
The reason why it is very hard to argue someone out of a belief is that …
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The long view
Taking the long view – returning hope to our interpretation of the data – is not exclusively the property of the marginalized …
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A needed reckoning
If we are going to save ourselves, the time is near where a reckoning must happen.
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Seeing the beyond of it
There’s a prayer composed by the late Roman Catholic Bishop Ken Untener …
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Beyond here be dragons
Humanity has mastered more of the mysteries of nature than people as recently as a century or two ago might have thought possible.
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The problem of diversity
For most of human history, most people have lived among people who are pretty much the same as themselves.
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Body and soul
There is a long history in the west of denigrating the body and privileging the mind.
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Fear, courage, discernment
I had never heard of the US gymnast Simone Biles until one of my daughters was raving about her on Monday.
![Negative emotions](https://personalstorycoach.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/nathan-dumlao-UNnwm7kgN_0-unsplash-200x300.jpg)
Stop Resisting Negative Emotions. Do This Instead
“The healing is in the return … Not in not getting lost in the beginning.” – Sharon Salzberg
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The better angels of our nature
Social scientist Nicholas Christakis has coined the term social suite …
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Meta-stories
Today we had a post-covid visit with a friend we hadn’t seen for a long time.
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Unprecedented
One of my favourite quips from 2020 was: “the unprecedented use of the word ‘unprecedented’.”
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The Art of Listening
Almost a decade ago, in an article in The New York Times Sunday Review called “The Art of Listening,” …
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Geraniums and juncos
Choosing willingness is particularly powerful when we are not able.
![willingness vs. ability](https://personalstorycoach.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/sand-2548132_1920-300x204.jpg)
Willingness vs. ability
It’s nice when both qualities come together, but it doesn’t always happen.
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Reality
On June 15, our provincial government lifted the restriction on traveling in BC.
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Wisdom and technology
This weekend, I heard a First Nation elder say “technology needs to be guarded by wisdom.”
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Inspiration or comparison
When presented with another person’s success, we get to choose …
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Confidence and hope
Confidence is statistically verifiable. Evidentiary. Rational. That which we can reasonably predict based on the facts before us.
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Civilized
Naturalist and author, Michael McCarthy, points out that we contain, deep within us …
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Resilient fragility
John Paul Lederach has devoted his life to building peace in places like Columbia and Northern Ireland.
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Uncertainty
Vincent Harding suggested that for all kinds of political, economic and psychological reasons …
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Witnesses, not spectators
Rabbi Ariel Burger, a student of Elie Wiesel, says that Wiesel literally did not sleep well at night …
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The origin of racism was a story
The beginning of racism as we think of it today began in 1453.
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Out of our mouths
Jason Reynolds notes that one of the things the pandemic has taught/reminded us …
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Our first story
Before we create and inhabit the stories of our own choosing, we inhabit the story we are raised in.
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Emotions, part 5
Using anger as an example of the difference between constructive and destructive emotions,
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Motion is not action
Like a disengaged gear spinning, or like Wile E. Coyote – legs still moving…
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Fury as a function of learning
Learning can be very upsetting and can set off a lot of negative emotions.
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Becoming, part 5
Rather than the language of the “true” and “false” self, I prefer the “essential” self.
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Becoming, part 2
Alongside and mingled together with the versions of our life offered by the world …
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Improvement, part 3
Social media encourages people to project unrealistic lives into the universe for the rest of us to envy.
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Improvement, part 1
There is an almost-unquestionable assumption baked into modern western culture …
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Freedom, part 4
When it comes to the most important occurrences in religious traditions, …
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Freedom, part 1
This week marks an important time in two thirds of the great spiritual traditions from the “west.”
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Impermanence, final (for now)
Some of the events in our life are within our control while others are not.
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Impermanence, part 1
Dualities like “us and them” are one of the ways our stories lead to confusion between reality and interpretation.
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Mouths
The German philosopher, cultural critic, and essayist, Walter Benjamin, said that the novel is actually a break from storytelling.
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Convergence, part 2
As the river that is a life – a library of tales, fables, myths, legends, poems and narratives of every description – approaches the ocean …
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Noticing, part 3
Learning to see the same things other people see – but differently – requires space.
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Witnesses
When we encounter the universe that is another person, we have a menu of choices of how to respond. Rabbi Ariel Burger observes two challenges
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The ninth symphony
n the last decade of his life, completely deaf, Ludwig van Beethoven created his Ninth Symphony.
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“I have climbed highest mountains”
The Irish rock band, U2, spoke to it for a generation or two of pop music lovers …
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Facts and opinions
It is possible to believe that there is such a thing as universally valid reason …
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Yearning for that which we are not
Part of being human involves a deep yearning for something beyond ourselves.
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Conventional thinking, part 1
I recall a (really smart) friend of mine saying, many years ago,
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A welcome place
Even though solitude is an inherently value-neutral word, many in western cultures would think of it negatively.
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Solitude and loneliness
According to the Buddhist teacher Stephen Batchelor, author of Alone with Others and The Art of Solitude, …
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Multi-tasking vs. task switching
Where focus is required, multitasking is a neurological impossibility.
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The comparing mind
Malicious code refers to tiny pieces of code that can wreck computers: viruses, trojan horses, worms, etc. They are introduced to a computer when the
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Sleeping with bread
Before it was the title of a book, it was a story from the bombing raids of World War 2 Europe.
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Choice
We have more choices and decisions to make in a day than any other humans in the history of the species.
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The artist and the art
The biggest, most important task we can undertake is that of becoming our true self.
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The grand vision
The difference between the masters and the rest of us is not that they were born with a larger vision
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Anxiety
One only has to spend a little time in any state of awareness of what’s going on…
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Subjectivities
Reflecting on isolation, a friend notes that, to the extent that our sense of self derives from our interactions with others, when we are cut off, those parts of us begin to atrophy.
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Listening
Everywhere you go – inside yourself or in the world – there is a conversation going on.
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The narrative of our time
What might be called “the narrative of our (any) time” is never singular.
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Intentions and Values
As I said yesterday, a resolution on its own is not robust enough to effect change.
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Refusing to refuse
The poet and philosopher David Whyte observes that humans seem to have the unique quality to resist being who we are.
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A too-small reality
It is easy to get caught in the web of a too-small vision of reality
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Boxing day
Its archaic origins shrouded in the mists of time, “Boxing Day” dates back to the 1830s
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Incarnation
Today, Christians around the world (minus the Orthodox churches) celebrate the feast of Christmas.
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Knowing is not doing
It’s so obvious a statement that it’s not particularly interesting. It illustrates the point that knowing something (saying “knowing isn’t doing”) by itself is not very compelling.
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The speed of trust
In addition to the title of a book by Steven Covey, this is a principle “with legs.”
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Delight and despair
The ability to select for danger has an evolutionary advantage. So does the ability to select for love.
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Planning for the inevitable
I recently heard a friend describe the practice of midwifery as “planning for the inevitable.”
The surprise can be the gift
A friend of mine is known to wrap up and give as gifts the most mundane items.
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Critical yeast
John Paul Lederach is an academic, mediator, negotiator, peacebuilding practitioner, trainer and consultant at the forefront of international peace building efforts.
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If you want to go fast
“If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.” – African proverb
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Go slow to go fast
Whether one is talking about product development, dog training, weight loss, or just about anything else, “go slow to go fast” is a reliable basic principle.
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Generational time
When it comes to large-scale cultural and social change, the actor and artist America Ferrera says …
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Your 200-year present
Elise Boulding was a Norwegian-born, American Quaker sociologist …
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One layer at a time
There is a Chinese proverb that says one cannot make rice plants grow faster by pulling on their tops.
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Magic
We spend a lot of our lives being miserable about things that are either over or haven’t happened.
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The freedom paradox
Freedom parallels money in that people with either too little or too much of it are frequently unhappy.
![happiness and joy](https://personalstorycoach.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/aman-shrivastava-w6caoaJzXIE-unsplash-300x199.jpg)
Happiness and Joy: Understandings and Nuance
Happiness makes a fine road-side stop, and a poor destination.
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Hope, part 1
November 1, 1989: the 28-year-old Berlin wall (and the cold war it symbolized) was going to last forever.
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Nothing
Once upon a time, a man had finished evening prayers and stood contemplating the night sky.
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Memory
While it has nothing to do with the actual etymology of the word, “remember” connotes putting back together
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The statue of responsibility
The psychiatrist and existentialist philosopher Viktor Frankl suggested that
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So much to love, part 1
Culturally, we appear to be committed to an impoverished definition of love:
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The value of knowledge
There was a time when humans believed we lived on a flat earth with sky above us.
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Candles and Stories
Our son, Ben, and his partner recently bought his sister a birthday present
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Getting there from here
When we think about how to travel from where we are to where we want to go
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Re-narrating our encounters
A Buddhist monk, when asked how he copes with moving through the world,
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Happenings, not things
Physicists tell us that there is no such thing as “here” and “now.”
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Genius Hesitates
“It seems to me …” – Albert Einstein, from the introduction to his article introducing quantum mechanics.
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The breakfast reset hypothesis
My son-in-law has developed what he calls the “breakfast reset hypothesis.”
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The Fourth Primary Colour
There isn’t one. Investing your energy into looking for the fourth primary colour is pointless.
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The Invisibility of the Daily
There is simply too much information in our environment for us to take it all in. Doing so would paralyze us.
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Remembering Forward
Recently, my wife told me about an 11-year old picture Facebook reminded her about:
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Of Greyhounds and Rabbits
There are lots of great storytellers out there. The American pastor and Professor of New Testament and Preaching, Fred Craddock was one of them.
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Words
We’re inundated with language: social media; advertising; political discourse; entertainment.
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5 (Free) Ways to Gratitude
Thankfulness is connected to our experience of having received something we didn’t earn.
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Stories Sisyphus Could Be Telling Himself
“There are worse rocks and worse hills. At least this rock is not that heavy, and this hill is not that steep.”
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Education and Information
Democracy (and other meaningful ways of living together) requires, amongst other things, an educated citizenry and open media.
![elder wisdom](https://personalstorycoach.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/jd-mason-cKT0oJL9vMI-unsplash-300x200.jpg)
We need elder wisdom more than ever
Humans demonstrate an interesting and rare evolutionary paradox:
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Mind the gap
When you board the underground train at Heathrow airport in London, a disembodied voice warns you to “mind the gap”
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Certainty
Our culture prizes certainty. In our adversarial political and legal systems, to admit not knowing or, worse, to admit being wrong, is perceived as the kiss of death.
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Safety
Once upon a time, there were two seeds that lay side by side in the warm, fertile spring soil.
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Wealth
A story from the Hindu tradition:
Once upon a time, a traveling monk reached the outskirts of a village and settled down under a tree for the night.
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Risk
It’s difficult to take a risk without trusting that the risk will lead us closer to that which we seek.
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Labels
Labels can be a helpful shorthand: signs that tell us a lot in a glance, or a few words.