A brilliance struck me. Unexpectedly! I research food and beverage trends as part of my job, therefore to find and read Ian Spreadbury’s “Comparison with ancestral diets suggests dense acellular carbohydrates promote an inflammatory microbiota, and may be the primary dietary cause of leptin resistance and obesity” was normal. As I finished the article, I sat back in my chair and exhaled. I smiled. Read more
Tag learning
Listening Well and the Cause of Happiness—What my God Children Taught me
My godchildren inspire me. They ask questions, alter my perspective and in exchange I get a youthful perspective. Some parents, surly know the feeling. The godchildren that inspired this writing are 14 and 15 years old. Their persistence forced me to think—to improve my grasp of “Listening Well” and “Causing Happiness.”
Listening Well
During the Thanksgiving holiday, amidst my godchildren’s question barrage, I was asked, “What would you do if you found one million dollars?”
My reply, “I’d try to give it back to who ever lost it.”
“No, I mean what if no one was around. You just found it,” replied my godson.
Confidently, I replied, “Well, no one loses a million dollars, and doesn’t look for the money. So, I’d help them find it.”
My goddaughter, better explaining her brother’s question, jumped in, “No! No, he means, noooooobody is looking for the money. You find a million dollars. What do you do with it?” Read more
Human Bias – Removing It?
Well, well. As a well-traveled black male, I’ve know the US environment, no the global environment, to have prejudice and bias. Not life threating hatred, but some. I believe, all humans utilize biases–The human brain works quite efficiently with biases (a topic worthy of a blog post by itself).
My key learning from the article is that sufficient racial integration has not occurred such that a broad base of Americans, see, Americans with racial differences as one of them. If the article would have reported on the racial prejudice of Black people, I suspect there would be no progress. My life experience certainly echoes the percentages quoted in the article.
As I reflect on the article, I remember the discussion Barack Obama made after the wide display of the Rev. Wright sermons. One telling point he made, “America has not integrated its churches.” Maybe that is the true evidence of integration, religious worship. The American society has focused integration efforts on schools, employment, housing and with the Affordable Care Act, health care. Maybe, just maybe, its time to effectively integrate religious worship. Now, that is a challenge.
AP poll: Majority harbor prejudice against blacks – Yahoo! News.
Why Feelings of Guilt May Signal Leadership Potential | Stanford Graduate School of Business
I loved this article. I found it an interesting way to say that people with empathy for others, and a sense of responsibility toward promises, make great leaders. The combination of traits are hard to hone—It is difficult to care enough to get something done for others. But I like the thought.
Why Feelings of Guilt May Signal Leadership Potential | Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Aleph – A Discussion of What we should do in the present
I recently read Aleph by Paulo Coelho. My first book by Paulo. And the book was quite impressive. His storytelling is excellent, his style intriguing, and best of all, the stories make you think of your own life. More of what’s needed in the world, I think. For me, I post blogs, to clear my thinking. This post, then, is a statement to the ability of Paulo’s writing to encourage me to think. Several discussion topics are suggested at the end of the book—a feature more authors should consider—one of which captured my attention while reading. Paulo wrote:
“We human beings have enormous difficulty in focusing on the present; we’re always thinking about what we did, about how we could have done it better, about the consequences of our actions, and about why we didn’t act as we should have. Or else we think about the future, about what we’re going to do tomorrow, what precautions we should take, what dangers await us around the next corner, how to avoid what we don’t want and how to get what we have always dreamed of.”
Managing Stress, Life Lessons Confirmed
While science needs proof in specific forms, humans have the power of intuition. Studies such as these are inconclusive for developing broad policy guidelines. But for me, the study confirms established beliefs: Read more
For Success, Some Values are More Important
When I read the interview with William Green, link below, my mentee and godchildren came to mind. I am committed to their success, and therefore, constantly on the lookout for new methods to Read more
Learning & the Achievement of Greatness
When I first read The Only Way to Become Amazingly Great at Something, I thought of my own post How to Learn–It’s Not Studying. The posts rely on the similar notion that practice and effort cause results. Results achieved without effort are discovered, at least eventually I hope, when reputation and expectation must deliver in a new situation. A lesson, sadly I feel, lost on too many of today’s youth as they strike out to pursue their dreams.
Ready For Marriage—How I Knew
Friday, I was asked one of those questions. When you have been married for more than fifteen years, inevitably, a friend in their twenties, contemplating marriage, ask, “How did you know you were ready to marry?” Given the high levels of divorce in the United States and the tendency of friends to turn foe, the truth is young people increasingly have fewer and fewer people to ask. Read more
Choosing The Best School is a Cost Benefit Decision
I have three family members who are of the age, where making a college choice is a stressful experience. As I have witnessed each child’s experience, I remember my experiences choosing a college. As life has played out, I have had this experience twice—once for undergraduate studies and another for graduate studies. I have conveyed to them my thoughts and experiences but when I was sent an article debating historically black colleges (HBCUs) and ivy league institutions, I felt compelled to put my thoughts down Read more
