BEATING PRESENTATION PANIC

I was late for class one day so I rushed into the room, hurried down the aisle, missed a step and fell flat on my face. The room went silent. Was I hurt? Before anyone could come to my assistance I rolled over, sat up, and...

LESSONS FROM APPLE

About three years ago I yielded to the pressure. My enthusiastic Mac-user friends (they're all enthusiastic) convinced me to buy a Mac. I still use my trusted PC desktop but increasingly I've moved into the world of Apple. It's "the...

BEING A PEOPLE BUILDER

In his hard-hitting book Crush It! Gary Vaynerchuk describes passion as "the one thing that interests you most in the world." It’s whatever fulfills and motivates you, Passion dominates your thinking, your work, your talk and even the way you relax. It's doing what you love more than anything else. If you never find...

COUNCIL OF DADS

Bruce Feiler is a journalist and best selling author who was diagnosed with cancer when his twin daughters were only three. The doctors predicted a difficult year of treatment with a strong possibility that he would not recover. The young...

EXTREME FEAR

I had never heard of science writer Jeff Wise until I read one of his articles and decided to get his latest book. Extreme Fear: The Science of Your Mind in Danger describes the physiological and psychological aspects of fear and trauma. The...

BRINGING OUT THE BEST IN OTHERS

Last week's newsletter described how some leaders unintentionally stifle their employees, clients, students, parishioners or other followers. Leaders who stifle others are called diminishers in Harvard Business Review...

WOMEN GET SAD. MEN GET MAD

Scientific American Mind magazine recently devoted an entire issue (May/June 2010) to differences between male and female brains. According to the magazine, textbooks on psychiatry and abnormal psychology tend to be gender...

REVISITING THE NUN STUDY

Almost 25 years ago, psychologist David Snowdon began an innovative investigation about who gets Alzheimer's disease and why. Known as the "Nun Study," researchers worked with 678 older Roman Catholic sisters who...

iSEMINARIES AND DISTANCE LEARNING

As a beginning college professor, I once taught a course about the psychology of learning. Even then we knew the ineffectiveness of students sitting in rows, passively taking notes, facing instructors who gave...

PASSION, BUSINESS AND SOCIAL NETWORKS

Several weeks ago (January 30-February 5) The Economist published a special report on social networking. I found it boring and not very enlightening. In contrast, a recent New York Times best seller by Gary...

THE IMPACT OF ENVY

Why would a business magazine publish an article on envy (Harvard Business Review, April 2010)? The answer is that "envy - the distress people feel when others get what they want- is both universal" and inclined to intensify in times...

GROUPS CAN BURN OUT TOO

Most care-givers are familiar with compassion fatigue and burnout: periods of exhaustion, frustration, depression, boredom and apathy brought on by the constant needs of people who need help. Care-giving activities that...

RETHINKING POVERTY

Last year, World Vision President Richard Stearns published a much acclaimed and sometimes sobering book titled The Hole in Your Gospel. As I expected, the book is a challenge toward a more balanced (more biblical) gospel that...

RESILIENCE COACHING

Crises and disappointments are inevitable during times of rapid change. Careers, businesses, ministries and relationships can sink, especially if we let bitterness, discouragement,...

LEADING IN TIMES OF TRANSITION

Last summer, British Prime Minister...

INTERACTIVE TEXTBOOKS

Big changes are here if you are a student who reads textbooks, a professor who assigns them, or an author who writes (or wants to write)...

MAKING HARD CHANGES

About three years ago, brothers Chip and Dan Heath published Made to Stick, a NY Times best seller that described "why some ideas survive...

THE PORN EXPLOSION

"Pornography is moving from an individual and couples' problem to a public health problem, capable of deeply harming the...

STEVE JOBS' COMMUNICATION STYLE

With enthusiasm and media hype, Apple Computer's Steve Jobs recently introduced the company's new iPad. A few days later The Economist magazine (January 30 issue) featured a cover with Jobs dressed like Moses and a feature article titled "The Book of Jobs."  Same week I started reading Carmine Gallo's...

MODERN MENTORING

This week I stumbled on a blog posting at www.GiftedForLeadership.com where I was caught by words from an article titled "Modern Mentorship." The 32 year-old writer, Nicole Unice, argues that "perhaps mentorship has to move beyond structured systems and canned questions." Mentoring involves at least two people, one of...

ABU GHRAIB AND YELLOW RIBBONS

Two recent books have made a big influence on me. Both deal with U.S military personnel and their families but they have broader relevance to caregivers. Frequently I tell students that within a few years their present training is likely to seem antiquated and their work may be very different because so...

JOURNAL WRITING

A journal is a notebook where individuals record their experiences, ideas, reflections, and insights about their lives, struggles and spiritual journeys. "Taking time to write (nearly) every day can provide us with a vital documentation of Christ's work in our lives," writes psychologist Donald Lichi. Journaling can...

BECOMING AN INNOVATOR

What traits characterize innovators? How can you or the people you work with become innovators? Why are Apple's Steve Jobs, Amazon's Jeff Bezos or the founders of eBay, Facebook, or Skype all innovative entrepreneurs? An in-depth six-year study reported in Harvard Business Review (December, 2009) shows that...

YOGA - MOVING BEYOND TALK THERAPY?

In November 2009 Monitor on Psychology published an article titled "Yoga as a Practice Tool." The writer suggested that counselors have "painted themselves in the corner by only doing talk therapy. There's much more that can be accomplished if you integrate it with other sorts of modalities, such as...

NEW YEAR GAME PLAN

Seven years ago, Donald Miller published a somewhat unorthodox spiritual autobiography titled Blue Like Jazz. Miller must have been surprised when...

TIGER WOODS AND BABY JESUS

Maybe you have seen the advertisement in a magazine or on an airport billboard. A photo shows Tiger Woods standing on a rock next to a pond. He is looking at his golf ball in a place where a shot would be almost impossible. Across the top of the photo are these words: It's what you do next that counts.

You need...