Good Clean Reads

“Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.”  -Voltaire

So it turns out I did win the Tom Holce award last night and I couldn’t have imagined a more perfect and beautiful close to the summer of gratitude than standing up in front of 800 of the most successful entrepreneurs in Oregon and saying thank you for recognizing my work in making love real...

by Anastasia Strgar

Without tooting my own horn, I’d say I consider myself a kind person. I’m actually more likely to put others before myself, but lately, I’ve been working on putting myself first. Mysteriously, I’ve discovered that when I start being nicer to myself, I am better able to recognize the kindness coming at me from all directions… Not only that, but I’m more likely to look at the guy...

Forgiveness is both a choice and a skill we can develop. Listen as the leaders in Forgiveness research Robert Enright and Fred Luskinshare their insights and tools for bringing the powerful healing of forgiving to your life. Most of us were not trained in the practical step by step process of learning how to forgive. Often forgiveness is confused with condoning or forgetting. Listen and learn how...

“Investing in women leads to stronger economic growth for communities, countries, and companies.” -Sandra Taylor

I have been waiting for this day for several years and am excited to be here, ready, waiting for the moment when the political tides would turn towards the importance of women and business. Years ago, a buyer from the mass market industry told me to investigate the process of becoming a...

Tomorrow, I will find out if I won the Tom Holce award at the annual OEN entreprenurial celebration. I close my eyes and imagine walking up to receive my award. I have been working at savoring these moments in my mind and not being afraid to hope for the best. It is a different stance from the way I have trained myself to “not count my chickens before they hatch.”

The truth is that no matter what...

by Kristin Neff

The golden rule tells us that we should treat others as we would want them to treat us. Maybe so, but hopefully we won’t treat them even half as badly as we treat ourselves.

“You’re so lame!”

“What a screw-up!”

“How can you ever show your face in public again!”

Would you talk this way to a friend — or even to a stranger, for that matter? Of course not. (Or at least I hope not!)...

Monday mornings often create this jarring emotional space in me. I am never fully prepared for the alarm and especially on weeks that are looming with large events, I wake with uncertainty and sadness. I don’t always know where my sorrow comes from, sometimes I have a clear and ready story about some injustice perpetrated or received. But more often lately it is just another color that lives in me...

I know that forgiveness is the action verb when it comes to love and have spent years trying to learn the mysterious path that leads one to the freedom and peace that comes from forgiving. As with most things, we think we understand how something works, only to have life throw us another event to test us, to see what we really have learned.

I grew up in a family that defined dysfunction. I...

Relationship Bootcamp: Week 3

“The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t being said.” –Anonymous

The strength and endurance training in any and all relationships starts and ends with the capacity for communication. I have often called our communication skills the currency of a relationship, because it is literally the air that lives between people that makes their...