The Only Unwinnable Conflict Worth Trying to Win
By
Bill Cottringer
“There is one conflict that will never go away until we either figure out how to communicate past it or die trying. This conflict involves arguing for the beliefs and truths we are most certain about.” ~The Author.
... Views: 1252
THE ONLY WAY TO THE TOP IS ALWAYS AN UPHILL CLIMB
By
Bill Cottringer
“Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing all the hard work you already did.” ~Newt Gingrich.
This morning I was driven to write this article after initially responding via e-mail to an ... Views: 992
The Path from Nobody to Somebody
by
Bill Cottringer
"Be a somebody who makes everybody feel like a somebody." ~anonymous.
Sometimes without being aware of it, or at least not fully knowing the details, we are all searching for a path to help us go from being a nobody to become a ... Views: 149
The Paucity Paradigm
By
Bill Cottringer
“Usually the first problems you solve with the new paradigm are the ones that were unsolvable with the old paradigm.” ~Joel A. Barker.
Way back in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve did something that contaminated our thinking and the language ... Views: 1084
THE PLUS SIDE OF ADHD
By
Bill Cottringer
I have studied ADHD for nearly 60 years now and am ready to share the results of one very in-depth, classic case study—myself.
As a child I would have gotten double “X’s” on every symptom checklist available. I ran and climbed constantly ... Views: 2726
The Power of Awareness
By
Bill Cottringer
“What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.” ~Abraham Maslow.
Focusing on one thing in life being more important than any other is a common mistake we often make. This usually results in over-embracing a ... Views: 1244
The Problem of Our Time
By
Bill Cottringer
“We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.” ~Albert Einstein.
So, what is the problem of our time? The problem is that we all sense the pain from a growing monumental problem, but we don’t understand it ... Views: 193
The Problems a Divided Mind Causes
By
Bill Cottringer
“I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.” ~Alan Watts.
First, I suppose we should clarify what exactly a divided mind is. ... Views: 1302
The Purpose of Relationships
By Bill Cottringer
“Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing it is not fish they are after.” ~Henry David Thoreau.
Lately, I seem to be more successful at accomplishing what I am trying to do when I remain mindful of my primary purpose in what I ... Views: 1302
The Pursuit of Happiness
by
Bill Cottringer
Words can rarely capture the essence of an experience in life, especially common or over-used ones. Oddly though, the way you choose to define things like success, happiness, justice, freedom, and love, can often determine how much or how little ... Views: 196
THE REAL SOURCE OF CONFLICT WITHIN ANY CONFLICT
By
William Cottringer, Ph.D.
“Differences in thinking about problems and solutions cause great conflicts; but the way we communicate about these differences is the source of continuing the conflict.” ~ The author.
Conflicts are a frequent ... Views: 971
James Gray’s “Two Lovers” with Joaquin Phoenix, Gwenth Paltrow, and Vinessa Shaw was an amusing, but predictable movie. The plot involved a confused young man carrying on with two completely different lovers—one very passionate, slightly out-of-reach relationship with all sorts of possibilities, ... Views: 1439
THE REST OF THE HAPPINESS STORY
By
Bill Cottringer
“Unhappiness is just the accumulation of an unwanted feeling arising from incorrect thoughts about and the anxiety of not being able to remove the source of the unhappiness and the increased unhappiness to which all this leads.” ~The Author.
... Views: 1005
“Positive people live their lives like there are no tomorrows; negative people live life like it will go on forever but wish it wouldn’t.” ~The Author
You really don’t have to have a Ph.D. in clinical psychology to explain why some people are positive and some are negative. Human ... Views: 1364
By
Bill Cottringer
“Faith doesn’t fixate on the ownership of absolute truth of the mystery of life, it allows our experience and understanding of this mystery to grow as it may, with or without our belief and consent.” ~The author.
One process seems most real to me—the creative movement ... Views: 873
The Secret In The Way of The Secret
by
Bill Cottringer
I have to admit I am both a fan and a skeptic with all the hype this past year or so about “The Secret.” My “fan” perspective is a feeling one. I feel the fundamental truth of the Law of Attraction and power of positive thinking is ... Views: 708
The Soul’s Revenge Of The Mind’s Excesses
By
Bill Cottringer
“Everything in excess is opposed to nature.” ~Hippocrates.
What is the real goal of self-growth? After 4+ decades of practical research into the self-growth movement, I have come to a tentative conclusion about this question: ... Views: 1348
The Success Team Formula Within
By
Bill Cottringer
Effective teamwork between quality thinking, healthy emotionality, disciplined behavior, and spiritual intelligence invariably results in long-term success, along with authentic happiness, genuine peace of mind, and inherent satisfaction. ... Views: 121
THE TAO OF NEW INFORMATION AGE TIME MANAGEMENT
By
Bill Cottringer
“The challenge today is to catch up to the shift between the manufacturing age goal of squeezing a penny out of a nickel to the new information age goal of squeezing a nickel out of a penny.” ~The author.
We are ... Views: 1339
The Tao of Teams
by
Bill Cottringer
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” ~Helen Keller, activist.
Effectiveness and successful results in today’s government, business and non-profit organizations is delivered mostly by effective teams. The Gestalt Principle ... Views: 251
THE TERRIBLE TWINS WITHIN (ANY RELATIONSHIP)
By William Cottringer, Ph.D.
There are two terrible twins that can rear their ugly head in any relationship and take it South in a New York second, if not managed properly. The two terrible twins within are expectations and control. Although ... Views: 713
The Terrible Twins Within: Our Psychological vs. Moral Consciences
By
William Cottringer, Ph.D.
“The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience.” ~Mahatma Gandhi.
We start out and end up at the same place in finding and knowing ... Views: 725
The Three Core Conflicts
by
Bill Cottringer
“Unresolved conflicts usually return as noisier versions with more intensity, vengeance and difficulty.” ~The author.
There are three core conflicts for humans: (1) Us vs. life (2) Us vs. others, and (3) Us vs. ourselves. We all ... Views: 441
The Three Main Highways to Success
By
Bill Cottringer
“Knowing how to succeed is the easy part. The hard part is in translating your desire into hard work and maintaining perseverance through inevitable setbacks.” ~ The Author.
If you do a Google search on “success” there are ... Views: 581
THE TREADMILL TRAP: Keeping Up With The Speed Of Change
By
William Cottringer, Ph.D.
What is faster than a nanosecond? Whatever it is, it is upon us! Right at this moment I am both crying and laughing about the impact of Karl Fish’s “Shift Happens” I-Net and U-tube “Fishbowl: Did You ... Views: 839
THE TRICKS OF POSITIVE THINKING
By
Bill Cottringer
“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” ~Winston Churchill.
Gee, we have all heard enough about the power of positive thinking, right? You only get about 4 ... Views: 3071
The Trouble with Beliefs
By
Bill Cottringer
“Man is what he believes. ~ Anton Chekhov.
The main trouble with beliefs is that people take them, along with themselves and the certainty of their beliefs being true, too seriously. The other half of that problem is that it is a belief ... Views: 620
“If you want to know where you are going, stop; look at where your feet are pointing and look behind you to see where the footprints are that got you here.” ~The Author.
I have been a part of the positive psychology, human potential and self-help movements since the late sixties. At this ... Views: 642
The Truth Shall Set You Free
By
Bill Cottringer
“The beautiful irony about the truth is that it hates dark places. It despises being hidden. It loves the limelight, and it always forces itself out.” ~Mitta Xinindlu.
From my research, there seem to be two main opposing sources for ... Views: 364
The Truth Will Set You Free2 (John 8: 31-32)
By
Bill Cottringer
“The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.” ~David Foster Wallace, author.
From my research, there seem to be two main opposing sources for interpreting the true literal and the intriguing ... Views: 345
THE TWO HALVES OF LIFE
By
William Cottringer, Ph.D.
“Most of the shadows of this life are caused by our standing in our own sunshine.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson.
From where I am standing do my looking today, there seems to be two distinct halves to my life. Of course I am interested in finding ... Views: 829
The Two Main Goals of Personal Development
By
Bill Cottringer
“Small daily improvements are the key to staggering long-term results.” ~Anonymous.
Our personal development efforts in learning, growing and improving are aimed at increasing two very important capacities: (a) our ... Views: 905
THE UNNECESSARY SUFFERING PART OF NECESSARY SUFFERING
By
Bill Cottringer
“Anything, anything would be better than this agony of mind, this creeping pain that gnaws and fumbles and caresses one and never hurts quite enough.” ~Jean Paul Sartre.
Life involves a certain amount of painful, ... Views: 1148
THE WILL TO GROW
By
Bill Cottringer
There is one particular motivation that has a significant impact on the quality of your life; it can result in varying degrees of happiness and unhappiness, success and failure, peace and turmoil and good health and ill health. This single motivation ... Views: 717
The Wisdom of Insecurity
by
Bill Cottringer
“Uncertainty is the only certainty there is and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security.” ~John Allen Paulos.
I wish I had originally come up with this simple but profound article title, but I have to give full credit to a ... Views: 246
THE “WORST BAD HABIT” YOU CAN GET CAUGHT UP IN
By
Bill Cottringer
“The obscure takes a while to see and the obvious—even longer.” ~Anonymous.
What is the worst bad habit you can get caught up in? One that is hard to see because it is so much of who we are on this human journey. As it ... Views: 839
There Is No Quick & Easy One-Size Fits All Success Prescription. So Why Do You Keep Looking?
By
Bill Cottringer
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson.
There is a very fundamental principle of psychology that ... Views: 1399
There Is Nothing Wrong With Seeing Things The Way They Are
By
Bill Cottringer
“Common sense is the simple knack of seeing things the way they are and doing things the way they should be done.” ~ Mark Twain.
Here are two important clarifications that I think Mark Twain would have agreed ... Views: 1020
THINK IT BUT DON’T SAY IT
By
Bill Cottringer
As a kid I never bought into the infamous playground chant, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me. Just re-look at my last name above. Now let your imagination run wild, empathizing about all the possible hurt and ... Views: 1323
Thinking Your Way to Success
By
Bill Cottringer
“I want to know all God’s thoughts; all the rest are just details.” ~Albert Einstein.
In today’s Information Age, quality thinking is the success currency of choice. Have you thought about the quality of your own thinking lately? I ... Views: 1770
THREADING YOUR NEEDLE WITH LIFE’S ROPE
By Bill Cottringer
A great challenge and opportunity we all have in life is to be successful in threading our needle with life’s rope. This is our main success quest behind all that we do. The keys to this quest are in understanding the rope, ... Views: 740
Three Beatitudes for Better Communication
By
Bill Cottringer
“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” ~George Bernard Shaw.
I first heard this simple but profound prescription for better communication below, used as a beginning and ... Views: 1514
Three Key Success Factors in Effective Management
By
Bill Cottringer
“The effective management of others always starts with effective self-management.” ~The author.
There are libraries of books on how to manage effectively, but since there is already too much information and too ... Views: 976
Three Paths to The Truth
By
Bill Cottringer
“I wouldn't give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity, but for the simplicity on the other side of complexity, I would give my life.” ~Oliver Wendell Holmes.
As the above quote implies, there are but three main paths ... Views: 1145
Three Questions to Answer in Measuring the Success of Your Relationship
By
Bill Cottringer
“Don't marry the person you think you can live with; marry only the individual you think you can't live without.” ~James Dobson.
A writing colleague and dear friend of mine who is ... Views: 1338
Time: The Ultimate Yin-Yang Urstoff
by
Bill Cottringer
“The hidden portal to real time is the precise now moment of when the past and future collide into the present.” ~The author.
To see true time,
You need double vision,
One eye for convention
The other for imagination.
First ... Views: 415
TIT 4 TAT: The Basic Backdrop of Life.
By Bill Cottringer
“Reputation is not of enough value to sacrifice character for it.” Miss Clark.
All of life, upon due reflection, seems to be a variation of one very basic rule commonly known as—Tit for Tat (literally blow for blow). This a ... Views: 1318
Today’s Primary Problem: Commonplace Evil
By
Bill Cottringer
“The way in which you define something has a lot to do with how much or how little of the thing you have in hand, both quantity and quality.” ~The Author.
Such is the case with the greatly misunderstood term evil. ... Views: 359
Too Much Familiarity Can Breed Contempt
By
Bill Cottringer
“Familiarity breeds contempt, for others at first, but then inwardly, contempt towards ourselves.”
~Oli Anderson, Synchronesia: A Depressing Existential Novel.
Most relationship experts agree that contempt can creep into a ... Views: 3922
Train Your Brain in Mindfulness
by
Bill Cottringer
“Mindfulness is a way of befriending ourselves and our experience.” ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn.
Why train your brain in “mindfulness?” Because mindfulness is what facilitates the other major components of emotional intelligence—self, ... Views: 884