Continuing the theme on flexibility in your beliefs giving you freedom, contributing to your intelligence, and attracting people, I’ll continue about ways to increase that flexibility. Yesterday covered using a prevalent ad campaign to help develop non-judgmental acceptance of other people’s beliefs and changing your own. By the way, by accepting other people’s beliefs, I don’t mean necessarily agreeing with them, just accepting that they have them and understanding them.[…] Keep reading →

I’ll build on yesterday’s post on changing your perspective to make it easier to change your perspective with a post I’ve been meaning to write for a while. Airports around the world are full of an ad campaign that provide another great exercise in enabling changing your perspective. Flexibility in changing your perspective is one of the most important tools in changing your world, creating freedom for yourself, and in[…] Keep reading →

Flexibility in changing your beliefs and perspectives is one of the more important skills in improving your life. It’s also a major component of intelligence, one psychologist told me. In my seminars and with clients, it’s one of the more challenging skills to develop, though easy with practice. Like most challenges, the way to master it is to start easy and build. Look for all the opportunities you can to[…] Keep reading →

Yesterday I posted on making four-year-olds sing that they love something, accepting it was probably a tempest in a teacup. I also noted similar incidents may contribute to reinforcing what seems to me telling children what to think and feel. The incident reminded me of Woodie Guthrie‘s writing “This Land Is Your Land” as a response to hearing “God Bless America” over and over in the late 30s, implying these[…] Keep reading →

At my niece’s kindergarten graduation Friday the entire graduating class of four-and-five-year-olds sang a song with a chorus “I love America.” The song was light-hearted and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. As a thoughtful person, I couldn’t help think about what having a whole class sing the song meant. I enjoy playing with ideas and what better time to ponder education than at a graduation? I’ll be the first to[…] Keep reading →

Two observations I’ve made about how good people are at things: People who aren’t good at something talk about how awesome they are at it. People who are great at something talk about the humiliations and failures that got them good at it. I’ve found this pattern far more accurate than I would have expected. I love hearing stories from people about the disasters that made them who they are.[…] Keep reading →

People confuse someone else’s values being different from their own with being worse than their own. If other people’s values were worse, then statements like the following two would portend the end of society. The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no[…] Keep reading →