By: Jonita Fair-Payton on January 13, 2023
I made a declaration on Tuesday morning, during incredible physical pain from new formed gallstones, that I’m DONE with hard things. I am not doing anything else that is hard for at least 6 months. I am only doing things, experiencing people, feeling emotions, sharing words, and listening in ways that are easy for me…
By: Kally Elliott on January 13, 2023
In middle school I wrote horrible lovesick poetry to boyfriends. In high school I spent late nights in the laundry room pecking away at my dad’s computer composing essays for my Honor’s Lit class. In college I received an A- on an essay on religious freedom. A few weeks later my would-be husband had to…
By: Jennifer Vernam on January 13, 2023
Over my lifetime, I can chart on my shelf the books that have given me inspiration, companionship and even healing. In years past, reading for me has been a refuge. As an adult I have discovered that I also enjoy writing, especially the process of editing. I find it immensely satisfying develop a text into…
By: Cathy Glei on January 13, 2023
As I type this post, what is most prevalent in my mind is “I hope I am writing this blog post correctly?” (Slight panic, just being honest). Some of you may relate. While trying something new is difficult, I am reminded of a quote, “Ask yourself if what you are doing today is getting you…
By: Jean de Dieu Ndahiriwe on January 13, 2023
Lieberman and Long’s book the Molecule of More, how a single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity and will Determine the Fate of humans be a very interesting book that I will surely keep on the very important reading materials. Dopamine “the pleasure molecule,” as dubbed by scientists in 1997 after Katheleen…
By: Mary Kamau on January 12, 2023
The covid19 pandemic was as brutal as it was merciless in forcing everyone across the globe to change. Life became unpredictable as people lived in fear and uncertainty, not having a clue of what to expect or do. If change management is leadership, then everyone was forcibly conscripted into leadership to manage the most unpredictable…
By: Adam Harris on January 12, 2023
While wading through this week’s material on reading more intelligently, thinking more critically, and taking smarter notes, I was reminded of the idea, It’s better to dig a few deep wells, than hundreds of shallow ones. [1] I’ve run across a few versions of this saying over the years from spiritual leaders and yogi’s, and…
By: Travis Vaughn on January 12, 2023
My wife often tells me I should pick up more fiction. I agree with her, but for some reason I’ve had an aversion to such literature most of my adult life. Admittedly, I do occasionally pick up a novel by Cormac McCarthy, J.R. Tolkien, or J.K. Rowling, but the thought of doing more of that…
By: Jenny Dooley on January 12, 2023
I buy books. Lots of books! I bought How to Read a Book, by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren, decades ago. I don’t recall having ever read it. I laughed at the realization of having packed, unpacked, and repacked a book I had never finished over the course of five international relocations. I…
By: Michael O'Neill on January 12, 2023
The Molecule of More by Daniel Z. Lieberman and Michael E. Long is a fascinating exploration of the role that dopamine plays in human behavior. This book focuses on how dopamine, also known as the “molecule of more,” impacts our lives from day-to-day decisions to large-scale societal trends and habits. Together they have created a…
By: Russell Chun on January 12, 2023
“Interessanterweise sind unsere beiden Autoren (Adler und Ahrens) Deutsche.” Translation: It is interesting to note that both our authors (Adler and Ahrens) are German. Part 1, Sönke Ahrens, How to take Smart Notes Grade: A Sönke Ahrens sparked my interest as many of his Smart Note taking points are “informed” as he says, by his…
By: Tonette Kellett on January 12, 2023
Introduction In the book, The Molecule of More, the authors wrote about dopamine and its effect on different areas of our lives and on society as a whole. [1] According to WebMD, dopamine is a type of neurotransmitter made by our bodies. [2] Our nervous system uses dopamine to send messages between our nerve cells.…
By: Jenny Steinbrenner Hale on January 12, 2023
As I Begin One of my goals this semester is to reduce the amount of time I spend preparing my blogs, in order to sharpen my communication skills and create a more balanced life and work routine. I am pushing myself to form and hone my ideas more quickly and to edit less. I find…
By: Nicole Richardson on January 12, 2023
“I can’t wait to get back to normal” was a regularly heard phrase by the members of the church I served when the Covid Pandemic was in full swing. Although people were thankful for Zoom technology for worship, the heart felt sense that we were not the same community because we could not be together…
By: Elmarie Parker on January 12, 2023
Gustavo Razzetti, organizational culture consultant, author, and speaker, wrote “Remote Not Distant: Design a Company Culture That Will Help You Thrive in a Hybrid Workplace”[1] to encourage leaders to think differently about their organization’s culture post the wide-spread work-from-home experiences of the covid-19 pandemic. He provides a roadmap for executives so they and their teams…
By: Scott Dickie on January 12, 2023
The title of my blog is from some Lord of the Rings character, in one of the three movies, before one of the important battles. If I could figure out how to add a footnote on this blog page, I might be more compelled to communicate with a bit more accuracy and precision, which would…
By: Audrey Robinson on January 12, 2023
Brief Overview: Daniel Lieberman, MD, and Michael E. Long, behavioral health specialists, set out to take complex, chemical brain functions and simplify their functions into everyday language. In The Molecule of More, they used easy-to-understand concepts such as “up” and “down” to explain the two chemical categories that occur in our cognition. According to Lieberman…
By: Pam Lau on January 12, 2023
Writing was my refuge. I could slip in between every word and feel my body stretch itself without limits, rules or expectations. Especially as an imaginative, outspoken adolescent girl whose critical thinking skills were wildly untethered, my songs, poems, letters and stories sheltered me with their walls. The more than 300 journals in my garage…
By: Jonathan Lee on January 12, 2023
Gustavo Razzetti, the author of Remote Not Distant, is an author and a leading workplace thinker on changing and improving workplace cultures. He begins this book on how to rebuild a hybrid company culture by stating that workplaces are headed into a whole new era of cultures after covid era. He begins his book by…
By: Troy Rappold on January 12, 2023
In the 2022 book, “Remote, Not Distant,” Gustavo Razzetti outlines helpful principles for companies to consider as they navigate the “new normal” of remote work realities in the modern workplace. Razzetti’s premise is that the COVID pandemic forever changed the structure of work and we will not be returning to business as usual. Indeed, the…
