Posts under ‘Self-Cultivation’

One of the most common challenges raised by business owners and other people pursuing a venture is the “I can’t focus or do things consistently” challenge. This is another variation on the classic problem of not being able to get to the gym often enough.
The common solution? Discipline. This word is often linked with the [...]

Last time, I introduced the roles of prophets, critics, and truth-tellers in enriching the ecology of leadership. I failed to mention however that there is an implied assumption that those truth-tellers and prophets are adaptive.
This is, of course, not the case.
Pundits, deniers, and “false” prophets that disguise themselves as truth-tellers are plentiful. There are still [...]

After eleven years of study and training, my wife finally received her first degree blackbelt in karate called a shodan in Renbukai karate. It was a proud achievement, but in the oriental tradition, the shodan merely indicates that she is now ready to be a serious student of the art.
In this respect, I notice a [...]

Last week I held a very basic self-defense workshop for the City of Calgary Waterworks division. Now some of you might be wondering why a leadership coach / consultant would teach a self-defense course. First of all, it’s fun, but second of all as the Olympics show us, intense physical challenges teach us something deeply [...]

I use to be addicted to role-playing games. One of the classic aspects of the game was that you often had to “level up” before you could move on to a new and more challenging section of the fantasy world. Leveling up meant increasing your character’s attribute such as strength, wisdom, agility, charisma by earning [...]

Imagine if you were laid-off today. What would you do?
If the prospect frightens you or the only response you have is to madly send out resumes for job postings, it might be time to do a checkup on your capacities and see which ones need a tune-up or an upgrade.
Check your Financial Gauges
I was once [...]

Imagine a world where one did not have to walk because one could be transported magically to wherever one wishes instantaneously. Food is custom ordered and delivered on the spot, and technology allows us to do amazing things with a simple verbal command. Is this the perfect world envisioned by Star Trek with teleporters and [...]

1. Choosing not to think. Have you ever noticed that there are boundaries to what we choose to think about? Religion is certainly one area where we may choose not to apply the usual rigours of thought. Math is another one; childhood school fears are likely the main block. Relationships, too, might not be tested [...]

From Chris Hedges article:
“Belief can triumph over knowledge. Emotion can vanquish thought. Our demagogues distort the Bible and the Constitution, while their demagogues distort the Quran, or any other foundational document deemed to be sacred, fueling self-exaltation and hatred at the expense of understanding. The more illiterate a society becomes, the more power those who [...]

Any transformation in life direction begins with a choice to risk failure, and inevitably, the topic of “risk-taking” comes up. The counter-balance to risk-taking is “security”. One might hear, if not in these exact words, “I don’t like to take risks, because I value security.”
Unfortunately, words have a nasty tendency to hide layers of meaning [...]