All too often good-intentioned people set forth goals designed to satiate others rather than themselves. While the intent is honorable, the results will likely lead to failure. Why? As the somewhat provocative title of this article indicates, you need to be selfish with your goals and select ones that mean something to you.

Through segments on the evening news, magazines, talk shows, radio programming and even the advice of family and friends, we are consistently subjected to a whole litany of goals that anyone with half a brain should strive for. If we were to listen to all the experts, we would all need to be perfectly fit and rich individuals with at least two college majors under our belt.

Baloney.

Now I won’t deny that there are tremendous benefits to being physically fit, financially well off or highly educated, but let’s be honest here – one doesn’t require all of the above to live a successful and happy life. There are many somewhat overweight individuals that are quite happy to escape the annoyances of careful Continue Reading »

A tight knit team is a group of competent individuals who care deeply about each other and are fiercely committed to their mission. They are highly motivated to combining their energy and expertise to achieve the common objective. From our observation and studies on building teams, we have found three primary conditions that have to be met in order to attain higher levels of team performance and member satisfaction.

1. Resources and Commitment

2. Ownership and Heart

3. Learning

These three conditions are the heart and soul of teamwork but are not blueprints. Every team is unique, and the requirements and details of its teamwork have to be worked out separately. Let’s look closer at condition number two – Ownership and Heart.

CONDITION NO 2 – OWNERSHIP AND HEART

This condition necessary for teamwork to blossom requires that building teams occur from the “inside out.” In other words, people have to work hard at developing “team friendly” Continue Reading »

We are frequently told about how we should ignore fear and go for what we want and to some extent that’s really true. However, I think fear (like ice-cream) has more than one flavour and some fears can actually help us. There are times when fear is appropriate…like when we are faced with physical danger or someone is threatening one of our nearest and dearest. I like to distinguish between four types of fear.

Raw, visceral fear: This is the fear we experience if a threat to our own lives or the lives of our loved ones is imminent. I believe most of us in the Western world will rarely experience this, except perhaps in a car crash. Our instincts bring us through this one.

Irrelevant fear: For example, I am afraid of jumping out of a helicopter or going skydiving. However I do not have the slightest desire to do either of those things so the fear does not impinge Continue Reading »

We walk half asleep, experiencing only a small part of our creative passion, insight and being. Our vision is by the eyes of the mind, which are cast outwards. Creativity, however, is birthed in the cosmic landscape of the inner world, a place to which the mind’s eyes are blind, a place belonging to the vision of the heart and soul. The question is, how do we awaken to the immensity of knowing contained within.

One way is through nature. Nature, fully noticed, and entered into with the wonderment of children, gains us admittance into the unseen world. Another way is through our writing or other creative endeavors, but this has limitations. First, this entry is often sporadic. Second, our creativity tends to Continue Reading »