When I was a sorority girl in college, we all took turns on phone duty – answering the house phone lines, paging girls, or taking messages when calls came in. But in the January of 1989, it wasn’t just guys calling for dates, we had a lot of calls coming in from journalists who wanted … More Protecting the Impulse to Be Kind
I have a friend who quite often doesn’t tell me the truth. It’s most often in small ways like, “I’d love to do that but I can’t because I have to <fill in the blank>.” Or “I’m sorry that I didn’t get that done but I had to <fill in the blank>.” And although I … More Telling The Truth
When American actor James Caan died in July of this year, I heard that his least favorite words were “I don’t care.” Obviously, I can’t ask him to elaborate on that. But if I’m trying to take his point, I’m guessing he was aiming for “I don’t care” – as in, it is of no … More Caring Less Without Being Careless
I want to finish this series of posts on personality I’ve put together over the past couple of months by giving you an analogy. To first recap, there are five major personality traits: extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, openness and agreeableness. Wherever you lie on the spectrum of each trait – whatever the circumstances that shaped you … More The Hand We’ve Been Dealt
“Openness is seen in the breadth, depth and permeability of consciousness, and in the recurrent need to enlarge and examine experience.” – MCCRAE & COSTA, 1997, P. 826 Openness (which is actually Openness to experience) breaks down into Intellect and Openness. Intellects like grappling with ideas. They love to solve complex problems and debate philosophical matters. … More Openness: The Gates of Mind
The Benefits of Conscientiousness Conscientiousness can be broken down into the following two aspects: Industriousness and Orderliness. Those who score high in Industriousness are driven, focused and determined. They finish what they start. I’m sure you’ve all heard of the buzzword known as Grit? Well, it’s the same thing. Those high is Orderliness want everything … More Conscientiousness: The Ruthless Pursuit of Order
On my personal blog, I wrote a post about learning to stem a strawberry with a straw. It was a hack that my young daughter taught me and even though I’m quite habituated to using a knife to core a strawberry, I attempted this new method for the fun of it. In the process, I … More The Change Exercise