Friends, Welcome to my seventh quarterly newsletter. In this newsletter, I want to take on the subject of “Mastering the Stories We Tell Ourselves,” one of the most important of the 13 skills that lead to a flourishing life.…
Continue Reading→
No Greatness without Goodness
Friends, Welcome to my sixth quarterly newsletter. In my first newsletter, I wrote about kindness and leadership. My contention was that “kindness and altruism lead to more effective leadership and organization effectiveness.” In this newsletter, I want to take…
Continue Reading→
Enabling People to Flourish
Friends, Welcome to the fifth quarterly newsletter from White Pine Mountain, LLC. As most of you know, the subject of “happiness,” as defined by the science of Positive Psychology, has been a key focus of mine for the past 10+…
Continue Reading→
Flourishing in the 2nd Half of Life
Friends, Welcome to my 4th quarterly newsletter. Having recently returned from leading a one week course at Canyon Ranch’s Life Enhancement Center in Tucson, AZ entitled “Encore: Flourishing in the 2nd Half of Life,” I thought I would use this…
Continue Reading→
Resilience & Growth Newsletter
Friends, Welcome to my third newsletter. In this one I want to share thoughts on how to deal with setbacks in life, or how one might develop greater grit or resilience. There are four possibilities when we face a crisis…
Continue Reading→
Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression challenged a President & Fueled His Greatness
By Joshua Wolf Shenk This is an excellent book about Lincoln’s depression. The principle lesson is one of wholeness, about integration…that we cannot understand another person without seeing the whole being, the whole person, the whole or integrated life. While President…
Continue Reading→
A Million Miles in a Thousand Years
by Donald Miller Summary Notes by Doug Smith Nobody cries at the end of a movie about a guy who wants a Volvo. But we spend years living those stories and expect our lives to feel meaningful. The truth is,…
Continue Reading→
Leadership and Happiness Newsletter
Friends, Welcome to my second quarterly newsletter. In the last newsletter, I dealt with the role that being altruistic/kind plays in effective leadership. I would like to stay with the leadership subject in this newsletter by providing a definition and…
Continue Reading→
The Emotional Intelligence Quick Book
Everything You Need to Know to Put Your EQ to Work By Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves (Notes from the journal of Douglas A Smith) “Our civilization is still in the middle stage, scarcely beast in that it is…
Continue Reading→
Crucial Conversations: Tools For Talking When Stakes Are High
Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillian and Al Switzer Forward by Stephen Covey This is a breakthrough book There are a few defining moments in our life that make all the difference. Many of these moments come from “crucial conversations”…
Continue Reading→