Breaking the Spell
Is our country under a spell? After the last presidential debate, I felt the need to wash away a residual toxicity, so I indulged in a long bath with a light read. I picked up my copy of The Joy of Witchcraft, a novel billed as “A Humorous Paranormal Romance.” I needed something light. I admit to a secret curiosity about witchcraft. […]
Are You Counting What Counts?
So God just sent his chief publicist down to help Jesus and he says, “You’re doing good work, Jesus, but I’m worried about your counts. You’ve got twelve committed “followers” but rumor has it that one’s about to drop, and a couple seem kind of flaky. Now you’re doing OK with the female demographic, but all those Mary’s are […]
The Perils of Working from Passion
Do you ever get so excited by a project that you can’t wait to work on it? You bounce out of bed with a sense of purpose, alive with multiple possibilities for the future racing through your mind. How great is that? Isn’t working from a sense of purpose something everyone wants? But then you hit […]
Make meetings memorable with graphic facilitation
An alternative to death-by-meeting If you’ve worked in organizations, you probably know the drill: You drive to a conference site, arrive tired, check in, then walk the long corridors to the back of your hotel. You enter the room (cave) where you’ll be captive over the next three days, noticing its uber-blandness: Beige walls Gray-green […]
Are we rating ourselves crazy?
It’s a sad day when a presidential candidate publicly rates women on a scale of 1 to 10. Are we really saying to our girls, who might one day run for public office, that what matter is the flounciness of your hair, the size of your breasts, or the poutiness of your lips? Is this how we […]
Why you SHOULD sweat the small stuff (Hint: Do the math!)
Have you ever noticed how fast the small, regular stuff of life accumulates? I’m not talking about the big-maybe-you-didn’t-really-need-it-stuff like the toaster oven that communicates with your iWatch. Or, things you know you should give away like the state of the art roller blades you bought 30 years ago, that fluted bowl from Aunt Mildred, […]
Are you a try-aholic?
Last week, I found a book by Edward Slingerland with my name on it: Trying Not to Try You see I’m Sally F. and I’m a try-aholic. I know that there are some of you out there who’d understand. Here’s how to tell if you’re a try-aholic: When confronted with a big goal, you take a catch breath […]
Looking behind to step ahead
To start my new year, I took a day of looking back to step ahead. Unlike the vision day I took last year, on my look-back day I was being more of an archeologist, reviewing notes and writings from the past year, looking for clues, finding projects still undone, discovering ideas that had been simmering on the back […]
Create an eco-system to support your goals (or, What I learned driving past slums in Mumbai)
It’s January, when we often launch the year with goals and aspirations. If you’re like me, you took time over the holidays to sit quietly or meditate, reflect on the year that was ending, and dream about what you wanted for the year ahead. (Hopefully avoiding the dreaded and defeat-inviting term: resolution.) After the New Year, […]
A learning journey to India
It may be easy to believe that your culture is the one right way when you’ve grown up in just one culture, be it geographic, religious or socio-economic. (Don’t get me started on the effects of that in the world today.) And with that kind of thinking, we may miss how much we have to […]
