Mallory Holtman, the first baseman for her college softball team, had no idea she was about to make a choice that would change her life. During a game that could determine the conference championship, Sara Tucholsky, a player for the other team, hit the ball over the center field fence. Sara was only 5’2”, had had only three hits all …
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT FOR TEENS: Building Cathedrals — How Your Attitudes Shape Your Life
Hi, this is Michael Josephson with Something to Think About. A long time ago a reporter visited a rock quarry where three men were cutting granite out of the walls. He asked the first what he was doing and the man grunted, “I’m making bricks.” The second man grinned and said, “I’m making the foundation for a building.” The third …
COMMENTARY 768.5: If You’re in a Hole, Stop Digging.
Most of us have lied to get out of trouble. From childhood denials (“It wasn’t me!”) to adult fabrications (“The check is in the mail…”), what seem like harmless falsehoods easily fall from our tongues. And then we make up more excuses or tell more lies to protect the first one. Soon the “cover-up” is more serious and credibility-damaging than …
COMMENTARY 768.2: Rebuilding Your Life and Your Reputation
Larry wrote me the following letter: “I’ve been a small businessman for almost 23 years in a business where people lie, cheat, and steal. I’m sorry to say I became one of them. In the short term it may have helped, but long term it came back to haunt me. There’s no amount of success that’s worth it. I am …
COMMENTARY 766.1: The Paradoxical Commandments
In 1968, when Kent M. Keith* was a 19-year-old sophomore at Harvard University, he wrote “The Paradoxical Commandments” as part of a booklet for student leaders. He describes the Commandments as guidelines for finding personal meaning in the face of adversity: 1. People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway. 2. If you do good, people will accuse you …
COMMENTARY 764.2: Everyone Needs a “Me File”
During a dinner with friends I mentioned an e-mail I’d received from a 13-year-old thanking me for the way my commentaries had influenced his life. I was clearly proud of the note, and Sally Kinnamon said I should save this and other affirming mementos and put them in a “Me File.” At first I thought she was being sarcastic, but …
COMMENTARY: How to Succeed by Failing Forward — Turning Stumbling Blocks to Stepping Stones 761.3
The best way to teach our children to succeed is to teach them to fail. After all, if getting everything you want on the first try is success, and everything else is failure, we all fail much more often than we succeed. People who learn how to grow from unsuccessful efforts succeed more often and at higher levels because they …
COMMENTARY: Launching the New Year with a Commitment to be Self-Consciously Reflective
Expanding on the theme that the best way to improve your life and have an exceptionally successful and fulfilling New Year is to increase your wisdom and optimism, I urge you not to just skim this essay but to take some serious reflection time to answer these questions: What did you learn last year that will help you become wiser …
COMMENTARY: FAILING FORWARD: Turning Stumbling Blocks into Stepping Stones 754.1
The best way to teach our children to succeed is to teach them to fail. After all, if getting everything you want on the first try is success, and everything else is failure, we all fail much more often than we succeed. People who learn how to grow from unsuccessful efforts succeed more often and at higher levels because they …
OBSERVATION: Talent is, of course, important, but the two qualities that make the critical difference between talented people who succeed and those who don’t are persistence and positivity. Successful people don’t give up or lose confidence; they learn from every experience and get better.
Two of America’s greatest inventors, Charles Kettering and Thomas Edison, embraced the same philosophy, which allowed them to take in stride what others called failure, and build upon it. Kettering said: “I failed forward to success. An inventor fails
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