On their faces, slot machines are kind of dumb. You pay money to pull a lever, and most of the time all you get is a few seconds of spinning icons. But then sometimes, you win a little. Very infrequently, you win a ton. Percentage-wise, it’s a losing scenario. If your goal is to make […]
How to Build Resilience, Part 3: Adaptability
During these past weeks of reflecting on resilience’s three pillars, I’ve started to see a relationship between the three, how they really do act like the legs on a stool. If you’ve got a deep sense of purpose but not an acceptance of unpleasant realities then you’ll err toward unchecked idealism. Unchecked idealism happens when […]
500 Blog Posts: A Case Study in Resilience
Recently, this blog hit a cool mark: 500 blog posts. I remember, years ago, reading a blog post from a friend of mine named Corbett Barr, on the day that he had reached 500 blog posts. At the time I was at about 200, and I was like, “Dang. That’s cool.” So, here we are: […]
Four Traits of Rockstar Teacher Teams
How could we make teaching teams purpose-laden and a ton of fun? Perhaps a book from the 1980s can help. Tracy Kidder’s The Soul of a New Machine (1981) is unlikely to be on your recommended professional development reading list this summer. First of all, it is not new. (Actually, it’s less new than my […]
Focus = Life
It’s easy enough to say, “Okay, I need to focus.” For example, if we want to be more resilient, then it’s easy to say, “I’m going to focus on developing a deeper sense of meaning in my work and life.” The trouble is that focusing takes more than talking about focusing. It takes actually doing […]