How vulnerable are you? How do you react to vulnerability in others? Here are a few related posts you may have missed.
“You don’t protect your heart by acting like you don’t have one.”
“When you connect with people from the core, you learn a whole lot more.”
How often, and how quickly, do you take action? Here are a few related posts you may have missed.
“Without jumping off its perch, the bird would never fly.”
“You cannot talk your way out of something you behaved yourself into.”
“Your mind is a garden, your thoughts are the seeds, you can grow flowers, or you can grow weeds.”
How often do you offer help to others? How often do others help you? Here are a few related posts you may have missed.
“All kids need is a little help, a little hope, and someone who believes in them.”
“People who need help sometimes look a lot like people who don’t need help.”
Image from Unsplash by Caspian Dahlström
Imagine spending a month or more completely alone, with no one to talk with.
The Netflix series “Alone” places ten individuals with expert survival skills in remote locations. Their goal is to live off the land and outlast the other nine participants, whom they never meet.
In the early stages of this adventure everyone is stoked, positive about the opportunity to challenge themselves, become the last one standing, and receive a $500,000 prize for their effort.
Building shelters, sourcing food and water, and braving the elements keeps everyone pretty occupied, especially during the daylight hours. At night their thoughts often go to a darker side of the experience, given their complete isolation.
With their two video cameras and their efforts at documentary filmmaking, we see their wild journeys that include the physical and mental aspects of starvation and loneliness.
EXERCISE:
Describe the company you keep in your personal and professional worlds.
How much alone time do you experience?
How successful are you at befriending yourself during periods of isolation and loneliness?
Please reply to this post with your thoughts and feelings.
Image from Unsplash by Pablò
Whenever I think of concentric circles I see an archery target.
As a kid, I had the terrific opportunity to go to Camp Indian Lake in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania every summer.
Archery was a skill we all had the chance to experience. Drawing the bow and setting our sights on the bullseye was always the goal, and no one ever got hurt.
Today, the thought of giving a bunch of 10-year-olds bows and arrows seems pretty crazy!
As an adult, playing darts fits nicely in this concentric circle concept, where the spokes and areas beyond the bullseye come into play.
EXERCISE:
How can you change the world by applying this concentric circle idea to yourself and the world around you?
Image from Unsplash by PCM
What did you want to be when you were a kid? Who were your heroes, and how often did you imagine being them?
What about these days?
How often do your thoughts detour to trading places with the rich and famous? If you were to find a magic lamp, how would you use those wishes to swap out your life for some alternative picture of perfect?
Where do you currently feel the pangs of envy and jealousy?
Who are the people you actually know that seem to have it all? How do you feel around them when your habit of making comparisons kicks in?
EXERCISE:
Take a closer look at your life.
If possible, dig below the surface of your initial superlative assessments of others.
Perhaps they may actually be a bit jealous of you.
How do you view prejudice in your life and the world around you? Here are a few related posts you may have missed.
“Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.”
“A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.”
“Dogs bark at those they do not know.”
Image from Unsplash by Esther Ann
Regardless of your age, how do you stay young at heart?
The other day I was feeling my age and didn’t like it very much.
I’m reading Arthur Brooks new book From Strength to Strength, and I’ve reached the chapters where he describes the overwhelming evidence of how we decline from our peak capabilities far sooner than we care to admit.
Putting our heads down and striving even harder is usually not the answer and often compounds our frustrations.
There is considerable evidence that life satisfaction for many people tends to increase once they shift their attention from personal success to a life of significance where they pour their skills and wisdom into others.
Doing this type of work as a coach for many years keeps my moments of astonishment coming and, on most days, puts pep in my steps.
What are the activities that astonish you with excitement and wonder?
How and where can you engage in more of these to remain forever young?
How well-defined are your ambitions? Here are a few related posts you may have missed.
“The person who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”
“We are capable of greater things than we realize.”
Image from Unsplash by Pierre Bamin
Today’s quote seems like a modern version of Shakespeare’s famous line, To thine own self be true.
To what degree are you the “thee” you choose to be?
With all the pushing and pulling on us by outside forces, many of us have exchanged followers and likes for a bit of our souls.
Being a chameleon and constantly trying to please others almost always moves us away from our authentic selves.
In what ways have you or others close to you given away the power to choose and lost your way?
On what issues is it time to more courageously choose your most genuine self to receive the only essential “like” worth pursuing?