self improvement

The Art Of Transforming A Landfill, One Haiku At A Time

Guest post by Hoong Yee Lee Krakauer I have a secret superpower. It is my amazing ability to change my world into syllables. The girl who makes me a cappuccino in the local Italian bakery tossed me an approving nod the other day when I told her every meeting I have deserves una bella scatola [...]

May 25, 2011 READ MORE →

Book Review: Being Perfect

Anna Quindlen has written a lovely little (literally) book that I read today on my afternoon break as part of the Dewey Reading Project. It’s about six inches tall and has fewer than 50 pages. The letters are big and there are lots of pictures. But Being Perfect crams about as much perfection into this [...]

February 11, 2011 READ MORE →

Why Snowboarding is The Greatest Sport for Body and Mind

Guest post by Duncan from Extreme Sports Trader Before you engage the pre-conception centre of your brain and assume I’m an airheaded adrenaline junkie dude, with long sun-bleached hair and an upward inflection at the end of all my words…I’m not. I’m a sport science graduate who mastered in sports psychology, and just happens to [...]

February 4, 2011 READ MORE →

Three Questions and The Best Advice I Ever Heard

I’m quite leery of the self-help industry, both because of its lack of substance and its numbing sameness. Most books I’ve read that promise to revolutionize the way I live and think  that could be filed under… feel better be better look better smile more etc …say the same thing. Someone proclaims themselves an expert, [...]

January 27, 2011 READ MORE →

The Secret To Happiness…Maybe

As I drove to work today it hit me, not for the first time—hopefully not for the last time—that I have stumbled into something good. My life is good. I know the secret to happiness, but… I’m increasingly aware that what makes me happy might not do anything for anyone else. For that matter, it [...]

January 18, 2011 READ MORE →

Some Thoughts and Quotes on Loneliness

Today I have loneliness on the brain for a few different reasons, but I’m not lonely. Sort of. I rarely feel lonely unless I am sick. At the time of this writing I am quite ill, and quite annoyed by this. I rarely pay attention to my body when I’m feeling great, but it becomes [...]

November 29, 2010 READ MORE →

Mozart’s Brain and the Fighter Pilot – Book Review by Logan Christopher

When I picked up this book I thought it would be more of an intellectual book than it actually is. I thought it would be full of studies about how the brain works, and stories detailing its amazing achievements, like those of Mozart composing his symphonies or a fighter pilot making split second decisions. It [...]

October 26, 2010 READ MORE →

7 Habits of Highly Successful World’s Strongest Librarians – Part 1 of 3 – Guest Post by Ted Hessing

Note from Josh: I had this guest post submitted to me a few days ago and wasn’t sure I was comfortable running it. Ted speaks very highly of me, in a way that is only possible by someone who doesn’t know me as well as he thinks he does.  I do not officially advocate “following [...]

October 24, 2010 READ MORE →

The Mindset of Rafael Nadal: 3 Steps to Being the Best in the World

Note from Josh: In this guest post from Jim Murphy, Jim says that I “Enjoy the fight” or the competition. Sometimes that’s true, sometimes it isn’t, as I wrote here. You might also enjoy this post on thoughts on hard work. Guest Post by Jim Murphy On June 6th, 2010, Rafael Nadal clinched his fifth [...]

June 21, 2010 READ MORE →

Book Review: The Shadow Effect

There was a great South Park episode where a group of superheros (named the Super Best Friends) unites to fight a cult led by magician David Blaine. The superheroes included Buddha, Mohammad, Joseph Smith, Lao Tzu, and a couple of other heavy hitters. They were predictably unstoppable. The Shadow Effect is written by three people [...]

June 16, 2010 READ MORE →