Last week, after appearing on CBS Sunday Morning, Three Little Engines became the top selling book on all of Amazon. It is crazy to see your book ahead of the likes of Stephen King. A week later, I received word from my publisher that the book had made the New York Times best seller list. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t overwhelmed and thrilled by both results.…
Two teams compete in the Olympics.
Both win the Bronze.
One country is elated and the other disappointed.
So goes the power and toxicity of expectations.
When considering the word expectations, it’s almost impossible to imagine it without some qualifier.
High, low, exceeding, diminished, raised, wildest, lowered, defying, beating, surpassing, failing, great, outsized, living up to, playing down and on and on.
So unhealthy is our relationship with this word that when we say that something has “met our expectations,” we shrug our shoulders, suggesting some level of mild disappointment.…
This Sunday was quite the eventful day for me for multiple reasons.
A CBS Sunday Morning segment featuring the story behind my new children’s book, Three Little Engines was scheduled to air. The excitement was palpable for several reasons. The idea of having my book and its message shared with an audience of millions is obviously pretty cool. Selfishly, the idea that my mom, my family and friends would be able to gather around the TV to see me talk – not just about the book – but about how grateful I was for all they had done to get me “over the mountain” was a tremendous gift.…
We knew this moment would come.
Throughout the pandemic, our family has been watching Little House on the Prairie. It has in many ways been a cathartic experience, watching the Ingalls family with all of its struggles persevere through no shortage of difficult times.
While the book has been subject to recent criticisms, the television series from my youth has held up remarkably well – tackling issues of poverty, race, Native American relations with nuance and compassion largely unseen today. There…
A few random times each day, my Apple watch will beep with a nudge for me to breathe. Presumably this isn’t because I’ve stopped doing so, but rather a reminder to take good deep breaths for up to a minute.
On average, we take 20,000 breaths a day. A vital and subconscious act that we take for granted. Think about it. How many of your own breaths do you even notice each day?…
We love to think that we are the primary engine of our own success. And there is no doubt that our individual effort is critical in almost any achievement.
But as my new children’s book, Three Little Engines – a modern retelling of the classic The Little Engine that Could that comes out on Tuesday – I wanted to use this opportunity to illustrate who really helped this book ‘get over the mountain.”…
This week provides a welcome respite for many, as we put aside our daily troubles, gather with family and friends, and pause to give thanks for what we have and those who helped make it possible.
It can come in the form a few words over a meal, a phone call or a prayer. All are valuable practices in gratitude.
But often these moments can be fleeting and soon replaced by Black Friday sales, workouts, and holiday movies.…
I recently heard the writer and sociologist, Arlie Russell Hochschild describe the discontent many feel in the country today. It was from her acclaimed book,Strangers in Their Own Land, and was captured in the following metaphor:
“You’re waiting in line for the American dream that you feel you very much deserve. It’s like waiting in a pilgrimage, and the line isn’t moving. Your feet are tired.…
“I will never see my own life or anyone else’s the same way again.”
Over the last seven years, the Moving Up Media Lab has worked to create a new conversation about the American Dream. One asking us to look beyond our own hard work to see the many people and events that have contributed to where we are today. Research has shown that this kind of reflection can make us both more grateful and giving.…
As you may know, tomorrow is #GivingTuesday. This online giving holiday was founded as a way to spur end-of-year charitable giving.
Last year alone, $300 million dollars were raised on #GivingTuesday, with the median gift of $120.
What you may not know is that the organization behind these posts, Moving Up Media Lab, is itself a 501c3 charitable organization and we also will soon be celebrating our seventh anniversary.…
After running around attending to the needs of various kids, I had just poured a fresh cup of coffee, grabbed my book and sat down to relax.
As if intentionally timing her request to my first sip, my daughter summoned,“Daddy, get me a glass of milk.” This is the exchange that followed:
“You realize this vacation is for Mommy and Daddy too, you know. …
In the film First Reformed, a reverend and environmentalist are experiencing existential crises – each waging a battle between hope and despair. In one exchange, the environmentalist shares his conflicting feelings about being an expectant father yet having to answer for the catastrophic effects climate change will have on the earth his unborn daughter will inherit as an adult. He asks, “What will I say when she looks at me and asks – ‘You let this happen?’”…
This week buried beneath the din of politics and conflict was a brief article in the New York Times featuring an 81-year-old Australian man who was donating blood for the last time in his life.
He started giving blood as a young man – a way of paying back those who had donated the blood he needed to survive surgery as a 14-year-old boy.
He would go on to give blood every few weeks for over 60 years.…
Yesterday, mothers around the country were rightfully treated to breakfasts in bed, flowers, and hand made and hallmark cards alike. All expressing a well-deserved sentiment – you are appreciated.
In case you’re still feeling that you’d like to do something special for mom. Consider the following three stories and the gifts they inspire.
One. In last week’s episode of the HBO series, Being Serena, we were given a front row seat to the birth of Serena’s William’s first child, Olympia. …
This was the subject line of an email we received from our Mayor. It marked one of the strangest weeks our town has experienced in recent memory,
On Monday, our schools went into lockdown as a man with a gun was on the loose after killing his girlfriend in a nearby town.
On Wednesday, there were reports of multiple coyote attacks that injured five and killed a small dog.…
Last week in Florida another school shooting ended 17 lives and forever damaged hundreds more. In an all too familiar pattern, afterwards people took to social media sharing their sorrow, their prayers, and their outrage.
This pattern is familiar because it has repeated itself all too often. Since Sandy Hook there been over 200 school shootings.
It is often said that one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.…
The phrase goes back to the 1600’s, predating the field of genetics by almost 300 years.
The idea that how we act is literally running through our veins is often seen in expressions of negative emotions like animosity (bad blood), anger (my blood is boiling.), fear (blood run cold), cruel (cold blooded) and vengeful (out for blood).
Beyond colorful idioms, there is more truth to the idea than we may realize.…
The school lost everything. An after hours fire melted crayons, turned paper to ash and pencils to tinder. The supplies had just been donated as part of a foreign aid trip to this Nigerian classroom and now needed to be replaced
When our daughter brought the note home from her teacher requesting any used supplies, it included an unnecessary apology for adding one more request on top of the flood that come in for donated coats, toys and food to mark the holiday season.…
It was a simple enough question from a friend I hadn’t talk to in months.
“What did you do this your summer?”
My answer condensed one hundred days into a handful of stories. Each capturing a brief moment in time.
I am of the age, where several times a year, I will learn of a friend’s father’s death. Attending these funerals becomes an affirmation of a life well lived. The chief signal being the quality of the eulogies provided by fully-grown sons and daughters.
With families of their own, they demonstrate by words and actions, how well their father’s had done in raising them. In doing so, they pay the ultimate tribute to the man they called Dad, Pop, Daddy, or Father.…
Over the next two months, approximately 3 million young adults will graduate and enter the job market. About half will graduate from college and the other half will graduate from high school with no plans for higher education.
Despite the differences in career paths and future opportunities, how they find that next job is likely to be similar. According to this study, 80% of people will find a job through someone they know.…
During a classroom visit last week, my nine-year-old daughter showed me a project, featuring side-by-side drawings of the same subject – in her case spring. One was a realistic depiction and the second an abstract version. Accompanying the pictures was a biography on the Russian artist Kandinsky whose work they learned had a similar transition from the realistic to abstract.
The most remarkable thing about this lesson in perspective was that it was not part of their art class, but instead central to a social studies unit on Russia.…
In Alaska, salmon swim up to 31 miles upstream to spawn, while bears fresh from hibernation will take their young cubs on an equally incredible journey. The bears begin by walking two weeks without eating while avoiding predators and battling the elements until they get to the same final destination as the salmon.
The reward for the bear’s hard work: feasting on salmon. The reward for the salmon’s 31-mile swim: the chance to avoid being eaten by very hungry bears.…
Where were you born? What is your birthday? How much did you weigh?
Answers to these three questions might be more important than you think.
Clinicians use a common tool to assess the extent of toxic stress a child experiences during his or her childhood. It’s called the Adverse Childhood Experience test, or ACE for short. It’s a simple tool made up of just 10 yes/no questions.
Please take two minutes and take the test.
In his New York Times column, David Brooks succinctly summarized the adult outcomes associated with higher ACE scores.…
