Showing all posts in The Point

Living a life as desired by other people can’t get you very far. In essence, it makes one fake. The only benefit is short term gain.

When you don’t have much attention, speaking your mind can offend what few people you know. But, given enough time and voice to whatever you think, word will spread—especially from that free press you get from dissidents. The people who want you as you are will only find you if you be yourself and speak yourself loud enough, long enough. But who are you really? You are whomever you remain after fierce objection.  · · · →

When you make a mistake, you know it and you regret it. You don’t always apologize right away, if ever. You want to know how to do better without being told to want to do better. After all, you didn’t make the mistake from lack of lecturing. You made the mistake from some combination of your own folly and your own inexperience. The less the folly, the less painful the mistakes. But, we all must make some amount of mistakes.

Do you think others are different? Do you think others don’t silently regret their mistakes? They do. So, encourage them.  · · · →

Laws, rules, management, parenting, and mentoring—all follow the same laws of physics. Every action has a reaction that is both equal and opposite. This is the challenge: Leaders can’t make the rules, but only coach by them.

If a leader forbids an activity, some part of that activity is immutable and will reappear at another place, one the leader would not imagine. If the leader had enough insight to guess where it will reappear, then the leader wouldn’t forbid the activity in the first place. Leaders who reject the immutable push water in a pond and call it progress.  · · · →

Fixing people is wearisome. It’s not really our role, anyway. Maybe that’s why its so wearisome. So, if fixing people isn’t any job for people, what is?

Light is abundant in our electric-powered civilization. Before electricity, light was valued and the night outright oppressive. Travel was nearly impossible at night and usually cost the price of lamp oil. Simply being a free light for others can make a difference that the ancient world may have understood better than we can today. Showing unexpected kindness, repaying hostility with love, and making difficult peace does more than fixing could ever hope to.  · · · →