Stories of incredible suffering can be beautiful in hindsight, not because of the suffering but because of the beautiful response.
Author: Conna Bond
Conna Bond is a marketing and management professor and co-founder of Pineapple Social Media and Red Canoe Creative. She frequently blogs on marketing strategy, social media, digital marketing and information design.
Well Behaved
It isn’t unusual for “well-behaved” toddlers to grow up arrogant, narcissistic, and convinced that the world revolves around them. They’re hard to teach. As adults, they fail to see their negative, self-centered tendencies because they behave so well. They make us look like good parents. Their deeper issues are overlooked or conveniently ignored, and they’re…
Conversation
Think people hear what you’re saying? I played a TED talk for my business communication students this past week and asked each person to identify the main point of the speech. They identified at least 20 somewhat related but fundamentally different assertions. Speaking is an art. So is listening. What’s heard is as important as…
Midnight Plane
Some things in life are like a midnight plane crash that happens when you didn’t even know your plane was going down. Someone slaps you back to consciousness and says, “You’re alive. You’re badly hurt, but you made it.” You crawl around in the dark trying to make sure all your family members made it,…
What We Know
We love what we know. There’s so much we don’t know.
Carve Our Paths
The words we say and sing out loud matter. They carve our paths before us. Speak well. Sing with purpose. Listen with care.
Watch
Love someone and watch them grow beautiful.
Too Much
To some, you’re too old to understand how things are. Too young to remember how things were. Too experienced to be innocent. Too innocent to have half a clue. Too educated to be in touch with reality. Too uneducated to comprehend the complexity. Too left to be right. Too right to care. Here’s to those…
Option
Failure is always an option. It’s just not the preferred one.
Worldview
The things we see and experience produce feelings that form mental associations that connect with hints of reality, changing how we negotiate our way through life for better or worse. What we expose ourselves to creates short-term moods that turn into deep-seated attitudes that influence our perceptions and life choices for the long term. They…
Live It Well
One of the strongest indicators of improving mental health is losing the need to escape life and instead looking for new ways to live it well.
From the Outside
One game a parent will never win is painting the other parent out in a negative light—to anyone. There’s nothing, nothing, nothing more detrimental to children than lack of mutual respect and a driving battle for control between parents, regardless of whether they’re together. False humility and the inability to value each other’s contributions hurts…
Fragmentary Life 