“We’ve got your son, Voss. Give us one million dollars or he dies.” What would you do? Chris Voss is a former FBI hostage negotiator. Read his new book to find out how he negotiates this threat. His book applies his experience into the business world and the day-to-day negotiations of real life. “Compromise” is …Read More
Category: Books
Do you want to succeed? Get Gritty
As her life was nearing the end with a terminal diagnosis, a mother shared about her adult children. She did not worry about the “hard workers.” She was worried about “the smart one.” Her daughter got by in school without having to work hard, and seemed to float through life in the same way. Now …Read More
“I get plenty of exercise at work.”
As the New Year resolve begins to wane, I’m reminded of the many times I have heard the statement: “I get plenty of exercise at work.” Many people who say this have stressful jobs, and they just can’t imagine fitting another thing into their life. Robert Sapolsky, author of Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers: An …Read More
Fooling With Words – Golden Retrievals
“One of poetry’s greatest powers is its preservative ability to take a moment in time and make an attempt to hold onto it.” ~ Mark Doty Poetry is one of my great loves for how it often captures what is beyond words, and in that great paradox, captures it with words. Poetry connects us through …Read More
Minimalism – less stuff is more
“What did we do before we knew we needed all this stuff?“ My seventy-year-old friend suddenly paused in the middle of a story of her childhood and then asked me this question. While it was definitely a question, it seemed more like a statement. I was speechless. Simple things are profound. Life was much simpler …Read More
Dr. Seuss – the gift that keeps giving
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” ― Dr. Seuss, The Lorax If you are looking for a gift for a child, buy a book by Dr. Seuss! And even better, sit down this holiday season and read it to them. The poetic rhymes are …Read More
Black Elk Speaks: Vision of Unity
“… I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people …Read More
Brene Brown on Rising Strong
Brene Brown summarizes the work of her books. (Click the links for prior blogs.) The Gifts of Imperfection—Be you. Daring Greatly—Be all in. Rising Strong—Fall. Get up. Try again. In Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, Brene Brown tackles hard topic of failure. If we …Read More
The Color Purple
“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it. People think pleasing God is all God cares about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.” ― Alice Walker, The Color Purple Gratitude From one of my …Read More
The Dance by Oriah Mountain Dreamer
“What if the question is not why am I so infrequently the person I really want to be, but why do I so infrequently want to be the person I really am?” — Oriah Mountain Dreamer, The Dance: Moving to the Rhythms of Your True Self In her prior book, The Invitation, Oriah Mountain Dreamer …Read More