In 2005, author David Foster Wallace was asked to give the commencement address to the 2005 graduating class of Kenyon College. However, the resulting speech didn’t become widely known until 3 years later, after his tragic death. It is, without a doubt, some of the best life advice we’ve [...]]]> THIS IS WATER – YouTube.

In 2005, author David Foster Wallace was asked to give the commencement address to the 2005 graduating class of Kenyon College. However, the resulting speech didn’t become widely known until 3 years later, after his tragic death. It is, without a doubt, some of the best life advice we’ve ever come across, and perhaps the most simple and elegant explanation of the real value of education.
We made this video, built around an abridged version of the original audio recording, with the hopes that the core message of the speech could reach a wider audience who might not have otherwise been interested. However, we encourage everyone to seek out the full speech (because, in this case, the book is definitely better than the movie).
-The Glossary

Listen to the full speech here:
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.ph…

My brain started to stockpile descriptions of successful people: good networkers, exquisite communicators, committed, driven, passionate, educated and blessed with strong teams, but the problem was, that cache can look quite similar to those of unsuccessful people.

Rats.

So I stopped looking at the [...]]]> Originally posted on www.colipera.com by Bassam

“Sorry I’m late. Traffic was awful!”

How many of your meetings start with this lame excuse? You know it’s a cop-out, yet an irrepressible urge makes you take the easy way out over, and over, and over again. It is not your fault, I know. It’s the [...]]]> Originally posted on LinkedIn by Fred Kofman

“Sorry I’m late. Traffic was awful!”

How many of your meetings start with this lame excuse? You know it’s a cop-out, yet an irrepressible urge makes you take the easy way out over, and over, and over again. It is not your fault, I know. It’s the irrepressible urge that makes you do it.

In Control versus Out of Control

There are two types of causes: those within and those beyond your control. You have a choice about where to focus. The latter makes you look innocent. You are not to blame. The former makes you powerful. It is your “response-ability.” Being “response-able” means focusing on what you can do to respond to a challenge. It’s about taking ownership, rather than assigning blame and playing the innocent victim. As I wrote here, the price of innocence is impotence.

You can explain any result as the balance between these two causes: the challenge versus your ability to respond. When your ability is higher than the challenge, you succeed; when it is lower, you fail. Think of it as weight lifting. If your strength is bigger than the weight, you lift it; if it isn’t, you don’t. There is a funny asymmetry, though. When you lift, you call yourself “strong.” When you don’t, you call the weight “heavy.”

Has anyone ever told you that he was not capable enough to do the job? Yet how many times have you heard, “the job is too difficult!” The missing terms at the end of the sentence, the most important ones to avoid the victim mindset are “for me,” as in, “the job is too difficult for me.

Both explanations are (partially) true. The victim story gets you stuck in resignation and resentment. Someone is harming you and there’s nothing you can do. Life is not fair! The responsibility story empowers you. The ball is in your court. How are you going to play it?

My colleague Andrés found himself under the gun. While he waited for his garage door to open in Buenos Aires, two armed thieves assaulted him. “Get out of the car!” they threatened. He did. “Open the door of your house or we’ll shoot you!” they barked next. Andrés teaches people how to be response-able. Shaking, he calmly said, “My wife and daughter are in the house. I will give you my car, my money, anything you want. But I will not open the door.” The thieves took his car, his money, his watch, his phone and his laptop, but they didn´t take his life. I asked Andrés what he thought at that crucial moment. “If these guys were going to shoot me for not opening the door, God knows what they would have done to my wife and daughter inside. If they shot me in the street, they would have had to run. I could have died, but I would have protected my loved ones.”

The ability to respond does not mean the ability to succeed. Response-ability does not guarantee that you win, or even survive. It only reminds you that you can choose how you play and how you live.

Asleep with the Enemy

We all want to be liked, as Dave Kerpen writes. The problem is that rather than following Dave’s counsel, many of us attempt to be liked through Idiot Compassion. We collude with the person stuck in the victim mindset. We blame, we moan and we groan.

“I can´t believe they did that to you!” “They shouldn’t have!” “You deserve better than that.” “They should fix it right now!”

These comments are soothing – like a drug – and equally deadly. They calm you down with sweet protection and rev you up with righteous indignation. But they don’t give you a way to address the situation. You may think the person making them is on your side, but your drug dealer is not your friend.

Fight Back!

I am always tempted to collude with my clients. They are in pain and I want to be compassionate. However, I want to offer them wise compassion. For example, a call center manager whom I coached had a bad case of victimhood. His automatic response when his boss asked him about poor customer satisfaction was to blame his employees for poor manners, the finance department for small budgets, and the training department for lack of skills. I listened to his story, feeling for him. I expressed my sorrow and then asked him if he wanted my help.

When he agreed, I challenged him with these questions:

• What is the challenge you are facing? (Instead of “What did they do to you?”)
• How have you responded? (Instead of “What should they have done?”)
• How has that worked out for you? (Instead of “How are they wrong?”)
• What could you do now? (Instead of “What should they do now?”)
• If you need help, whom could you ask? (Instead of “Who should fix it?”)
• What can you learn from this? (Instead of “How should they be punished?”)

The pattern is simple: turn “they” and “should” into “I” and “could.” Stop blaming them, but don’t blame yourself either. Ability to respond does not mean guilt. It doesn’t matter who is responsible for the situation. What matters is that you see yourself as able to respond, improve and learn when confronting the situation.

What my client found is less important than what your colleagues can find when you ask them these questions with intelligent kindness.

A final word of caution: Remember that to earn the right to challenge someone out of victimhood, you must first listen, acknowledge his or her pain and ask permission to help. I have seen too many relationships broken by eager friends and spouses who interrupt with, “Oh c’mon! Quit being a victim and start thinking of what you can do to solve this problem!”

Question for readers:

What is your favorite victim explanation?

Fred Kofman, PhD. in Economics, is Professor of Leadership and Coaching at the Conscious Business Center of the University Francisco Marroquín and a faculty member of Lean In. He is the author of Conscious Business, How to Build Value Through Values.

A pysiotherapist with a major in psychology, Amanda Gore is an award winning international speaker, one of only two outside the USA inducted into the Speaker Hall of Fame.

She is an author of The [...]]]> Originally posted by Happiness & Its Causes, Mind & Its Potential and Young Minds via Think & Be Happy newsletter

A pysiotherapist with a major in psychology, Amanda Gore is an award winning international speaker, one of only two outside the USA inducted into the Speaker Hall of Fame.

She is an author of The Gospel of Joy and co-founder of The Joy Project and has created learning programs around stress, life and leadership. And she was hugely popular at Happiness & Its Causes last year.

The latest research in positive psychology has shown us that happiness precedes success! As part of a leaders job is to create an environment in which people can be the best they can be, Amanda addresses various ways this can be done. The end result – a joy filled, fear free productive workplace full of happy people!

Shawn Achor is the winner of over a dozen distinguished teaching awards at Harvard University, where he delivered lectures on positive psychology in the most popular class at Harvard.

He is the [...]]]> Shawn Achor is the CEO of Good Think Inc., where he researches and teaches about positive psychology.

Shawn Achor is the winner of over a dozen distinguished teaching awards at Harvard University, where he delivered lectures on positive psychology in the most popular class at Harvard.

He is the CEO of Good Think Inc., a Cambridge-based consulting firm which researches positive outliers — people who are well above average — to understand where human potential, success and happiness intersect. Based on his research and 12 years of experience at Harvard, he clearly and humorously describes to organizations how to increase happiness and meaning, raise success rates and profitability, and create positive transformations that ripple into more successful cultures. He is also the author of The Happiness Advantage.

ShawnAchor_2011X.mp4

I have been doing a lot of apps review here in Educational Technology and Mobile Learning but I have never posted about the tools you as teachers and educators can use to create your own apps. Just lower your eyebrows down, you can do it without any coding [...]]]> Original article on www.educatorstechnology.com

I have been doing a lot of apps review here in Educational Technology and Mobile Learning but I have never posted about the tools you as teachers and educators can use to create your own apps. Just lower your eyebrows down, you can do it without any coding knowledge. Of course Android and Apple do provide tech savyy guys with the tools necessary to create their own apps but for us who know nothing about SDK and app development skills, platforms like the ones below will serve the purpose. You can create your app in less than a minute and the process is completely free.

Here are some of the apps I learned from Steven Anderson and which you can use to create your customizable apps. Enjoy

1- AppMaker

This is a cool web tool that enables users to easily and instantly build a rich content based app. Just paste in the URL of the website you have and then start customizing it app the way you want. You can add images, videos…etc. The free version is ad supported but there is a paid version with no ads.

2- iBuildApp

iBuildApp is the established “do it yourself” platform to make iPhone/Android apps, with no coding required. The self service web platform provides easy way for any organization to create their own mobile (iPhone, iPad, Android, Symbian, Win Mobile, Blackberry) applications and publishing materials.Creating a mobile app with iBuildapp is absolutely free. You can have an app published within minutes.

3- MIT App Inventor

This is a Google supported platform where you can get to create awesome apps using just drag and drop. It enables you to customize the look and feel of your apps, add buttons, attach objects and many more. It requires a Google account.

via 3 Awesome Apps for Teachers to Create their Own Apps ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning.

The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”
―Albert Einstein

You do know you talk to yourself in your mind all the time, right?

Pretty [...]]]> Article first published in Marc and Angel Hack Life

The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”
―Albert Einstein

You do know you talk to yourself in your mind all the time, right?

Pretty much every one of us has a non-stop stream of thoughts – a mental monologue – that has a powerful impact on how we feel, how we behave, and how we live our lives.  Too often, this mental monologue consists of unhelpful thoughts that hinder our happiness and effectiveness.

Which is why it’s time to stop thinking about…

1.  Who everyone else wants you to be.

You were born to be you, not who they tell you to be.  You are not here to be perfect; you are here to be true.  Be gentle and kind to your heart and soul.  Accept who you are, where you are, and where you came from.

Don’t make a decision based solely on popularity, or based on what others think is right for you.  Just because others are doing something doesn’t mean it’s the best choice for you.

Listen to your gut.  Now is the moment to follow your intuition and pursue what matters most to you.  Reach deep within yourself and awaken to the purpose that moves you and makes you feel alive.  The world is filled with opportunities to do an infinite number of things, so why not align your efforts with the activities that speak to your soul.

2.  What you don’t have.

Instead of thanking the heavens for two strong legs and a body that’s capable of running and jumping and dancing, lots of people complain about their weight and appearance.

Instead of appreciating that they live in a country that protects their basic human rights and civil liberties, lots of people complain about laws, taxes, and politicians.

Instead of being grateful for the roof they have over their heads, lots of people wish they had a larger house and a fancier car.

Don’t be one of these people.

To witness miracles unfold in your daily life, count your blessings and be thankful for what you DO have.  Lots of people aren’t so lucky.  Read The Happiness Project.

3.  What you fear.

As Franklin D. Roosevelt so profoundly said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

That’s the honest truth.  The real thing that keeps you down is fear.  The reason your fears have so much power over you is simply because you give them this power by thinking about them – the worst-case scenario, what you don’t want to happen, etc.

It’s time to take a stand.  It’s time to clear your fears from your thoughts.  It’s time to acknowledge that your fear of grief is far worse than the grief you fear.

4.  Old mistakes.

Why regret?  This moment doesn’t have any mistakes in it yet.  It’s brand new.

You have a choice to make right here, right now.  You can hold onto old mistakes or you can make progress going forward with the new beginning you’ve just been given.

It’s time to be bold.  It’s time to stop reading the previous chapter of your life and start writing the one you’re currently living.  Learn from your old mistakes and march confidently on.  Sure you’ll make new mistakes along the way, but that’s the whole point – you want to learn from new mistakes, not rot alongside old ones.

Living means taking chances that are worth taking and making mistakes that are worth making.  Right now is simply a new chance to get it right, but you have to let go and take this chance.

5.  Old wounds.

You will grow much stronger and find peace once you stop picking at your old wounds.  Consciously replaying a painful memory over and over in your head is self-abuse.  Your past has given you the strength and awareness you have today.  Don’t let it haunt you.  Celebrate it.

Your wounds are your wisdom.  Let them heal.  Let them scar.

In order for this to occur, you must know why you felt the way you did, what you learned from it, and why you no longer need to feel that way.  It’s about accepting the past, letting it be, and pushing your spirit forward.

You may carry a small scar with you for the rest of your life.  Realize that this is perfectly OK.  A scar is the effect of healing – it’s what makes you whole again.  Read 1,000 Little Things Happy, Successful People Do Differently.

6.  Impressing the wrong people.

You could spend your entire life trying to impress everyone around you.  Of course, it wouldn’t get you very far.

Purposely impressing people is an act that brings nothing but a fleeting ego boost.  Be real instead.  Connect with fewer people on a level that is deeper and more profound.

If you want to impress someone, impress yourself by making progress on something you’re sincerely proud of.  It’s truly amazing what you can accomplish when you aren’t worried about what everyone around you thinks.

7.  Important dreams you aren’t actively pursuing.

The point here is simple:  STOP thinking and START doing.

The road of life is jam packed with dreams that aren’t going anywhere.  Why?  Because the people driving these dreams haven’t started their engines.  So many people endlessly put off until tomorrow what they could do today.  There are literally millions of promising, intelligent people in this world who have no plan at all, who wait for others to drive and steer their lives and their dreams for them.

Having a dream without an action plan is exactly like a beautiful sports car without an engine.  You know what she could do if she could do it, but she can’t.  Turn your dream into an actionable plan and then start executing your plan.  Make no promise for tomorrow when you have the opportunity to make progress today.

8.  The impossible looking aerial view of a big project.

An aerial view of a big project always looks daunting.  But once you break it down into small parts, suddenly it’s no longer a big, impossible project.  It’s simply a bunch of little, achievable ones.

The key is to subdivide a big project into smaller tasks and break each task down further into logical steps for each task.  Thinking about the big picture is important on occasion to keep track of your progress, but on a daily basis you should be focused only on the step you’re taking at the time.

The toughest part is laying out what you actually have to do to get each task done, but it’s worth the time and effort.  By thinking about it, and breaking it down, you’ve already accomplished the hardest part – you’ve built yourself a step-by-step instruction manual for getting the project completed.  Read Getting Things Done.

9.  Situations you have zero control over.

Some parts of your life are simply meant to be lived, not controlled.  No matter what happens, no matter the outcome, you’re going to be just fine.  Let the things you can’t control, happen.

Spend your thoughts and efforts on controlling what you do have power over, rather than wasting your peace of mind on the uncontrollable.

10.  Another time and place.

Sometimes we avoid experiencing exactly where we are because we have developed a belief, based on past experiences, that it is not where we should be or want to be.  But the truth is, where you are now is exactly where you need to be to get to where you want to go tomorrow.

The present moment is always filled with wonder.  Right now is a phenomenon.  Right now extraordinary things are happening.  If you are attentive, you will see them.

Your turn…

What’s something you often think about that you know hurts you more than it helps you?  Leave a comment below and let us know.

Photo by: Toni Blay

Most of us have probably heard the phrase “Change is an inside job”, but how many of us actually do it?

A lot of people want their lives to change for the better but not everyone pulls it [...]]]> Published on Lifehack.com by Francesca StaAna

Most of us have probably heard the phrase “Change is an inside job”, but how many of us actually do it?

A lot of people want their lives to change for the better but not everyone pulls it off mainly because they feel chained to their present circumstances. And while external factors do play a role in how your life shapes out, the fact is, most of the things holding you back are living inside your head.

Kick those ideas and mindsets out, and you’ll start seeing the world in a more positive light. Doors will open up, great ideas will come to you more often, and you’ll have a much better life in general. The big positive changes that you want your life to have can actually be achieved by making small adjustments to how you think.

And the best part is it’s not even that hard. You just have to train yourself to think and look at life a little differently.

Not sure where or how to begin? Below are a few mind shifts that you can try right now to reframe your problems in order to start feeling more positive:

“I need to spend less.” vs. “I need to earn more.”

I’m all up for saving money, but if you’re sitting there feeling sorry for yourself because you don’t have enough money or resources, then perhaps it’s time to start thinking about how to GET MORE of what you need. Instead of depriving yourself from the things that you want, open your mind and find ways to earn more money so you can afford the finer things in life.

The “spend less” mindset is very restrictive and can make you feel stuck to your current situation. It tells you that you have to limit yourself in terms of what to spend or how to act. On the other hand, the “earn more” way of thinking opens you up for ideas and opportunities, thus allowing you to aim higher and reach your potential.

“I can’t” vs. “I won’t.”

As the fabulous Marie Forleo put it, saying that we “can’t” is just one of those BS excuses standing between us and what we want. And 99% of the time, “can’t” is just a euphemism for the word “won’t.”

Can’t afford that self-development course? Nope. The truth is if you really wanted to, you would find a way to come up with the money for it. Can’t attend that seminar because you “don’t have time”? Wrong again. Because if you were really determined to go, you would MAKE time.

In reality, there’s hardly any situation in which you LITERALLY can’t do something. Most of the time, the only person holding you back is you.

Whenever you find yourself saying you can’t do something, ask yourself: are you really powerless to take action or are you just using the “can’t” excuse because you don’t want to work harder or you just don’t want something bad enough?

Do yourself a favor and free yourself from the “can’t” mindset and own up to your decisions. You’ll feel more empowered for it because unlike the word “can’t” which puts you in the victim’s position, the word “won’t” puts you in the driver’s seat and allows you to be completely honest and responsible for your choices and actions.

“I failed.” vs. “I learned.”

A lot of people refuse to take risks or try new things because they’re scared of failure. What’s ironic though is that doing so actually sets you up for even greater failure because it puts you in a situation where you fail by default. (Hat tip to JK Rowling.)

And while I do agree that facing your fear helps you get rid of it, I’ve found that a more practical way to deal with fear of failure is to think of failing as a learning experience instead.

Seeing failure as a learning opportunity immediately converts the former into something positive. After all, the more you learn the better and smarter you’ll become, and the higher your chances of succeeding in the future. After a failure has occurred, reframe it to think about what lessons can be learned so that you reduce the chances of repeating the same mistakes.

So go ahead and fail learn. Do it quickly, and do it often. Keep trying. Your future, more successful self, will thank you for it.