Dealing with Dissonance

As human beings, we get very uncomfortable when our internal beliefs don’t match up with our external reality. When what we believe and what we see or do or experience don’t align, we consciously or unconsciously yearn to reconcile the discrepancy.   There are several possible paths we might take to alleviate this cognitive dissonance and […]

Continue reading


 Forget what’s wrong. Ask what’s right?

There seems to be a natural human tendency to be preoccupied with what’s wrong.  I think the intention is often good—let’s get to the heart of the problem so we can fix it.   So we ask:  What’s wrong with a situation? What’s wrong with this organization?  With this child?  With this country?  But personal fulfillment, higher performance […]

Continue reading


 Increasing Your Purpose Ratio

On any given day, you’re going to feel a certain amount of negative emotions (disappointment, sadness, anger, anxiety) and a certain amount of positive emotions (joy, excitement, love, hope). Positive Psychologist, Barbara Fredrickson, calls this the Positivity Ratio. Most people go through life with a kind of 1:1 balanced ratio. When you ask them, ‘how’s […]

Continue reading


 Seeing the Seeds of Greatness

“We all have more potential than meets the unappreciative eye.”–Tal Ben-Shahar Think of your innate potential as a tiny little seed buried deep within.  It needs light.  It needs water.  It needs nourishment in order to flourish.  But before any of that can happen, it needs to be seen.  Someone has to acknowledge that the […]

Continue reading


 The Proliferation of Purpose

We have extraordinary levels of freedom to choose how we will live and how we will contribute to the flourishing of the system we all share. As my friend Raj Sisodia pointed out, we can be like the caterpillar—choosing to consume everything we see for our own gratification, paying no heed to any destruction left in our […]

Continue reading