Where’s *your* focus? Where do you want it to be? Spurred by a suggestion from a Chicago-based listener, Ted and Lisa gallop into a conversation about focus. They start with a rousing round of the new game “D’jever?” (1:54) before Ted kicks off the topic by mentioning the simultaneous different focus tracks in his brain [more…]
4 Reasons We Avoid Our Inner Knowing–and 7 Things We Can Do About It
In you are natural powers. You already possess everything necessary to become great. –Chief Crow The above quotation hangs over the sink in our kitchen, a quiet touchstone for a truth so easily forgotten. It’s a message I want to pass along to every young person (and adult) I work with. It’s also a [more…]
Dolphin Training (part 1 of 2)
The first seed of my sabbatical came at the Loose Moose Theater Company’s International Improvisation Summer School two years ago in Calgary, Alberta. One of our teachers, Shawn Kinley, introduced the Dolphin Game and my heart leapt. Two of my favorite things–improv and positive reinforcement–in one exercise? Whiskers on kittens! The directions were deceptively simple. [more…]
Leading Beyond Dualisms
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing, there is a field. I’ll take you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’ doesn’t make any sense.” –Rumi Some people need clear direction, wandering rudderless when they don’t have [more…]
Shamu’s Golden Ratio
Marriage researcher John M. Gottman claims that he can predict with 94% accuracy which couples will last happily and which, sadly, will not. Studies seem to prove him right. What’s the magic variable, the crucial key? It’s not height or weight. Neither education nor wealth. Not even shared interests, well-synched sex drives, or similar diets [more…]
Self-Reinforcement
It’s easy to think about the benefits of setting up reinforcement for others’ behaviors. If I want the softball team to help each other stay focused, I offer my catcher praise when she returns to the bench after having taken a minute for a conference with her mentally-rattled pitcher. If a student catches himself using [more…]
