Happy new year! We'll exclaim this wish to each other, and hear it from each other, over and over this week. It’s a great sentiment. But what does it take? What will actually make 2015 a year that’s good and rich in what matters for us? New year's resolutions were invented for this type of thing. "I’ll lose 15 pounds”. ...
Handcuffs We Wear Without Knowing It
Being resilient is a key way to be rich in what matters. When we're resilient, we can adapt to a wide variety of situations and still be happy. We can flex our choices, our behaviors and the amount of resources that we use. Rigid comfort zones can confine us like handcuffs. When we have narrow, rigid comfort zones we are ...
Ten Things To Happily Surrender To, Part II
Being rich in what matters means living counter to mainstream culture in key ways. One of those key ways is gracefully surrendering instead of frenetically fighting. I've tried both approaches, believe me. This series is about my lessons learned (that I'm still learning :)) Last week in Part I we looked at surrendering to our impulse to dance, our aging, our appetite ...
14 Ways To Add Value To Any Situation, Part II
Diamond-Cut Life is about how to be rich in the things that matter, like health, financial solvency, dynamic relationships, and peaceful coexistence. Last week I named my first seven ways to add value to any situation. This post completes the two-part series, and draws from my background in counseling psychology (I have an M.S. in that field). Set a boundary. A boundary clarifies ...
Happy Earth Day & How To Find A Green Job
Green-collar jobs like those in wind energy are crucial for addressing climate change. Happy Earth Day! The party is at Thor's and my house this Sunday. Are you interested in finding green work you can love? Are you here in the Portland Oregon area -- or can you be here by this Sunday? Would you like ...
Big Dream? Step Into Big Work!
Thor and I are enthusiastic donors to The Community Project: Ethiopia: We believe it will make 4,000 Ethiopian villagers rich in two of the things that matter most: education and community. This is a guest post by our friend Colleen Kaleda, its volunteer cofounder. If you’re like me -- already reading Diamond-Cut Life -- you know its ...
2013 Review: How Did You Become Richer In What Matters?
Before we set our course for 2014 (next week's topic), let's give some thought to the year we've just lived. In 2013, how did we become richer in what matters? And how did we not become richer in what matters? Many of you know that I have an M.S. in counseling psychology, and believe deeply in everyone's ...
Going To The Roots
On November 18, 1872, Susan B. Anthony was arrested by a U.S. deputy marshal. Her crime? She had dared to vote. Susan B. Anthony had committed civil disobedience: she had broken the law, peacefully, for a higher purpose. Women would not gain the right to vote in the U.S. until 1920, 48 years after Ms. Anthony's ...
Email Sanity: Decluttering Your Inbox
When I recently returned from my mostly car-free vacation in Montreal (be sure to click that link to learn how a car is like a condom), I returned, like most people, to a full inbox of work emails. Sigh. I wondered: how could we all have a diamond-cut email inbox, i.e. a chiseled-down, handcrafted experience of ...
Top Ten Tips For Entrepreneurs
This is a reprint of my third post popular piece ever, originally posted in August 2008. I've added an eleventh tip. Note: I'm posting once a week now, on Sundays. If you'd like to receive these in your email inbox rather than travel to my site each time, it takes about thirty seconds to subscribe, directly to your right. The ...
