Category: Uncategorized

  • Diversity Makes the Soil Rich

    Last weekend we visited Fort Whyte Alive, an environment education centre, home to wetlands and walking trails, a herd of bison, and thousands of geese this time of year. We learned about the prairie ecosystem, and how the prairie plants, wildlife and soil are intertwined, and essential to the health of our planet. We also…

  • The Work is the Reward

    Last week Todd Henry offered a great piece of advice from the Bhagavad Gita: “You have the right to work, but never to the fruit of work.” Often we strive for some kind of success or reward, the fruit of our work. We think the work (whether it’s a day job or some other kind…

  • Consider the Leaves

    The sunrise this morning, in our corner of the world, was magical. For a brief moment, the sky turned pink. Taking the queue, the red leaves on our hedge and the neighbour’s maple tree began to shimmer like a million tiny lights. Seriously. They were glowing. Staring wide-eyed out the windows with our kids (because…

  • To Feed a Hungry Lion, Water the Grass

    Sometimes you can’t get that thing you want by pursuing it directly. You might want C, but instead of going after C directly, you’d be better off pursuing A, which will automatically lead to B, then C. The problem is that the connection between A, B and C isn’t always intuitive, so we waste our…

  • Lead With Eyes

    In a middle school Media Literacy class I remember learning about how print ads direct your attention. I learned about how the entire page was pointing to the product, to entice you to buy it. How devious, and how clever! I was amazed that by positioning actors and actresses and cigarettes and roasting sticks in…

  • Your Story Isn’t Out There

    When you picture “living the life”, what does that look like? How far is that life from your current location (either in kilometres, or years, whatever)? I recently read Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, where he writes about how living a good life is like writing a good story. As he…

  • Growth Starts Underground

    When “self” is something we can curate by posting the right things on our social media page, we can forget about the hard work that it takes to accomplish anything. The mantra subtly changes from “you can be anything you want to be” to “you can look like you’re anything you want to look like”.…

  • Coals Will Keep You Warm

    Your passion, whether for a person or mission, will be praised only for while its flames are dancing. Heroic acts of love and self-sacrifice will be applauded, but these feats will eventually fizzle out like the brightest of campfires. No, the true strength of your passion will be proven the next morning, long after the…

  • Gratitude is an Act of Rebellion

    Nearly every advertising message tell us about the things we do not yet have, but probably need, things that will make us more happy about life. Most of the photos on our Instas and Snapchats remind us that our friends are having much more fun this weekend that we (because all we’re up to is…

  • Play to Keep Playing

    In his speech this morning to the Live2Lead audience, Simon Sinek outlined the difference between finite and infinite games (an idea Seth Godin has also talked about, and was originally introduced by James P. Carse). A finite game has agreed-upon rules, fixed boundaries, players, goals, and an end. A basketball game always ends, and it’s…