On a quest to navigate what constitutes a flourishing life, one should expect to find numerous resources related to success stories from the athletic world to the business realm; however, one surprise on this journey has been the number of authors who recommend not only considering a strategic plan for how to accomplish one’s goals, …
Category: Habits
Walk a Mile in Someone Else’s Shoes
In an ideal world, everyone would be willing to Walk a Mile in Someone Else’s Shoes demonstrating a Habit of Awareness of Others in efforts to create a flourishing community. However, the reality is that most of us are more interested in our own perspective and having our own opinions supported than we are at …
Audience of One
When a phrase comes to your attention from three different sources all within a 24-hour period, it might be wise to pay attention! The phrase Audience of One appeared in a sermon podcast in the morning and two separate books on different topics in the afternoon. Discussing the Sermon on the Mount, Ortberg discusses how …
Skillful Teaching
In the Logos at Union University located on the second floor in the east end of the beautiful domed building is an area where the Center for Faculty Development places materials that might be of interest to our faculty. The only downside to visiting this space is that when my intention is to locate one …
Building the Wrong House
Have you ever been guilty of attempting to Build the Wrong House? Sometimes in my eagerness to serve or help, I start trying to help everyone and instead of following the blueprints God designed just for me, I let the Enemy distract me into building the house he created for someone else. In Banning Liebscher’s …
The Hospitable Leader
Recognizing that other people may not track with my philosophy that one should view an athletic event or a college classroom as an opportunity to demonstrate hospitality, my hope is that even those who disagree will be able to connect with the concept of a Hospitable Leader. Author Terry A. Smith invites us to ponder …
Lesson of the Slime Mold
The more hours spent engaged in research on a flourishing life, the more convinced I become that a successful definition rests more in relational equity and connecting with others than in the measurement of achievements and successes. Whether it’s words of wisdom from the Reverend Billy Graham in Nearing Home or Bob Buford’s Finishing Well, …
Martha, Martha, Martha!
For those of us who grew up in the 1970s watching the television show The Brady Bunch, we can hear Jan, in her frustration of being the middle sister vocalize, “Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!” With Jan’s voice so ingrained in my head, I must admit that every time I read the Biblical story of Mary and …
In the Zone
After offering one example of Bridging the Generational Gap using technology, today the desire is to explain another opportunity for generations to find commonality through the lens of Flow Theory. Recurring repeatedly in the flourishing research from a myriad of disciplines including sports, psychology, and education, is the concept of flow, created by Dr. Mihaly …
Bridging the Generational Gap
Perhaps the reason I am so drawn to study the research on Gen Z is related to the fact that never experiencing motherhood, there was the absence of witnessing the gradual changes that occur every day with one’s own children; therefore what I detected in the college classroom appeared to be a dramatic change. Or, …