Author: Blaz Kos
Research shows that if you had to choose one variable that influences the quality of your life the most, it would be relationships. It’s not money or fame or good looks, it’s relationships. People who are deeply connected to their friends, family, co-workers and even the local community live longer, are healthier, happier, more fulfilled and live a better life in general. The good life. A very good start to relationship proactivity is to map all the people who are present in your life. List all the 150 or so people that interact with on a regular basis and then arrange them in four categories; actually, in four different types of circles, based on how close they are to you.
An organization is only as good as its leaders. It’s absolutely true that too much hierarchy can kill the company’s creativity and productivity, but so does an absence of great leadership. Some companies experimented with a flat organization without any leadership at all, and soon found out that people felt adrift, like lonely islands without support, when they weren’t being led properly. But becoming a good leader is not an easy job. Developing yourself into a great leader is one of the toughest challenges one can set for themselves. That’s why you can find thousands of books and research articles written on the topic. I cherry‑picked the best ones, describing the key personality and behavioral traits of great leaders.
Parents serve their children as mirrors. Parents (together with the immediate family) are the only real reference a child has, and thus parents’ words and behavior present the core source of information about a child. If parents don’t provide an accurate mirror, namely that a child is a valuable human being that deserves love, respect and encouragement no matter what, that leads to never‑ending emotional suffering in later years. Healing your emotional self offers a really good overview of how big of an impact parents have on raising emotionally healthy children. It explains typical abusive behaviors of parents, from abandonment, neglect to overprotectiveness, as well as to what kind of damages such behaviors lead. It also offers many great strategies and exercises for healing your emotional self if you were raised by abusive parents.
The book The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are explores the power of love, belonging and “being enough” by cultivating courage, compassion and connection, all with the goal of developing resilience to shame. Each of the 10 chapters in the book explains one virtue that can help you overcome the feelings of imperfection and live a more meaningful and happier life. The main idea of the book is that when you develop shame resilience, you finally get a chance to let go of who you think you’re supposed to be and embrace who you really are. That’s something the author calls Wholehearted Living.
We all share the urge to expand, extend, become autonomous, develop, grow, and mature. We all long for self-actualization, to enhance the self, and reach the ultimate state in which we can express and activate all the inner capacities we possess. We all want to become as integrated and effective as possible, and we all wonder who we really are. Yet it seems we have almost forgotten how the most fundamental positive change and long-lasting personal development in humans actually occurs. It might surprise you, but the most fundamental and lasting change happens in warmly emotional and expressive relationships, where mutual respect is present, and where non-possessive caring is exhibited. This kind of relationships facilitate true self‑realization, based on permission for one to freely express themselves.
