By: Jonita Fair-Payton on March 2, 2023
I discovered that my approach to completing the assignments this semester needed to change. The volume of reading, even done inspectionally, can easily become overwhelming. I realized in the first few weeks that I needed to make a shift. Making a shift from getting it done by the deadline to creating a meaningful experience that…
By: Todd E Henley on March 2, 2023
If you are reading this blog, go back and read the title. If you continue to read this blog, my apologies to you! January 31, 2023, I said to myself, “February is going to be the hardest month of the year.” February 6, I began teaching a four-week, “Entrepreneurial Leadership” class at Fresno Pacific Biblical…
By: Tim Clark on March 2, 2023
Think fast: You’re the pastor. You walk out of a church service and are confronted by a member who is yelling at you and causing a scene. You aren’t sure why, and can’t tell if she’s having a psychotic breakdown, is high on drugs, is demonized, or is just angry. A crowd of congregants has…
By: Jenny Dooley on March 1, 2023
Reading two books back-to-back, one by a family therapist and one by a psychologist has been a surprisingly challenging experience. On the one hand, because I work in the field of counseling the general concepts are not new. On the other hand, what is being discussed feels foreign to me. The confusion is that both…
By: Adam Harris on March 1, 2023
Daniel Kahneman’s, Thinking, Fast and Slow, brings awareness to what is happening continually within the human brain and how it effects our judgements and perceptions. The brain is extremely efficient at processing and interpreting information rapidly, but Kahneman warns that its ability to process information quickly (system 1) can cause misjudgments and wrong associations if…
By: Mathieu Yuill on March 1, 2023
I make a lot of decisions on instinct and I rely on my memory a lot to inform how I will approach given situations. The fault in this system has become pretty apparent as I look at my classmates’ blog posts with several references to the other books we have read and are intentionally weaving…
By: Cathy Glei on March 1, 2023
Leaders make a lot of decisions. After reading Thinking, Fast and Slow by the economist, psychologist and professor, Dr. David Kahneman, not only are a lot of decisions made on a daily basis but my decision making process involves the interplay of two systems. System one is the automatic system that acts without conscious…
By: Kally Elliott on March 1, 2023
A recent reply sent to a friend via text: “Yes, I did receive your email and I read it while sitting in my car waiting for my son but then he got in the car and asked if I could stop at the grocery store for his favorite meal and then my phone actually rang…
By: Kim Sanford on February 28, 2023
My younger son is freakishly good at making mental connections. Since he was little, he’s been surprising us by blurting out the most random and absolutely on-point knowledge. We used to ask him, “How did you know that, Zachary?” Or “Who told you that?” and he would say in his high-pitched 3-year-old voice, “My BRAIN…
By: Pam Lau on February 28, 2023
In his memoir, A Thousand Days, former Kennedy aide Arthur Schlesinger reproached himself for not objecting during the planning for the Bay of Pigs invasion: “I can only explain my failure to do more than raise a few timid questions by reporting that one’s impulse to blow the whistle on this nonsense was simply undone by…
By: Scott Dickie on February 27, 2023
We might be able to get through life, “Thinking, Fast and Slow” (1) but there’s only one way to read Kahneman’s book: slow. I found this book full of interesting facts buried in an over-abundance of words—often descriptions of various research experiments—which made the book difficult to read. Having said that, the overall assertion—that we…
By: John Fehlen on February 27, 2023
Nobel Prize recipient, Daniel Kahneman’s landmark book “Thinking, Fast and Slow” has been in publication since 2011. This groundbreaking work explores the two systems that drive the way we think. Simply put (as if!), System 1 is fast and emotional, while System 2 is slower and more logical (Kahneman, 20). For over 12 years, since…
By: Travis Vaughn on February 27, 2023
If I’m truthful, I think I’d say I really like working alone. Not all the time, of course. But a lot of the time. In fact, I’m pretty happy running a small business as my side hustle, in partnership with my wife, with no other employees. Wait. Pause. That might be my “remembering self,”[1] taking…
By: Jennifer Vernam on February 27, 2023
I was struck by the continuation of a theme from last week’s reading of Edwin Friedman[1] to this week in David Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow.[2] I am going to try to show how I wove the concepts of Friedman’s non-anxious leadership and Kahneman’s System 1 and 2 thinking together. Last week, in the online…
By: Dinka Utomo on February 25, 2023
“Someone who has clarity about his or her own life goals…, and therefore, be able to take stands at the risk of displeasing” -Edwin H. Friedman- Being a leader who leads sincerely is not easier than being a leader who only wants to seek his own security. During my vicariate tenure for two…
By: Kally Elliott on February 24, 2023
There is a member of our family who we all, and I do mean ALL of us, allow to set the agenda. She is needy, definitely the most anxious member of the family, afraid of her own shadow, and constantly demanding attention. Always watching, following us from room to room, she is undifferentiated and fully…
By: Tim Clark on February 23, 2023
I’m going to start this post with a confession. As I was reading A Failure of Nerve, Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix [1]by Edwin H. Friedman, I thought about the people at church who approach me after a sermon and ask, “have you been reading my mail?” Most often I have no clue what…
By: Jana Dluehosh on February 23, 2023
The Time that is Given to us. The Lord of the Rings, honestly one of most favorite movies. Bet you thought I was going to say book didn’t you. I’ve tried many times to read the book and only get to the end of book one and I’m done. I get exhausted trying to figure…
By: Adam Harris on February 23, 2023
Tennessee, my home state, was the setting for the famous “Scopes Monkey Trial” where the theory of evolution was debated as whether this subject was appropriate to be taught to students in school. Many in the early 1900’s believed this theory directly contradicted the creation story found in Scripture. Since then, more Abrahamic faiths have…
By: Esther Edwards on February 23, 2023
All through history people have not only lived out their faith, but they have died for their faith with conviction and hope. In so many cases, death could have been easily avoided by simply accepting a “lesser Jesus”, accepting him to be one god of many gods. Gerald L. Sittser, in his book, “Waters from…
