The transition from military service to civilian life can be both exhilarating and daunting. We’ve dedicated years and missed many precious moments while serving the country, developing a strong sense of duty to our units and each other, honor toward the values supporting that which we defend, and leadership among our peers and colleagues across…
“I’ll see your passive-aggressiveness and raise you a sweet-genuine”. ~ Unknown To talk about Passive-Aggressiveness we need to start with a simple definition of the 3 primary ways people behave and/or communicate. I’ve always thought of these as a clock (I hope this metaphor makes sense to you): • Passive behavior/communication (which shares many similarities…
The term neuroticism dates to the ancient Greeks who believed people were made up of four basic temperaments: choleric (anger/leaders), sanguine (happy/sociable), phlegmatic (calm/deep thinkers) and melancholic (neurotic/artists). Then came Freud (late 1800’s), who had many thoughts about neuroses (some better than others)! Simply summarized, he thought neuroses came from not facing, and thereby repressing,…
Possunt quia posse videntur ~ VirgilI was motivated to write this week’s post (and even wrote most of it). Then I realized there were much better resources available than what I could provide alone. Motivation is a huge field of research! It has been studied for centuries by philosophers, educators, neurologists, sportsman, lawyers, leaders –…
“Diligence is the mother of good luck”. (Proverb) When something happens to you, how much control do you feel you had over it? Your answer to this question is shaped by many factors (childhood experiences, parenting styles, abilities, trauma etc.) and causes you to fall somewhere on the spectrum of high internal to high external…
imple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains. ~ Steve Jobs I think most of us are familiar with Marie Kondo’s ubiquitous book “The Life Changing Magic…
To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk. ~ T. Edison Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you anywhere. ~ A. Einstein Have you ever wondered how Edison came up with all those inventions – how Einstein conceived the theory of relativity? They did it using…
Ready for part two? Before we get to our Top 10 list of things that DO increase our levels of happiness, we need to ensure we’re all defining the term the same way. Psychologically speaking, happiness is a deep & lasting sense of satisfaction or contentment – not joy, exhilaration, or pleasure (the latter are…
The United States ranks 15th of 146 countries on the 2023 World Happiness Report (a somewhat flawed but interesting survey designed by Gallup and the U.N) – in the last ten years our highest ranking was 14th and lowest was 19th. Researching happiness is a huge empire but here are two things to consider: 1.…
Grit is an old-fashioned word we don’t use much anymore. Back in the day, if we referred to someone as “gritty” it meant they had moxie or were plucky – but those words aren’t popular anymore either. Angela Duckworth’s 2018 book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance defines grit as ‘ferocious determination’; the powerful…