For as long as self-aware humans have occupied this planet, they've been busy attempting to understand and improve themselves. In this post, we'll look at vision quests, which actually lends itself to other aspects of personal development, including meditation, mindfulness, silence, and self-inquiry. Although there is evidence vision quests have been practiced for thousands of[...]

The French polymath, Blaise Pascal, said all of humankind's problems were tied to one behavioral deficit: our inability to sit quietly in a room doing nothing . What about you? How often on a given day or week do you sit in silence? If you're like most, your answer is rarely if ever. And that,[...]

"Frankly, I had never thought of listening as an important subject by itself . But now that I am aware of it, I think that perhaps 80% of my work depends on my listening to someone, or on someone else listening to me." Those were the words of a Chicago area manufacturing executive published in[...]

It's one of the world's oldest pieces of advice, if you can call it that: know thyself. Yet despite its longevity and embrace by virtually every philosophical and spiritual heavyweight of the past 2,500 years, few of us across time and place have made it a focus in our efforts to improve our lives, reduce[...]