Brian Allain

Learn to listen

From “Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life” by Henri Nouwen with Michael J. Christensen and Rebecca J. Laird Someone who showed me how important it is to learn to listen not just to people like Mother Teresa, whom many people revere, but to attend to the voices of the people we live with most […]

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The One Thing That Changes Everything

From “The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything” by Stephen M. R. Covey There is one thing that is common to every individual, relationship, team, family, organization, nation, economy, and civilization throughout the world – one thing which, if removed, will destroy the most powerful government, the most successful business, the most

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They were studying to learn

From “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success” by Carol S. Dweck, PhD Another transition, another crisis. College is when all the students who were brains in high school are thrown together.  Like our graduate students, yesterday they were king of the hill, but today who are they? Nowhere is the anxiety of being dethroned more

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technological acceleration

From “Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation” by Steven Johnson It is one of the great truisms of our time that we live in an age of technological acceleration; the new paradigms keep rolling in, and the intervals between them keep shortening. This acceleration reflects not only the flood of new

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“How can I do the most good?”

From “Doing Good Better: How Effective Altruism Can Help You Help Others, Do Work that Matters, and Make Smarter Choices About Giving Back” by William Macaskill In the first part, I dedicate each chapter to exploring one of effective altruism’s five key questions: Asking these five key questions can help us avoid common pitfalls when

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Art

From “Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechner” by Frederick Buechner AN OLD SILENT pond./Into the pond a frog jumps./Splash! Silence again.” It is perhaps the best known of all Japanese haiku. No subject could be more humdrum. No language could be more pedestrian. Basho, the poet, makes no comment on what he

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The Luck and The Headwind

From “Cumulative Advantage: How to Build Momentum for Your Ideas, Business, and Life Against All Odds” by Mark W. Schaefer Chilean sociologists Mario Molina and Mauricio Bucca noticed that when their friends played a card game that was totally based on chance, they insisted that their winning streak was based on superior skills. This inspired

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Yet Owen Meany was a saint

From “Sacred Compass: The Way of Spiritual Discernment” by J. Brent Bill The Inner Teacher uses our life experiences to show the way opening before us. Look at the life map you drew earlier. As you look at the highs and lows and in-betweens, how did particular experiences open a way for you? Do you,

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