Sunday, July 25, 2010 A Yogi Stumps Science  In hopes to find insights on how soldiers, astronauts, or victims of natural disasters might survive without food or drink, military doctors studied an 83-year-old holy man who says he has spent seven decades without food or water. Prahlad Jani spent 15 days in a hospital in the western India state of Gujarat under constant surveillance from a team of 30 medics equipped with cameras and closed circuit television. During the period, he neither ate nor drank and did not go to the toilet. "We still do not know how he survives," neurologist Sudhir Shah told reporters after the end of the experiment. "It is still a mystery what kind of phenomenon this is." Read More >>
back to top  Saturday, July 24, 2010 A Message in a Wallet  Many years ago, when I was working weekends to pay for extras my parents couldn't afford (school ring, class trip, etc.), I lost my wallet. A man called and asked me if I had lost it. I checked my purse and, to my horror, I had. He asked me to tell him how much money was in it. I told him. He then told me where to pick-up my wallet. As I pulled into his driveway, I noticed his handicapped van and the ramp going up to the house. There is no way this man easily got out of his van to pick my wallet off the street. He had to pull over, get in his wheelchair and lower the lift to pick it up. I was amazed and humbled. I asked him if there was anything I could do to repay his kindness. He said "Just pass it on." Read More >>
back to top Friday, July 23, 2010 10 Pieces of Wisdom for Painters  Artist Leigh Hyams of San Miguel Allende, Mexico writes, "I found this script today in a forgotton portfolio. It was dictated to me by my four-year-old granddaughter Annalena, who could not write then, but she knew how to advise people to paint and draw. I like her advice enormously, not to mention her attitude..." Here's just one example of Annalena's painting wisdom: "When I don't have anything to do and get bored, I start painting and then I just can't stop and it makes me feel good." Read More >>
back to top Thursday, July 22, 2010 Entrepreneur of Small Things  Jay Shafer lives in an 8-by-12 foot house. He built it from scratch. With no prior carpentry knowledge or experience. "I'm sure there are people out there who think I'm crazy for living so small, but living in this little house has allowed me to totally reinvent my life," he says. With a desire to "escape the rat race," the former grocery-store clerk's intentions were simple: focus on the things he really wanted to do, and not on working for money. Now, he runs a company that builds small homes for others. "I never thought I'd be an entrepreneur in anything, but it's my passion to design small houses," he smiles. "It's been really liberating." Read More >>
back to top Wednesday, July 21, 2010 The Ripple Effect of Kindness  Being kind is nice. But why do it on a daily basis? Why do something for a total stranger when there seems to be nothing in it for you? One regular practitioner of small acts of kindness shares: "I had experienced a moment where I wanted to give out of habit; almost as if that was the only way I knew how to respond to the situation. For that moment, there was no difference between a stranger and a trusted friend. And the most beautiful part? After I handed him the book, the person jumping around and giddy for the rest of the day was -- me. I realize now that I've been literally rewiring my brain." Read More >>
back to top Tuesday, July 20, 2010 365 Days of Happiness  "Great wife, amazing kids, a full head of hair - like so many people I felt I had no real grounds for feeling unhappy. But all too often I did, and it was getting me down." At 44, Cathal Morrow found himself getting bogged down by the trials and tribulations of daily life and spending "a decent amount of time veering between mildly piqued and downright upset." But then it dawned on him: he was happy. Overall at least. So what's the unhappy happy man to do with this minor epiphany? Spend a year in happiness, of course. He resolves, "When problems arise, I'm going to recentre myself and then react in the way a happy person would." For a man who spent a year without lying, and hasn't told a lie since, Morrow certainly knows a thing or two about changing habits. Read More >>
back to top Monday, July 19, 2010 Storytelling Unleashes its Power  "Everyone has a story to tell," says Stephanie Ursula Hodges, one half of PenTales, a New York City based storytelling initiative. In an age where SMS and the solitary nature of social networking are the standard, Hodges- together with childhood friend Saskia Miller- is hoping to integrate the art of storytelling back into people's lives, thereby fostering community and cultivating new storytellers across the globe. And it all started with a notebook. Well, 20 notebooks. The two women gave 20 empty notebooks to 20 storytellers, with just one request: write two pages and pass it on. Now, PenTales is empowering storytellers in Paris, Berlin, Hanoi, Chicago, San Francisco and London. Read More >>
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Tucked away in a humble corner of Pittsburgh, Penn., rests a colorful take-out stand that is connecting people from around the world through food and art. The idea is simple: start a restaurant that serves food from countries that the US is in conflict with. Run by three artists, Conflict Kitchen has become an incubator of cross-cultural conversation. One guest notes, "Food is a pathway to positive feelings and a humanization of other cultures. I believe eating and sharing new cuisine is a catalyst for the sort of conversations that can lead to deeper understanding and cross-cultural empathy." Next on Conflict Kitchen's menu? Afghanistan. "Perhaps followed by Venezuela," beams co-owner Dawn Weleski. [ 
These days, it seems nearly impossible to pay attention to one thing for a long time. A new study indicates that meditation helps people focus because it enables them to discern small differences between the things they see. The research was inspired by work of Buddhist monks, who spend years training in meditation. "You wonder if the mental skills, the calmness, the peace that they express, if those things are a result of their very intensive training or if they were just very special people to begin with," says Katherine MacLean. Her co-advisor, Clifford Saron, who researched with monks decades ago, is now studying meditation by putting volunteers through intensive training and seeing how it changes their mental abilities. [ 
Intuitively, there's something very powerful about Oprah Winfrey. At least that's what Professor Nancy Koehn of Harvard Business School thought. Of the entrepreneur who juggles her own talk show, magazine, and book club, one might ask, What exactly is Oprah in the business of? Why is she such a compelling leader? According to Koehn, it boils down to two elements: Purpose and Service. "It is a story of leadership and collective commitment. It was clear that Winfrey's staff think, to a one, that they have a very important mission that they are fulfilling as an organization; and that they have very important precepts for how they execute and engage with that mission," she explains. "That combination of inspiration and humility I found absolutely compelling." [ 
Dr. Temple Grandin is one of the most fascinating and respected figures in the world today. As a child whose parents almost sent her to a mental institution, Grandin became the first autistic individual to publish an autobiography. She has utterly transformed how we view people with autism and how we treat animals, specifically in the cattle industry. She explains to us what it is like for her to live in this world, having an autistic mind, and how it helps her relate to animals. "We need all kinds of minds" and beautiful things happen when we make an effort to see what others see. [ 
Do you remember the first time you rode a bicycle? Can you relieve the exhilaration of riding free, the sense of triumph as you broke free to the crutches of support? Now step back. How many times did you fall off the bike before that first ride? Today, fear of making mistakes is deeply ingrained in our psyche. At home, mistakes lead to admonishments. At work, mistakes have serious repercussions. Good workers get it right the first time, we are told, and so success is driven by our image as experts rather than as learners. But is this really the best philosophy? Vineet Nayar asks us to imagine the opposite: What if employees are told to make mistakes? Making mistakes, Navar says, is actually an art. It's a process of innovation, growth and learning. Without mistakes, there is no such thing as success. [ 
Plenty of people visiting Times Square traveled a long way to reach New York, but it's safe to say that few covered anything like the distances Kakuben Lalabhai Parmar had. This is not just a matter of mileage, although it's certainly a hike from Madhutra, a rural village in India's western state of Gujarat, to 42nd Street. At a deeper cultural level, her journey embodies a half-century of global feminism and the evolutionary arc of modern India. In the cattle-herding community Ms. Parmar belongs to, women were traditionally bound not just to their region or village but to the home. Married at 14, the once "untouchable" mother of seven has become the family's chief breadwinner through microfinance opportunities. "Now that I have my own business, my husband shows me respect," she says. He even helps with her accounts. [ 
