Archives for July 2015

Triggers – Marshall Goldsmith

I’m a Marshall Goldmsith fan. I loved his book “What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There” and have recommended it to many people. This book is useful only if you are focused on wanting to get more out of your life. It’s one of those instances where the student needs to be ready in order for the teacher to appear. Those who read it with no intention of actually changing anything about how they think or structure their days will quite likely miss the point of this book. While Goldsmith is indeed a very successful “Executive Coach” we are all the executives of our own lives. So move past the title to the material.

It’s not that this work is groundbreaking or provides some secret formula, it’s designed to help us organize, prioritize and identify what matters to us. His questions focus on what gives our life meaning and value and how we can structure our days to support those things we have identified as priorities.

It’s simple, but not easy. True of so many things in life. I found it helpful. I’m at a “sorting out” place in my life where I want more structure, more meaning and a better defined purpose. There are lots of moving parts to actually figuring that out.

Here are six questions he suggests we ask ourselves everyday to stay on track in meeting our own self defined priorities:

1. Did I do my best to set clear goals today?
2. Did I do my best to make progress toward my goals today?
3. Did I do my best to find meaning today?
4. Did I do my best to be happy today?
5. Did I do my best to build positive relationships today?
6. Did I do my best to be fully engaged today?

Notice it’s about measuring effort over outcome. It makes sense that consistent effort produces the outcomes we want. We don’t just leapfrog over the process to meeting our goals and arrive at success.

I definitely walked away with ideas for habits and routines I would like to cultivate. To that end, this book was well worth the time invested.

by Catherine Read

The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace

Short Tragic Life of Robert Peace So I’m not black, I did not grow up in inner city poverty, my father was not incarcerated for murder and I did not attend Yale. That is Rob Peace’s world in East Orange, NJ. I cannot know that world except through the story of his life told by his Yale roommate of 4 years, author Jeff Hobbs.

I loved this book. I was drawn into Rob/Shawn’s story and wanted so much for him to realize the mythological “American Dream” that says it’s about sacrifice, hard work and a good education. But the title told me it would not be a happy ending. I’m glad the author tells us that up front. It allows us to suspend our judgments of his choices and just wait for events to unfold. By the end of the book, I cared so much about this smart, dedicated, hardworking young man who wanted so much to do right by his family and his friends. He got dealt a set of cards the day he was born. Some things he could control and some things he couldn’t – that is the story of every human life.

He made bad decisions and bad choices. We all have a personal responsibility to live with the choices we make. But it needs to be put into the context of the worlds he lived in. And there were two worlds he was straddling: the dangerous poor neighborhoods of East Orange where he grew up, where his mother lived and where he returned after Yale. Then there was his four years at Yale where he excelled academically and received a degree in molecular biophysics and bio chemistry, the tuition funded entirely by a benefactor. He also sold marijuana to fund his additional expenses at Yale and to stockpile money he would use to help support his mother Jackie and launch his future in Rio. I’m not going to delve into the sad history of marijuana in this country and how it has ruined lives for no discernible reason that makes any sense. It’s just one of the factors that played out in this tragedy.Read More

by Catherine Read

Transgender Non-Discrimination Policy – Inside Scoop

Catherine Read discusses the issues affecting the transgender community here in Virginia with guests James Parrish, Executive Director of Equality Virginia; Rev. Emma Chattin of Metropolitan Community Church; Roxanne Edwards, Co-Founder of Second Fridays and Fourth Fridays; Sara Simone of Fairfax; and Laura Curtis and her transgender teen Nathan. Topics range from business leadership on trans issues to school policies, legislative goals, the upcoming TIES Conference in October, and ongoing support for Virginia’s Trans Community. The path forward means codifying policies at the state and federal level that protect the transgender and gender non-conforming communities from discrimination in employment, housing, education and medical care.

by Catherine Read

A More Beautiful Question – Warren Berger

A More Beautiful Question “Organizations gravitate toward the questions they ask.” And that applies to countries, communities, families and individuals. We all live in the world our questions create. This is according to David Cooperrider, PhD, a professor of Social Entrepreneurship at Case Western Reserve University.

I loved every aspect of this book. Author Warren Berger has done deep research that is inclusive of so many thought leaders from the academic research world, the business world, educators, marketing gurus . . . people from every walk of life who recognize the value of questioning and who pick apart our cultural bias against it.

Berger’s subjective definition of a “beautiful question” is “an ambitious yet actionable question that can begin to shift the way we perceive or think about something, and that might serve as a catalyst to bring about change.” The title of the book comes from an e.e. cummings poem: “Always the beautiful answer, who asks a more beautiful question.” I saw similar themes explored in Ed Catmull’s “Creativity Inc” and in Brian Grazer’s “A Curious Mind.”

There is a great deal of questioning about how we educate young people. Preschoolers come into the classroom asking hundreds of questions a day and by middle school they ask practically none. The rush to standardize teaching before kindergarten and the continued focus on students memorizing facts comes under serious scrutiny here. The author and a number of education researchers make the case for “continued neoteny” into adulthood. Our ability to learn through questioning should not cease as we get older, it should be the foundation and approach to meeting a world that now has a “glut of knowledge.” Neuroscientist Dr. Stuart Firestein points out that “glut of knowledge makes us more ignorant. The amount an individual knows as relative to the growing body of knowledge is getting smaller.” (Look for his TED Talk)Read More