Holly Harman Fackler, editor of the new “Community Conversations” section of the Mansfield News Journal, interviewed me recently. Because she covers a range of community and civic engagement issues, the topics of Naked Idealism fit in nicely. We covered a lot of ground including the book, life coaching, authenticity, sustainability, proactive thinking, diversity, self-leadership, and [...]

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I enjoy listening to how people use words. In fact, this is a cornerstone of life coaching, as the type of language we use illustrates much about how we think. How we think, in turn, determines much of our reality. If we consistently fear that the worst is going to happen to us, operating from [...]

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One of the most common things I hear from clients is that they have too much on their plate, or rather things they don’t even want to have on their plate. This stands in the way of having time and energy to do what they really want. This quite literally happened to me recently, and [...]

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On a recent errand-running trip through our neighborhood, I bumped into no fewer than five people I knew, in the span of stopping at four destinations. That’s one of the wonderful things about living in a walkable/bikeable community…except when you’re in a hurry, of course. I didn’t really spend much time speaking to the first [...]

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When I learned yesterday that Randy Pausch died, I found my thoughts and emotions going through a strange mix of sadness and empathy, as well as anger and envy. I realized that in failing to acknowledge how I truly felt about Randy and his death – going deeper than the “safe” material usually included in [...]

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As we muster up the courage to pursue new visions in life (e.g., a new job or career, additional schooling, a city we’ve always wanted to live in), we often find ourselves faced with many changes. This may include transitioning to a new physical environment, to new friends and co-workers, and to new behaviors. If [...]

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One Sunday morning I was sitting in the pews of Pittsburgh’s First Unitarian Church, where I was scheduled to facilitate my first coaching-related workshop a few weeks later. One member, a Carnegie Mellon professor named Randy Pausch, announced that his pancreatic cancer had returned. He would be moving away with his family so they could [...]

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Yesterday morning I had the opportunity to enjoy an activity that’s not possible every winter day: jogging in the snow. Sometimes there’s a bit too much snow on the ground, and sometimes it’s a bit icy. This time, though, it was just right. As I ran along a trail in a nearby park, surrounded [...]

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I recently shared this excerpt from my upcoming book Naked Idealism as part of a discussion on wealth, where it generated a few interesting responses.
Several decades ago, Shakti Gawain outlined a simple but powerful model in her popular book Creative Visualization. She holds that much of our existence is based upon three interrelated aspects that [...]

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I recently posted an article on an ABC 20/20 episode that compared the happiness levels of various countries and attempted to explain why these differences might exist. Among the conclusions was that more materialistic wealth doesn’t necessarily lead to more happiness. This got me thinking about how our current economic recession may–or may not–impact happiness [...]

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