A straight-forward and simple, loving guide to meditation.
It's hard to describe how important and powerful Thich Nhat Hanh's work is. This is no exception.
I wish I had read this years ago. It would have saved me a lot of pain. Then again, I doubt I was ready for it.
A brilliant and moving collection of sermons which deepened my understanding of and appreciation for Christianity.
Amazing work. One of the most powerful pieces I've read in working with our inner demons.
Finding Your Element: How to Discover Your Talents and Passions and Transform Your Life by Ken Robinson
I love Ken Robinson and again delivers a thoughtful, insightful and at times funny road map for working your way through to finding the thing you were born to do.
A beautiful and thoughtful use of the Bhagavad Gita as a guide to sorting through the essential questions of your vocation.
A brilliant and challenging call to action to honestly and fearlessly face the deep challenges of our times. Meg defines true leadership as the expression of warriorship... the challenge for each of us is to create warriors willing and able to lead even in these dark and overwhelming times. We are called to a practice that is beyond outcome...where the value is in the effort itself.
I enjoyed Looking for Alaska more but John Green is a gifted and compelling novelist. Forget the young adult moniker and simply enjoy him
The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal by Jim Loehr
Highly recommended. Without having known of this fully, I've been quoting from it for years. The language and structure are a little too much like a workbook for my tastes but the ideas, recommendations and practices are sound and compelling and will appeal to many over-stressed folks. Those most skeptical of the softer psycho-spiritual works will be impressed.
Gorgeous and compelling. MacFarlane may be the best "landscape" "travel" writer I've encountered. His chapter on trekking Tibet's Minya Konka brought me back to my times there.
A gorgeous meditation on just what mountains mean to us. Lyrical and beautiful
It feels odd to recommend this as much as I'd like since I love Brad and Amy AND I contributed a tiny bit to it. But the book is terrific. EVERY entrepreneur should read this. In fact, every entrepreneur and the folks that love them should read it. It's chock full of priceless (and hard-earned) practical advice not only for your relationship to survive but for you to maintain your sanity.
Classic McCullough (my favorite historian). But not my favorite of his books. I'll never forget my first encounter with him: The Great Bridge.
I love John O'Donohue. I'm sad that he passed away so young. I could read him for years.
Fascinating if at times inconsistent and somewhat choppy. At times poignant. A personal reminder of the tight relationship between biology and mind and the thin line between unhealthy brain functions and madness. In an age when it's easy to see all psychological manifestations only in terms of psychological character structure, an important reminder that we are, after all, a meat bag, made up of flesh and neurons and synaptic pulses.
The Long Exile: A Tale of Inuit Betrayal and Survival in the High Arctic (Vintage) by Melanie McGrath
Moving and thoughtful. A little choppy but the power of coming to understand what was done to these folks more than makes up for the unevenness of the story-telling.
I wish I could give this more than 5 stars. One of my favorite novels, ever. Wow.
Pico Iyer's writing soothes me. The fluidity, the depth of his sentences are among the best constructed I've ever encountered. And, of course, I share his passion for travel, for depth, for seeking answers to the larger questions.
But in this exploration of the profound effect Graham Greene has had on him--he is nominally The Man, after all but as Iyer's wife points out, it could also be his father--I found, subconsciously expectedly while consciously unexpectedly, most moving his passages about the fathers we all seek:
"A son may choose never to listen to a father, but a father...is always bound to a son, and real disinheritance is hard."
But in this exploration of the profound effect Graham Greene has had on him--he is nominally The Man, after all but as Iyer's wife points out, it could also be his father--I found, subconsciously expectedly while consciously unexpectedly, most moving his passages about the fathers we all seek:
"A son may choose never to listen to a father, but a father...is always bound to a son, and real disinheritance is hard."
There is no coming to consciousness without pain. –Carl Jung
A lovely and powerful little book. We are all wounded and the essential work of our lives is to turn that wound, to use a phrase from Goldstein, from the profane to the sacred; to turn that wound from the root of our neurotic and destructive patterns into the constructive and enlivening. I'm not a fan of his formulaic style (i.e., there are nine steps each with a story, a ritual, a meditation) but then I never liked following instructions.
I think Goldstein is at his best when he shares his insights and observations:
"We are transformed from victim to victor in the crucible of the Sacred Wound. The triumph blazes forth in the empowerment and optimism to be found in our daily approach to living. It is found in the success we can now create with the fullness of our worth."
Still, a wonderful book for processing, healing, and getting on.
A lovely and powerful little book. We are all wounded and the essential work of our lives is to turn that wound, to use a phrase from Goldstein, from the profane to the sacred; to turn that wound from the root of our neurotic and destructive patterns into the constructive and enlivening. I'm not a fan of his formulaic style (i.e., there are nine steps each with a story, a ritual, a meditation) but then I never liked following instructions.
I think Goldstein is at his best when he shares his insights and observations:
"We are transformed from victim to victor in the crucible of the Sacred Wound. The triumph blazes forth in the empowerment and optimism to be found in our daily approach to living. It is found in the success we can now create with the fullness of our worth."
Still, a wonderful book for processing, healing, and getting on.
Ani Pema writes with clarity and compassion. Her work is such a joy to experience. Here she takes on the fear that uncertainty and change induces, sharing the wisdom of how to ride that fear.
In this section, she addresses a strong component of our fear...our attachment to praise and aversion to criticism:
"Finally, let’s consider our attachment to praise and blame. We want to be complimented and we don’t want to be criticized. Some people blossom when they receive kudos for a job well done but go to pieces when they receive criticism, even if it’s constructive. Young children, teenagers, and yes, even the most mature of adults can have their spirits lifted up by compliments and cast down by criticism. We are so easily blown about by the winds of praise and blame. This has been going on through the ages.
'They criticize the silent ones. They criticize the talkative ones. They criticize the moderate ones. There is no one in the world that escapes criticism. There never was and never will be, nor is there now, the wholly criticized or the wholly approved.'
Shakyamuni Buddha said that more than twenty-five hundred years ago, but it seems that some things never change."
In this section, she addresses a strong component of our fear...our attachment to praise and aversion to criticism:
"Finally, let’s consider our attachment to praise and blame. We want to be complimented and we don’t want to be criticized. Some people blossom when they receive kudos for a job well done but go to pieces when they receive criticism, even if it’s constructive. Young children, teenagers, and yes, even the most mature of adults can have their spirits lifted up by compliments and cast down by criticism. We are so easily blown about by the winds of praise and blame. This has been going on through the ages.
'They criticize the silent ones. They criticize the talkative ones. They criticize the moderate ones. There is no one in the world that escapes criticism. There never was and never will be, nor is there now, the wholly criticized or the wholly approved.'
Shakyamuni Buddha said that more than twenty-five hundred years ago, but it seems that some things never change."
A gorgeous, delightful treatise on a "simpler" approach to business leadership and, as a result, a calmer more satisfying life.
Brilliant, insightful and fun--like Brad himself
Really helpful book. The chapter on Chad Dickerson's experience at Yahoo is really great. I wish it'd gone further though and looked at the role of the 20% doctrine within all aspects of corporate leadership.
I can't recommend this book highly enough. It's filled with insight and soul.
I was both educated and moved to tears. It helped me understand my own struggles with depression as well as those of my father.
I was both educated and moved to tears. It helped me understand my own struggles with depression as well as those of my father.
For anyone who loved the Yankees of the 90s, especially those who remember Jim Abbott's no hitter. A surprisingly moving account of the roller-coaster ride of professional sports.
Wonderful synopsis of the core theories of this brilliant giant of psychoanalysis (by another brilliant giant of psychoanalysis).
Terrific. Just a great examination of the relationship between the mind and body, the training of both, from the vantage point of a meditation master and accomplished runner. The Sakyong's teachings are a joy and very accessible.
Feels a bit out of date but Lewis' writing is brilliant AND scary.