Year: 2019
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The best of 2019
It has been a couple years since I did a year-end roundup of books and film. This year was one of ups (finally travelled to India) and downs (lost my last living grandparent), of self-reflection (learning about leadership, going on retreat again), and of coming to decisions for closing out the decade and kicking off…
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Considerations for planning out your online portfolio
I am looking for advice from online creatives. How do you organize your various projects online? Let me give you some context. I have a couple of ongoing projects I am planning to start next year. I would like to blog/photo/video/post the progress of these projects, but I don’t think doing it on my main…
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To witness excellence
This past weekend Skate Canada International was held in my small city of Kelowna, BC. It brings together some of the top figure skaters in the world. I am not really a figure skating fan, but thought this would be a great opportunity to see some amazing athletes at the top of their game (and…
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Advocating for the teaching of knowledge to kids
Having been in the Canadian education system for a few years now, I am very impressed with the high-minded ideals of the early education system here. Things like teaching critical thinking, creativitiy, breaking down a problem, LID, etc are challenging and interesting, and meant to get a jump on the future. However it is pretty…
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Walking and talking — a review of Another Kyoto
Alex Kerr’s latest book Another Kyoto is another take on an old city, but in an old sort of way. Those of us who read a lot of historical work are conditioned to diligently check each footnote and to closely examine the bibliography (silently judging the book, even before we read it). Non-scholars too expect…
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Growth
The last time I shaved was 2 weeks ago. It was the last time that I saw my grandmother alive. She was in hospice and I had been driving up to Vernon to visit her. We knew this was the end. (She was 87). So, I decided to stop shaving. I have done something similar…
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Sharing some Asia podcast discoveries
I love podcasts, and have been a regular user for about 15 years. I also love audiobooks, which means when I discover a podcast and start going through the backlog, my GoodReads Reading Challenge suffers. This year I have discovered a number of deep podcast catalogs that I thought I would share (in no particular…
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Trickle-down ethical leadership — a review of The Just King
The Just King: The Tibetan Buddhist Classic on Leading an Ethical Life by Jamgön Mipham Take a moment to think of the good leaders that you have had in your life and/or career. Think of the qualities they possess, the qualities that you admire and might even emulate. I am sure we could come up…
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Learning to lead in a transforming world
This summer I had the privilege of taking an online course. Usually you don’t hear the term “privilege” and “online course” in the same sentence, because online courses have such dismal completion rates. But my experience was so good I felt I should share. The course was a five week Executive Education program from INSEAD…
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Cycles: 2019 Meditation retreat
For a third time I went on retreat to Birken, a Buddhist monastery in the Thai Forest tradition. I try to do retreats like this annually as a way to reset my meditation practice. Going up on Friday, we stayed three nights and enjoyed complete silence, 45m meditation sessions at least twice daily, and lots…