Metta Practice: Compassion & the Art of Living

"If you want to walk fast, walk alone. If you want to walk far, walk together."  

If you want to learn fast, to improve fast, go out and study on your own. Wait for no one. Take your education into your own hands. Read everything you can, learn from every moment you can, and grow exponentially.  

Now… If you want to create something that lasts with all this education that now fills your head you’re going to have to change pace; you’re going to have find someone walking at your speed and walk together.

Barbra singing 'Children Will Listen' from the Presidents Inaugural Gala in '93. She gives a great monologue at the beginning that introduces the song, and a...

Have you ever wanted to be more persuasive, convincing, or if nothing else, understand how others try to influence you? …Of course! Who hasn’t?

Understanding how storytelling works in persuasion, influence, and change, and the research/neuroscience that informs it all is critical if anyone is going to work with stories effectively.

And hooray -- Gregory Ciotti has put together his list of favorite books that help us understand persuasion, influence, change, and stories more deeply. We'll all become more articulate and better at our craft -- whether you are a consultant, storyteller, entrepreneur or CEO.

Some of these I've read, some I haven't -- so I can't wait to dig into this list myself.

I hope we all learn lots and gain lots of useable insights for our work. Enjoy!

This review was written by Karen Dietz for her curated content on business storytelling at www.scoop.it/t/just-story-it 

Dedicated to the memory of the 20 children and 6 adults who lost their lives in last week's senseless shooting in Newtown, CT.

Great results require toughness. The belief that compassion is soft and toughness gets results explains why so little compassion exists in organizations. I’m an either/or type person, it’s my natur...

It’s Tuesday morning at 8 a.m. Two San Francisco entrepreneurs are pitching their ventures to potential investors today. They’d both agree that this is one of the most important days of their lives.

We are born with the hardwiring for connection, and I think we learn shame. It starts as a parenting tool. It’s also a tool for social control; it’s a tool in classrooms; it’s a tool in synagogues and churches and mosques. Shame needs three things to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence, and judgment, but it only works when it keeps you in a false belief that you are alone.  men have a tendency to have one or two responses to shame, which is anger or disengagement. Women have a tendency to turn against themselves. We tend to join the choir of the gremlins and engage in some destructive self-loathing.

We found that for people who held on to a secret of trauma—because of shame or because of guilt—keeping that secret had a worse effect on their physical well-being than the actual traumatic event. 

Building a scientific understanding of the mind to reduce suffering and promote well-being...

 How do we suffer with each other in our particular circumstances?

How do we suffer with people like the friends and family members who are grieving in Connecticut? How do we share in the suffering of people around us every day?

And how do we suffer with people like Adam Lanza, after and before they perpetrate such crimes?

To many, this sounds like giving in to defeat ... as if we're merely saying it's the poor who are blessed. I've been in too many business and personal situations in which everyone's intuition is flat wrong. That's reason enough to believe that the way of compassion might be worth a try.

By REV. WILLIAM L. BULSON

A great intro to the rationale for developing creativity∞ as a life skill, delivered eloquently by Dr. Gerard M. Puccio, chair and professor of the International Center for Studies in Creativity at.