I was listening to a clever and timely story on NPR this morning about the renewed prevalence of the hackneyed imperative, “Do more with less.” This is widely interpreted as a demand for longer hours to compensate for reduced budget and staff. My executive coaching clients, in contrast, report growth in income and profits while working fewer days and shorter, more flexible hours. Two keys are reducing stress and misdirected energy.
I was very pleased when the NPR reporter revealed the original form of the phrase from Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography, “by diligence shall we do more with less perplexity. … as we read in Poor Richard, who adds, drive thy business, let not that drive thee.”
Sometimes I feel that my life is a series of trapeze swings. I’m either hanging on to a trapeze bar swinging along or, for a few moments in my life, I’m hurtling across space in between trapeze bars.
Most of the time, I spend my life hanging on for dear life to my trapeze-bar-of-the-moment. It carries me along a certain steady rate of swing and I have the feeling that I’m in control of my life. I know most of the right questions and even some of the right answers. But once in a while, as I’m merrily (or not so merrily) swinging along, I look ahead of me into the distance, and what do I see? I see another trapeze bar swinging toward me. It’s empty, and I know, in that place in me that knows, that this new trapeze bar has (more…)
I just read Herman Melville’s Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Tale of Wall Street. The first two-thirds struck me as a humorous account of an eccentric employee, told from the business owner’s point of view. (I hear many such stories in my work as an executive coach to CEOs.) My impression shifted toward the end, as the narrative darkened into a tale of thwarted compassion for a hopeless innocent. It remains in my awareness as a poignant and contemporary warning of the isolation so casually tolerated in our commercial environments. Though Bartleby’s plight was beyond the ability of the well-meaning narrator to avert, better treatments are available today and most of the people in your office are reachable with as cheap an elixir as a smile, a lunch invitation, or a patient ear. Life ends too soon and suddenly to risk our kind communications going the way of the dead letters Bartleby sent to the flames, though they contained: “pardon for those who died despairing; hope for those who died unhoping; good tidings for those who died stifled by unrelieved calamities.”
Read Bartleby, the Scrivenerhere or download the MP3 here.
“Tiny proteins called BDNF are created when you exercise and act like Miracle Grow for your brain”
–Dr. John J. Medina
University of Washington School of Medicine
Our next President agrees, “Physical fitness yielded mental fitness, Obama decided, and the two concepts have been married in his mind ever since.” Washington Post 2008 12 25
Singing and dancing have been shown to modulate brain chemistry, specifically levels of dopamine, the “feel good” neurotransmitter. Our species uses music and dance to express various feelings: love, joy, comfort, ceremony, knowledge and friendship. And each one is distinct and widely recognized within cultures. Love songs cause us to move slowly and fluidly, for example, while songs of joy inspire us to dance in a full-body aerobic way.
–Daniel J. Levitin
Professor of psychology and music
McGill University
I use a lot of books in the executive training I offer, some of them well-known bestsellers like Flow[Click here to see Tony’s review.], but there is only one book that I advise my clients to read: Breathing Space. Jeff Davidson has filled each page of Breathing Space with insight, practicality, and specific advice. To get your hands back on the controls of your modern life, no book is better.
Life in today’s world is busy, full, and rife with distractions. Satisfaction can easily slip away without special efforts to create an environment and habits that support our own goals and priorities. Fail to do so and your life will–as Jeff Davidson amply demonstrates–be thoroughly colonized by advertisers, entertainers, and co-workers. It has often been said, and is even more true today, that if you are not (more…)
Excellent description, Doctor, where’s the prescription?
Professor Csikszentmihalyi has done a great service by distilling his decades of research into happiness and satisfaction into a well constructed single volume. He writes with wit, insight, and character. His vast learning is often evident but never overbearing.
The book ultimately fails, however, for it invests all of its considerable power in describing Flow and convincing the reader to seek this optimal experience but does too little to (more…)
I created these problems for myself. I made decisions that caused me to be where I am today. That’s why I’m facing the challenge. So I have nobody to blame but myself. That means that I’ll not be angry, or cynical, or suspicious. I’ll assume responsibility for these problems. I got myself into it. I can get myself out of it. I still believe that every obstacle is an opportunity. To learn. To grow. To be corrected or protected from making mistakes. So all of this is good news. So I’m not discouraged. I’m motivated by this new challenge.
I was in a training last week with Richard Strozzi-Heckler. The first exercise he led the group in was a centering practice I also teach. You can listen to the podcast here: Find Your Center Before You Act. The next day, Richard told us a story in which his centering practice saved a presentation–and his lungs.
While studying ai-ki-do in Japan, Richard was asked by his instructor to come with him to help with a demonstration for a group of teenagers. At the school, Richard donned a heavy leather shirt. His master handed him a sword and told him, “When I fire this arrow at you strike it with your sword.” Strozzi had never seen, much less been instructed in or practiced, this procedure but one does not quibble with one’s Japanese ai-ki-do master.
As he stood on stage while the master spoke to the teenagers, Strozzi’s head was filled with (more…)
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I was listening to a clever and timely story on NPR this morning about the renewed prevalence of the hackneyed imperative, “Do more with less.” This is widely interpreted as a demand for longer hours to compensate for reduced budget and staff. My executive coaching clients, in contrast, report growth in income and profits while working fewer days and shorter, more flexible hours. Two keys are reducing stress and misdirected energy.
I just read Herman Melville’s Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Tale of Wall Street. The first two-thirds struck me as a humorous account of an eccentric employee, told from the business owner’s point of view. (I hear many such stories in my work as an executive coach to CEOs.) My impression shifted toward the end, as the narrative darkened into a tale of thwarted compassion for a hopeless innocent. It remains in my awareness as a poignant and contemporary warning of the isolation so casually tolerated in our commercial environments. Though Bartleby’s plight was beyond the ability of the well-meaning narrator to avert, 
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