The Web of Life

My Character Strengths

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 22:11:00 -0500

I took the VIA Survey of Character (VIA-IS) test and here are my top 7 character strengths:

Your Top Character Strength

Love of learning
You love learning new things, whether in a class or on your own. You have always loved school, reading, and museums-anywhere and everywhere there is an opportunity to learn.

Your Second Character Strength

Curiosity and interest in the world
You are curious about everything. You are always asking questions, and you find all subjects and topics fascinating. You like exploration and discovery.

Your Third Character Strength

Kindness and generosity
You are kind and generous to others, and you are never too busy to do a favor. You enjoy doing good deeds for others, even if you do not know them well.

Your Fourth Character Strength

Capacity to love and be loved
You value close relations with others, in particular those in which sharing and caring are reciprocated. The people to whom you feel most close are the same people who feel most close to you.

Your Fifth Character Strength

Judgment, critical thinking, and open-mindedness
Thinking things through and examining them from all sides are important aspects of who you are. You do not jump to conclusions, and you rely only on solid evidence to make your decisions. You are able to change your mind.

Character Strength #6

Appreciation of beauty and excellence
You notice and appreciate beauty, excellence, and/or skilled performance in all domains of life, from nature to art to mathematics to science to everyday experience.

Character Strength #7

Citizenship, teamwork, and loyalty
You excel as a member of a group. You are a loyal and dedicated teammate, you always do your share, and you work hard for the success of your group.

Capitalism 3.0

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:11:00 -0500

Otto Scharmer, professor at MIT and author of Theory U: Leading from the Future as it Emerges, has written an interesting and provocative article titled “Seven Acupuncture Points for Shifting Capitalism to Create a Regenerative Ecosystem Economy”. I’ll post some of my reflections on it when I’m finished reading it.

In the meantime, here is an excerpt:

In the financial sector the single-minded quest for short-term financial profitability has led to a set of institutions that now are “too big to fail” and that engage in a type of Wall Street capitalism that Paul Krugman has called “heads I win, tails you lose.” The “I win” part of that principle led to an average annual compensation of $590 million per person for the top 50 Wall Street investment bankers in 2007. The “you lose” part of that same principle has dealt the taxpayers a multi-trillion-dollar bailout bill.

For the New Year

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 03:10:22 -0500

Let’s leave
Behind
The things that do not matter,
And turn
Our lives
To a more important chapter.

Let’s take the time,
Let’s try to find
What real life has to offer.
And maybe then
We’ll find again
What we had long forgotten.
Like a friend,
True ‘til the end,
It will help us onward.

The sun is high,
The road is wide,
And it starts where we are standing.
No one knows
How far it goes,
For the road is never-ending.

- Benjamin Hoff, “The Te of Piglet”

Book Blurb #1

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:16:48 -0400

Glow: How You Can Radiate Energy, Innovation, and Success
by Lynda Gratton
Berrett-Koehler Publishers © 2009

… people who Glow had mastered three distinct areas of their life:

They Glow because they have built deeply trusting and cooperative relationships with others.
They Glow because they have extended their networks beyond the obvious to encompass the unusual.
They Glow because they are on an inner quest that ignites their own energy and that of others.

…

You Glow when you radiate positive energy—that fosters a great working experience for yourself, excites and ignites others, and through your inspiration and innovation creates superior value and success in your work.

All of us have moments when we feel we are Glowing. It could be when a project goes particularly well or when working with a colleague feels especially rewarding or when suddenly someone you barely know comes up with an idea for a problem that has been on your mind for ages. It is at these times that you feel great about what you are doing, times when working with others has never seemed more natural, times when you really feel part of something bigger—times when you feel really successful.

When you radiate this positive energy, great things happen to you. When you Glow, you are able to create or find and flourish in what I call Hot Spots.

Glowing is something that happens to you and involves your radiating energy and innovation.
Hot Spots are times, places, and occasions when whole groups or a community of people become highly energized and innovative.

What Culture Do You Prefer?

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 13:55:39 -0400

Came across an interesting article about 4 different models of coroporate culture. I think Semco’s model appeals to me the most although Best Buy’s model also looks interesting (“unlimited paid vacation” !!).

One reader asserts in the comments section:

I honestly think these radically alternative models of organizations work only for a short period, under very special circumstances.

What do you think? How well would these models work in your company?

On Passion

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 16:26:00 -0400

Of late, I’ve been thinking of my rather checkered career.

Mike Rowe, was once a member of the Baltimore City Opera for five years, the experience of which he mentions in the May issue of Outside magazine: “I’m one of two straight, unmarried guys in a troupe with 35 women. I’m 23, dressed as a pirate, all the girls are dressed like French prostitutes, and there’s Wagner and Verdi, and Puccini playing. It was a hell of a thing.”

His job advice for us? “‘Follow your passion” is the worst advice you can give someone”. Instead he admonishes: “If you bring your passion with you, you can apply it to anything that makes sense.” (emphasis mine).

Then I also remembered what Steve Jobs said in his commencement speech at Stanford University several years ago:

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.

You have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.

I’m not sure I can really say that I love what I’m doing, though I work with a great team. I think I need to listen to myself and reflect more on what Jobs said: Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. Or given the economic situation and the stage of my life, should I just be content and, as Rowe said above, bring my passion to my current job?

“This path of destiny is all my own”

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 01:08:00 -0400

“This path of destiny is all my own”

Slow Down

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 01:24:01 -0400

The other day I was enjoying some strawberries with my youngest daughter (she’s only 4). Suddenly she looked intently in my eyes and said, “Daddy, you seem to be in a hurry.”

Wow.

She was right of course. I was ithcing to get back on my computer, instead of enjoying the precious present moment with my daughter.

Why am I always in a hurry? What’s the big rush?!

"Established truths are comforting, but it is the mysteries that make the soul ache and render a life..."

Sat, 25 Apr 2009 13:41:00 -0400

“Established truths are comforting, but it is the mysteries that make the soul ache and render a life of exploration worth living.
…
It’s what happens along the way that radically enriches us. The wrestling with mystery, not the ascension to resolution, defines who we are.”

- Brian Greene, Questions, Not Answers, Make Science the Ultimate Adventure

Wired 17.05 (April 2009)

Thought of the Day

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 15:50:37 -0400

“The essential challenge is to transform the isolation and self-interest within our communities into connectedness and caring for the whole. The key is to identify how this transformation occurs. We begin by shifting our attention from the problems of community to the possibility of community. We also need to acknowledge that our wisdom about individual transformation is not enough when it comes to community transformation. So, one purpose here is to bring together our knowledge about the nature of collective transformation. A key insight in this pursuit is to accept the importance of social capital to the life of the community. This begins the effort to create a future distinct from the past.

The need to create a structure of belonging grows out of the isolated nature of our lives, our institutions, and our communities. The absence of belonging is so widespread that we might say we are living in an age of isolation, imitating the lament from early in the last century, when life was referred to as the age of anxiety. Ironically, we talk today of how small our world has become, with the shrinking effect of globalization, instant sharing of information, quick technology, workplaces that operate around the globe. Yet these do not necessarily create a sense of belonging. They provide connection, diverse information, an infinite range of opinion. But all this does not create the connection from which we can become grounded and experience the sense of safety that arises from a place where we are emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically a member.

Our isolation occurs because western culture, our individualistic narrative, the inward attention of our institutions and our professions, and the messages from our media all fragment us. We are broken into pieces.”

-Peter Block, Community: The Structure of Belonging

Audio

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:53:41 -0500

can't you read?

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:37:16 -0500

One thing i’ve noticed these days is that people either can’t read or they only skim. As a result, I have to re-send my email and explicitly ask the recipient to answer a specific point (which I BOLD to get their attention)

grrrrrrrr …

lazy day

Sun, 25 May 2008 17:58:00 -0400

Was up late last night as a friend and his daughter dropped by for a visit. We played Cranium, which was pretty fun. Got woken up early by a crying daughter. It’s a beautiful sunny day outside and here I am in front of my computer! How sad is that?