Home Archives for Increasing Awareness

6 Years of Freedom and 3 Valuable Lessons

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Next month, my friend Clemetin will celebrate six full years of being out of prison. According to the statistics of the Bureau of Justice, three-quarters of all of the people released from prison get rearrested within five years. And indeed, Clemetin has been rearrested. Not once, but several times. He's been arrested for trumped up drug charges he wasn't guilty of, and he's been arrested for shoplifting, which he did. He's never ended up back in prison, but he gets picked … [Read more...]

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Are You Afraid to Open the Doors of Possibility? Fear Not!

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It's such fun to think about possibilities. You might do this or you might do that. Sometimes the opportunities seem endless and exciting. Many doors with well-oiled hinges are within your reach. All you have to do is to gently push on them and they open so you can get a glimpse of what's behind them. I think of these doors as the doors of possibility. A Doorway to Success... or Failure? When you select one door, push it open and stand at the edge looking through … [Read more...]

Categories: Getting What You Want, Increasing Awareness, Planning Tagged:

Having a Beginner’s Mindset is Good for You

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My phone rang. It was my young friend, Jordan. She had just landed an exciting new job in a big, prestigious social justice organization. She was anxious that she didn't know enough about social justice or about how the organization worked, and she wanted my advice about how she should prepare. But really, there's no way that even this smart young woman could learn enough to be competent in what is for her an entirely new field. She could study and prepare for weeks … [Read more...]

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Living Full Whack

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Do you measure things precisely or are you a pinch-of-this and a drop-of-that kind of person? I think that people generally fall into one or the other of those types. Either you attend to details with great care or you don't really fret about the details. I've found that it's not so easy to switch. Being a pinch-of-this and a drop-of-that kind of person, I was tickled this morning to run across a recipe from the remarkable chef Jamie Oliver who, rather than telling you … [Read more...]

Categories: Increasing Awareness, Kindness and Generosity Tagged: ,

Do You Want Your Feedback Straight Up, or With a Bit of Sugar?

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I believe in the oreo cookie approach to giving feedback. The recipe is quite simple: Start by acknowledging something you appreciate. Offer your corrections. End by stating something you approve of. This approach wraps what might be difficult to hear in between things that are much more pleasant to the ears. Straight Up Criticism Recently I got some unvarnished feedback. I had worked for a couple of hours on writing the copy for an e-newsletter. I had really … [Read more...]

Categories: Communicating Effectively, Increasing Awareness Tagged: ,

My First Adventure with Miracle

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Meet Miracle Edwards. Miracle is a beautiful 8-year-old girl I met over the summer with her father. She had never seen a ballet or anything like it before, and I thought it would be a wonderful idea to treat her to a performance. Preparing for the Big Day I called her father, Jeff, several times and left messages but didn't connect.  I let some days pass and was about to call again when my phone rang. It was Jeff, returning my call. He and Miracle had talked about … [Read more...]

Categories: Building Relationships, Getting What You Want, Increasing Awareness, Kindness and Generosity Tagged: ,

Ask These Three Questions Every 90 Days

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I just had breakfast with my super smart friend, Brigid Ganley, who started a new job this year. When she was starting out in her new job, she set up a meeting with every staff member in her department and asked each of them the following questions: What would you preserve and why? What would you change and why? What advice do you have for me? The information she gathered from these questions has proved invaluable. Not only did she see strong patterns when … [Read more...]

Categories: Building Relationships, Increasing Awareness

The Simple Secret to Easily Connect with Anyone

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The most effective way to make a strong connection with someone else is simple. There are two key steps: Really notice who they are. Accept them as they are. Really Noticing Who People Are You may find it easier to judge people or to give them advice or argue with them. But you'll find that when you carefully observe someone close enough to notice who they really are, you'll be more likely to develop a real rapport. "Seeing" is the basis for love My friends … [Read more...]

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Why You Have No Reason to Fear Poor Neighborhoods

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I live in a poor neighborhood -- though my husband and I live comfortably in a lovely apartment. If you’ve been following the TRY THIS blog for a while, you've already read a few stories that describe this neighborhood. Picture of a Poor Neighborhood There are dozens of big apartment buildings that punctuate the city blocks, providing subsidized apartments to people who make little enough to qualify to live there. And that's not very much. Over the years, this … [Read more...]

Categories: Increasing Awareness

How to Kick Your Email Addiction Once and For All

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I just realized that I'm addicted to e-mail. Are you? I check my email constantly. A corner of my eye is always on my inbox. When something new appears, I'm sucked away from whatever else I'm trying to get done. And I don't like it. My email addiction adds up to feeling empty and unsatisfied because though I work all day, I don't get much done that feels like it amounts to anything significant. Test if You're Addicted to Email Try my little email addiction … [Read more...]

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