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What Can You Say in 6 Words?

Distillation requires us to reduce something to its essence.  Within art and literature, it often means that less is more.

Hemingway was especially gifted in this regard and, as legend has it, was once challenged to write a story using only six words. His response?

  “For sale; baby shoes. Never worn.”

This six-word format has been popularized by the organization Six Word Memoirs.

It has also been an effective instrument in getting people to open up on issues like race as evidenced by The Race Card Project. …


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Are You a Bulldozer or a Gardener?

Seven of us crammed into our Ford Flex, driving 45 minutes to see the movie Wonder. We arrived almost an hour early, only to have the cashier inform us they had just two remaining seats. Noticeably bummed, I told the cashier how long we had just driven, asking “Is there anything you could do?”  She summoned her manager, who with a push of a few buttons released the tickets for us (apparently many theaters hold seats for fire safety reasons).…


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Bias In Your Backyard

A white man sees a black man walking quickly towards a woman at a bus stop.  He senses a threat until he realizes the man’s little daughter at the bus stop is the cause for his rush. He feels ashamed of his bias – especially considering he also has a black daughter.

An African-American police officer is frustrated that he has to under go diversity training. …


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What About Us?

This is a question voiced by all who feel forgotten, neglected or marginalized.

It is also the title of the powerful song just released by Pink off her forthcoming album, Beautiful Trauma.
 
It is no surprise that the lyrics are already being seen as an anthem for any number of disenfranchised groups.

It is the universality of a plea to those in power that so easily resonates. …


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This Is THE Moment

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. 

  • The walk in the canyon during a family camping trip
  • Drinking Pimm’s with my wife at Wimbledon
  • Swimming with the kids at Walden Pond.
  • A bike ride with the entire family – including my mom!
…
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Don’t Follow This Recipe

“It begun in good faith by decent people out of fateful misunderstandings, American overconfidence and Cold War miscalculations.”

There is a lot to unpack from this statement in Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s new documentary, The Vietnam War.  

While it was written to summarize the origins of one of the most divisive periods in our country’s history, it could just as easily be applied to other past and future conflicts.…


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How Long Will Your Love Be Felt?

This was a question I couldn’t help ponder after listening to Prince William talk about his mother Princess Diana.  Reflecting on his memories from twenty years earlier, he said “I can still feel her love today, I really can.”

This love while most pronounced with her sons was not limited to them. Two other grown men recalled with precision the care and comfort she had provided to them on a visit to their home in Bosnia. Both…


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So You Agree in Principle or in Practice?

Consider the following pairs of questions:
Do you support alternative energy? Would you approve of a windmill farm that blocked your home’s view?

Do you believe that people have a right to housing?What if a new housing development might lower your property value?

Do you believe that people deserve second chances? Would you welcome a former convict into your neighborhood?


In each pair, most would philosophically agree with the first question on principle.…


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What If It Was Called The Declaration of Interdependence?

The most well known passage of our founding document is… say it with me, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

After listing the twenty-seven different ways in which England was violating these rights, we declared our separation from this tyrannical rule and the rest, as they say, is our history.…


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Understanding The Differences Between Good And Evil

As I walked to work, I approached a sparrow sitting idly on the sidewalk. Drawing closer, I realized he was lording over a wounded moth, presumably planning breakfast. Upon noticing me, he fluttered a few feet away – more likely out of fear of me not guilt of what he was about to do. As I moved away, he returned to his prey. When I moved closer again, he retreated once more. Eventually,
…
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Father’s Day Stories

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.…


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How Do You Compare To Others?

We all like to believe that our self-worth is something we determine on our own. It is after all called self-worth.
 
Then why do we so often feel compelled to compare ourselves to others? We do it with our looks, our grades, our performance, our income and raises. And we do it between neighbors or friends (e.g. keeping up with the Joneses) and within our families (e.g. will we do better than our parents?)…


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Can You Do This Math?

Last week, Seth Godin wrote, “The difference between who you are now and who you were five years ago is largely due to how you’ve spent your time along the way.”
 
Serendipitously that same day, I watched, The Man Who Knew Infinity – a true story based on mathematicians trying to understand the world by discovering life’s underlying equations.  
 
With Seth’s words in mind, this amateur mathematician tried to develop a simple equation to capture how we become who we are.…


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Making Time For Old Friends

I have been fortunate in my life to amass quite the motley crew of old friends. They have shaped and changed me in ways it is hard to capture. I suspect I am not alone. Studies have shown that our friends affect everything from the choices we make to the financial risks we take and from the weight we gain to how long we live.

By sheer numbers alone, from middle school through the time we have children, we are constantly under the influence of our friends. Spending…


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Are You Feeling More Restless?

Last week, my five-year old daughter suffered a small fracture in her tibia just below the knee. Ultimately, she will be fine. As they say, we grow stronger in all the broken places. For now, she is laid up with a removable knee brace, unable to walk, go to school, or move freely about on her own.
 
She has warmed to this new situation. Reminiscent of Hodor and Bram from Game of Thrones, she must be carried everywhere and has an innate power over all of us as we cater to her every desire. The
…
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Do You Feel Lucky?

On the lead up to St. Patrick’s Day, I wondered about the phrase, “luck of the Irish.”

I had just watched a PBS documentary on Irish history and they didn’t seem very lucky at all.  Considering:

  • The great potato famine took over one million lives and drove another million to emigrate – decreasing the population of Ireland by almost 25%.
  • Their war for independence from England caused a lasting divide between Unionists in Northern Ireland and Nationalists in Southern Ireland.
…
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What Is The Soundtrack Of Your Life?

Music is seminal to our lives. From our first lullaby to our wedding dance to whatever dirge they may play at our funeral, songs mark both our most important moments and hum in the background of our daily lives.
 
(As I write this now, music ripples through my ear buds playing Springsteen’s Streets of Philadelphia – which perhaps subconsciously led to the inclusion of the funeral reference above).
…
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Can You Feel The Wind At Your Back?

According to research from Shai Davidai and Thomas Gilovich, probablynot nearly as much as you can feel it in your face.
 
In one classroom exercise, Davidai asks students to google images for headwinds and tailwinds. For headwinds, there is a whole host of images of people being blown backwards and destroyed umbrellas.  For tailwinds, not so much (other than the occasional aeronautics diagram of planes.)
 
Images of headwinds are more available to us not just online but in our own minds. 
…
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This Is How Real Change Starts

Our problems seem intractable. Opposing sides become so entrenched in their world view that any prospect of progress seems bleak.

So we spend our energy either demonizing the “other side” or trying to persuade them to “see the light” and come over to our side. 

New research out of Stanford that examined one of the most intractable of all issues offers us hope that real change starts at a more basic level – showing people that ANY change is possible.…


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How Do You Get Out Of A Jam?

I’m writing this fresh off an eight-hour stint in a minivan with my wife, three little girls and our new four month old puppy named Scout.  Jealous?

Three hours in things could not have been better. Only one pitstop whose efficiency would have made any Nascar driver proud.

Around hour five, the estimated time of arrival in our GPS began to go backwards. Instead of counting down, it began going up. First…


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What My Daughter Taught Me About Giving Thanks

Each Thanksgiving is an annual rite of passage to think about those things for which we are thankful.

In our home, like I suspect in many others, it’s usually a cursory reflection lasting just a few minutes before we dig into the turkey and stuffing.

But shouldn’t real gratitude be a little more expansive than this?

Do me a favor – take this two-minute quiz to see how grateful you really are?…


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What is Your American Dream?

In his book, The Epic of America, James Truslow Adams became the first to coin the term “American Dream” and define it.

“The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.”…


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Which of These Children Will Make It?

Picture two 15-year-old children. One has a strong family, but lacks ambition. The other has a strong work ethic, but an abusive family. Which of these two do you think would be more likely to achieve the American Dream?

We asked this question as part of our research project looking at the American Dream. Almost 70% of respondents believed that the child in the abusive family is more likely to achieve the American Dream.…


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Three Simple Questions

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.

  • Where were you born? Take a moment to look at this map to see how the county in which you were born affects income mobility, based on Harvard economists Raj Chetty and Nathaniel Hendren.
  • What is your birthday? In Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, he describes a successful Canadian Junior hockey team.
…
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Who Taught You That?

What is the first thing you remember learning? It’s hard to say, right?

That’s because from the moment we’re born, our education begins. It’s hard to pinpoint what and when we learn because in our early years it is non-stop.

Children arrive on their first day of school with varying degrees of readiness. Thirty million degrees of variation to be exact. By some studies, children born into low-income families have heard roughly 30 million fewer words than their more affluent peers when they enter school.…


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