“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”-Ralph Waldo Emerson It’s easy to view our life on a spectrum of age, but maybe a better way would be...

"Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death" - Auntie Mame My mother was unhappy in the later years of her life. She would always talk longingly about things she wanted to do, but she never did them. I don’t think she was a lot different from other...

Quit looking for a job, and start looking for a problem to solve. The job market isn’t about you, it’s about them. It’s not about helping you get a job because you need one, it’s about helping someone solve a problem. That might be a little harsh for some people, but...

Reality is what’s going on before it enters our operating system. What do I mean by “our operating system?” When a computer is assembled, it’s just hardware before the operating system is installed. At the moment of birth, we’re just hardware, with a very limited...

I was lying on my back with 20 other meditators listening to the soothing voice of our facilitator as he led us into the present moment. A fly landed on my arm. I instinctively raised my arm to get him away, but of course he returned. I didn’t want to spend the whole...

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all? Would you prefer that mirror or a mirror that showed your shadow side, the things about yourself that you need to confront because they’re holding you back and making you unhappy - the things you’re hiding...

Yabuts As a coach, I’m constantly running into people who only want a quick fix. They’re looking for things to do, not different ways of being. They’re not willing to do the inner work that gets us through the maze of our life. We have a great conversation about the...

I was riding my motorcycle from Houston to San Antonio on IH10 when I noticed an off ramp that led to old highway 90. I had traveled that road many times with my grandmother 70 years ago before IH10 existed. “I wonder what the road is like now,” I said to myself. I...

When an elder dies, a library has burned down. When an elder leaves your company, they take the library with them. How can we keep that library of wisdom and experience in the company and make it a shared library? There are five generations in the workplace today:...

I was sitting on my porch looking at my front yard. My inner conversation sounded like this. “The yard looks terrible. This Texas heat is taking its toll. I don’t know if it will ever recover. Why is my neighbor’s yard so green and thick? I’ll bet he’s watering more...

We all know that children’s egos are under construction. They’re trying to establish an identity, independence, and they’re learning how to get attention, love, and affection. We understand this as adults and, most of the time, we tolerate their dysfunctional,...

Change is hard. That’s why 75% of the population of the U.S. is either obese or overweight. In spite of all of the scientific evidence of the health consequences, this epidemic persists in our society. It’s not your fault . . . sort of. We live in a culture that...