Seattle, WA ~ Payvand Seyedali ~ Follow me on Twitter.
NEW!!! - LISTEN: Tired of reading articles today??? Rest your eyes. Continue to engage your mind! Click this link, Champion’s Challenge, to download and LISTEN to this article.
“Champions are made when there’s no challenge.¨
GUEST WRITER!!! I made a solicitation back in May for guest writers during the month of June. As I’m a midst the transition back into Santa Barbara, my focus has been on reconnecting rather than writing. I’m grateful for this excellent article written and submitted to me by Ms. Payvand Seyedali, a past high school teacher now working on efforts to better lives of Afghan women. Take 2 minutes and comment back.
WORKING WELL UNDER PRESSURE:
“I’m good in a crisis.” “I work best under pressure.” “When the going gets tough, the tough get going!!”
Santa Barbara, CA ~ Jeff Bochsler ~ Follow me on Twitter.
NEW!!! - LISTEN: Tired of reading articles today??? Rest your eyes. Continue to engage your mind! Click this link, Missed Connections, to download and LISTEN to this article.
“The Woman With the Chocolate Doughnut – m4w – 37 (El Rancho, Santa Ynez)
‘Dear remarkable woman with the chocolate doughnut who asked me to squash a bug at El Rancho Market in Santa Ynez this morning-
You’re very, very intriguing. You’re truly gorgeous, and seemed both really smart and deeply gracious. I
worked far too late last night, and was extremely fuzzy while drinking coffee; thus my apparent inability to form a coherent sentence in English. I hope my giving you a napkin- a sincere if perhaps misplaced attempt at chivalry- wasn’t perceived as an insinuation that you are a messy eater: it just looked like you were getting frosting on your mouse pad.
Santa Barbara, CA ~ Jeff Bochsler - Follow me on Twitter.
NEW!!! - LISTEN: Tired of reading articles today??? Rest your eyes. Continue to engage your mind! Click this link, Step-Up Your Set-Up, to download and LISTEN to this article.
“We went to Malibu. Had a blast and so will YOU!¨ – Campers, Young Life, Malibu Club
Malibu Princess
17 YEARS OLD:
Full height reached. Best friend, Jared Morell, on my right. High school mentor, John Heywood, on my left. A handful of Inglemoor High School familiars circling. And hundreds of brand new faces and souls forming groups of security all about.Faces from north and south, east and west.
Faces with similar wear, similar time on Earth. And faces with similar expressions fountaining outward. Nervousness. Excitement. An attempt at cool.
A week of unknown is ahead as we wait on the wood planks standing us tall above the glistening, quiet waters.
Bogota, Colombia -By Jeff Bochsler – Follow me on Twitter. Tell the world
“They are there, silently, disguised as old neighborhood housewives plugging for books, thousands of books. A poet walks in in search of inspiration, a stranger returns his lifelong friend. That is a bit of the magic of libraries, what they consolidate today, beyond the pages,spaces of varied cultural offerings.¨ -Ciudadviva, Bogota, Colombia by Laura Juliana Munoz
READING LOCALES CHANGING:
Borders, bankrupt. Barnes and Noble, on the verge of bankruptcy or dramatically changing its business model, either way their doors are slamming shut all around us. eBooks are on the rise. Kindle downloads are rocking and rolling.
Have Starbucks and cozy local coffee shops become our only outlet for “varied cultural offerings” and comfortable places for reading?
TIME TO GO RETRO:
Or is it time to go retro? As the iPod has led to the resurgence of vinyl, might the failings of these big box book retailers bring library back? Might we rediscover a long forgotten place of silence and inspiration; a place of limited distraction; a place where head phones aren’t needed to maintain focus.
Caribbean Coast, Colombia – Written By Jeff Bochsler – Follow me on Twitter or tell the world you like this by clicking the Facebook share link above.
NEW!!! - LISTEN: Tired of reading articles today??? Rest your eyes. Continue to engage your mind! Click this link, Where Do You Find Peace?, to download and LISTEN to this article.
“Where do you find peace?¨ -
Santa Clara University’s Admission’s Essay Question, Year 2000Paz, Pax, Peace, Solh, Heiwa, Sholem, Irini…
Though I begin writing this email within the colors and comfort of a hammock on the Northern Caribbean Coast of Colombia in a small funky village locked into mid-80s temperatures, the focus of this email is not about short-term, one-time discoveries of peace nor to highlight my travels. Indeed this is important in life. These moments are rejuvenating; they are often spontaneous; they are uplifting; and I would recommend all push hard on the creativity front to design such an adventure, aligning with your own interests, to make such an opportunity happen. Yet, chilling in a hammock off the beaten path is often short-lived, and difficult to replicate.
Monkey Reserve, Ecuador - Written by Jeff Bochsler – Follow me on Twitter or tell the world you like this.
“Everything you ever sense, in touch or taste or sight or even thought, has an effect on you that´s greater than zero…Some things…they change your life forever.¨ – Shantaram
A man that became terribly known ten years ago, dead. A memory that burned fire in our hearts and minds 3650 days ago, vibrantly real again. Osama Bin Laden was declared dead Sunday night. What was/were your emotion(s) to first hearing the news?
Did you feel excitement? Peace? Sadness? Fear? Unease? Disbelief? Pride? Compassion? Closure?
Where did your mind venture? Wondering how it all went down? A vision of your last or next next airplane flight? New York City? Or perhaps you had vivid images flash across your mind of where you were the moment of the Twin Towers falling?
Cusco, Peru – Written by Jeff Bochsler – Follow me on Twitter
(If you care to be a guest writer for the MSR? See below!)
“I cannot name a more important means of benefiting young people than encouraging them to commit favorite pieces to memory and recite them often.” -
Andrew CarnegieIsn’t it impressive when our peers perfectly recite poems, passages from books, pertinent Bible verses, bits of wisdom, detailed stories or even jokes? What is it about them that is different? Very little. The reality is you aren’t far off, though the technologies are stacked against you.
Commit
Unless you are an entertainer by trade, it seems unlikely that you are having to memorize lines on a consistent basis. Having phones with Google, iPhone apps that make creating lists easy, and office assistants uploading our schedules to our Blackberry’s, there are few reasons for memorizing something. Perhaps college was the last time you had to upload anything to the memory bank. If this is the case, you are probably like my Spanish friend, Eduard.
Cusco, Peru – Written by Jeff Bochsler – Follow me on Twitter
This week we start with a thought provoking YouTube clip to ensure you are in the proper mindset for this week’s MSR. (My thanks go out to a man that has pushed me beyond many fears, Mr. Seth Streeter, for such a timely emailing of this clip.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzgzim5m7oU
Do Blind People Dream?
Have you ever wondered if blind people dream? I hadn’t until the other day. The reality is one that offers a unique perspective from which we can all learn.
Dream Big
This question as to whether blind people dream was posed on AnswerBag.com. Many responses flowed in, but I found Merry Walker’s response most concise and grounded in research.
Cuzco, Peru – Written by Jeff Bochsler – Follow me on Twitter
We Want Results:
Did last week’s MSR on reminders have any impact on you? If so, how did it go? Did you knock down your fears and remind someone? Were you received well? Might you need to be more graceful in your approach? Or did your reminders gently open doors to new light? Were relationships deepened? Did your family find alignment? How about that talk with your boss? Perhaps you reminded someone but have yet to receive results? 
Remember not all results will come quickly. Most will take time. Be patiently persistent.
Cuzco, Peru. Written by Jeff Bochsler. Follow me on Twitter.
“The trouble with humans is they don’t remember everything they know.” – Anonymous
Reminder by Olishaw -Flickr
The ex-CEO of Raytheon, Dan Burnham, brought up a very important point at a Catalyst for Thought MINDS’ lunch in January that could serve us all well, both in relationships and business. Through a colorful story, he encouraged the eleven of us present to remind our people with vigor.
If anyone should know this well, he should. In taking over the helm at Raytheon, he suddenly became responsible for 100,000 employees’ working lives. There was only one way to get all on the same page. It was to remind them why and where they were headed every chance he could get.
The same goes for us, whether we are managing an assistant or a region, coaching a sports team, mothering a child, or living out an intimate relationship. We must remind.