Showing posts with label peace. Show all posts
Showing posts with label peace. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 17, 2024

10 of My Most-Accessed Items at Internet Archive


Recently I was contacted by someone who had found one of my audio podcasts at the Internet Archive. She asked if she could use excerpts from the audio Do What You Fear and Grow Stronger for a YouTube production. Of course I agreed... and happily! The whole idea of sharing this stuff is to put it out into the universe and hope it does some good somewhere. And while I have uploaded over 90 items to the Archive, I find that some of them are downloaded and used more than others. Below are some of the top 10 items accessed there. If you're looking for a little inspiration, you just might find it in one of these. Enjoy!

(Caveat: All these podcasts were created over 14 years ago. Some of the materials or links referenced in them may no longer be available.) 

👉 Do What You Fear and Grow Stronger [12 1/2 min audio]

This podcast includes inspirational quotations, war stories, a little philosophy and some practical challenges to help individuals and teams push through fear & grow stronger.

👉 Accept What Is [17 min audio]

This was designed to help individuals and teams discover the power of accepting the reality of a difficult situation in order to handle it effectively. 


How can you become happier? In this archived podcast I share 10 specific actions that I’ve taken to create more happiness in my life.

👉 Practice Mindfulness [22 min audio]

This audio is designed to help individuals and teams expand upon their inherent power of mindfulness — the practice of bringing your full awareness into the present moment.


This is a FREE 132-page PDF version of the book. The title is self-explanatory!

👉 Learn to Be Optimistic, Learn to Succeed. [9 1/2 min audio]

Cognitive therapy works because it helps you change your explanatory style from pessimistic to optimistic, and the change is permanent. It gives you a set of cognitive skills for talking to yourself when you fail. This audio will help you get started making that change.


This is my eclectic compilation of practical PM tools, thought-provoking PM essays and suggestions for helping individual project managers and their teams stay sane while delivering good quality finished products. It consists of 54 Chapters, most of which were originally published as blog posts through my websites and hadn't ever before been released in book form.


This Quick Start Guide is designed to help you plan and manage your first project using the PM Minimalist approach, as detailed in the The Project Management Minimalist: Just Enough PM to Rock Your Projects!


This brief video provides real-world examples to distinguish between authority & responsibility. And it makes the argument that by finding a good balance between the two, we can improve the quality of life at home, at work and in all of society.  


This essay is designed to help you see the origins of the strong feelings of the people you are arguing with. And it provides some suggestions for improving your interactions with those whose politics and religious views may be far different from your own. 

See everything I've uploaded to Internet Archives (94 items!) & click the link in the item's "Description" to go directly to any of them.

Sunday, August 23, 2020

A Little Happiness from the Archives!

Times are tough right now. And we're all struggling to find a little happiness amidst a pandemic, wild and unpredictable weather events, a polarized presidential election, all sorts of nastiness from media talking heads and, sadly, sniping among friends in our social media. So how can we find happiness amidst this chaos?  

Strange but true: Scientists believe that happiness is a skill that can be learned... and like any skill, with practice, you can get better and better at it! Check out this three-part series of articles (loaded with links to free stuff!) from the archives and learn how you can learn the skill of being happy. Enjoy!

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Monday, May 18, 2020

Those Spring Flowers: Pointless Bursts of Color or Anchors to the Here & Now?

2019's "superbloom" of California poppies near
Lake Elsinore blankets the mountainsides with dancing colors

It's that time of year again (at least in much of the Northern Hemisphere). Out of the gray of winter, against a backdrop of dead grasses, winter-worn leaves and bare branches, flowers pop out at us, clamoring for attention. They tease us with noisy bursts of color that don't seem to have any purpose.  "Hey, I'm over here!" they demand. "It's spring and it's warming up and I'm beautiful and it's great to be alive!" Their crazy, random shaped heads bob and jiggle around in the warm, moist breezes. Some last a few weeks, while others shrivel and die after a mere day or two.

In A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, Eckhart Tolle explains how these little colored marvels have helped shape humanity's perceptions:
"As the consciousness of human beings developed, flowers were most likely the first thing they came to value that had no utilitarian purpose... not linked in some way to survival. They provided inspiration to countless artists, poets, and mystics. Jesus tells us to contemplate the flowers and learn from them how to live. The Buddha is said to have given a silent sermon once during which he held up a flower and gazed at it."
And how can flowers teach us how to live? By grabbing our attention and, however briefly, slamming us into the here and now. Their ephemeral beauty touches something deep within us... something that is beyond words... something that compels attention and focus... something that invites us into the present moment.

And then, soon enough, our faces turn away, disappearing into our digital screens. Then our brains disappear into those mini-dramas from work or some talking head's political narrative or celebrity "news," and on and on and on. Eventually, our consciousness is completely consumed by the neverending ping's and dings of the gossip stream that is the news or Facebook or Instagram or... [insert your favorite gif-bedecked screen addiction here.]

How about you? Did you notice that short-lived flower you walked past today? Did you catch that beautiful smile that someone beamed at you? Did you really hear and process that thing your kid said that seemed to make him so giggly? Did you look into your dog's eyes when she wagged her tail at you and connect with her unrestrained love? These are examples of NOW moments. Follow the flowers to connect with your own ephemeral NOW moments and connect with your own life aliveness before it fades.

(Bonus: Online Google photo album:
Virtual Flowers for My WORTH SHARING Readers 
-- I shot all these at or near my home in Southern CA.)

Related Stuff from the Archives: