America is filled with a lot of angry arguments today. People throw around ‘facts’ to justify their argument, but the facts often appear to contradict each other. Angry arguments rarely solve anything, but do plenty of damage by increasing conflict, lowering trust, and fragmenting our communities. They weaken our communities and turn us into bitter […]
Can parenting books help you become a better leader? In her WSJ article, Alexandra Samuel shares five things she learned reading parenting books that helped her leadership skills. My favorite three are: 1) Before business, make the [personal] connection; 2) Identify hidden workplace stressors; and 3) Don’t fire difficulty employees—work with them. In Covenant Leadership, […]
From our earlier episodes, we know that happiness in life comes from good, high-trust, covenant relationships. To develop good relationships, practice the three Covenant Virtues: Seek wisdom, practice love, and get results. The more people trust your wisdom, that you love them and that you can get results, the better your relationships and the stronger […]
Recent events have put Critical Race Theory (CRT) in the headlines. Companies, government and organizations are engaging CRT without any idea of where it comes from, what it believes or why it is profoundly dangerous. CRT is one of many theories—including Critical Legal Theory, Intersectionality, de-constructionism, Gender Theory, etc.—that have their roots deep in postmodern […]
Life can be intense, fast-paced, and complicated. Everywhere you turn, there’s pressure to be successful. At work, we’re supposed to have cool jobs that pay well, and are socially relevant and fulfilling. We’re supposed to be ambitious, enthusiastic leaders moving quickly up the career ladder. As parents, we are supposed to get our kids into […]
By Pete Bowen and Bailey Bowen SON OF A SHARECROPPER In mid-February—just two months and a lifetime ago—my wife and I were in her hometown of Dothan, Alabama, for her high school reunion and to spend time with her father. My father-in-law is the son of a sharecropper without much formal education. He grew up […]
By Pete Bowen and Bailey Bowen I learned a few important lessons last week that some might find helpful. On March 17, government-ordered Covid-19 shutdowns reduced my consulting business income to $0 overnight. The same week, two of my three daughters were laid off from their jobs. At the time, we were told that the […]
Welcome back to our series, Wisdom and Love vs. Postmodern Power. We’ve been talking about why we have so much conflict in our society and unhappiness in our lives. In this session, we’ll discuss postmodern ideas about relationships, power, rules, freedom and how we develop the young. Remember the three keys to understanding the Postmodern […]
Welcome back to our blog series Wisdom and Love vs. Postmodern Power. We’ve been talking about why we have so much conflict in our society and unhappiness in our lives. The primary reason is that we have three conflicting understandings of life at work in society. It’s like trying to play a game of basketball-football-golf. […]
We’re in tough times right now. Two of my three daughters were laid off last Friday. After a well-worded inquiry, my oldest daughter avoided a lay off and transitioned to a new role in her company. Manager of the 3rd shift disinfecting team. My mother is in the late stages of Alzheimer’s, and inaccessible in […]
The WSJ has a must-read article by Jonathan Eig called The Family Delights of Silly Poop Songs with some fantastic applications for your success as a leader at work, as a parent-leader at home, and as a person in life. Eig tells the story of giving his 10 year old daughter control of the music […]
Welcome back to our second session talking about the Modern Paradigm. Let’s start with a review of what we learned in our first session on the Modern Paradigm. For thousands of years, the Wisdom Paradigm was the dominant way of understanding life across all the world’s great societies, cultures and religions. That was until about […]
Welcome back to our ongoing series about the history of the ongoing conflict in America—and how we fix it. In our last three blogs, we discussed the basics of the Wisdom Paradigm—the dominant way of understanding life for thousands of years—for almost all cultures, religions and philosophies. The Wisdom Paradigm teaches us that human nature […]
Wisdom Paradigm Part 3 Welcome back to our third and last session talking about the Wisdom Paradigm. The better you know the Wisdom Paradigm, the more successful you can be in all aspects of your life—at work, at home and with your family. For thousands of years, the Wisdom Paradigm had us on the right […]
Wisdom and Relationships In our last blog, we talked about the basics of the Wisdom Paradigm. The better you understand the Wisdom Paradigm, the happier and more successful you’re going to be in life. Let’s review some of the anchor points from our last session. In the Wisdom Paradigm, culture and times may change, but […]
With all the wealth and education and technology that we have today, why does life feel disorienting and confusing? Why are supposedly smart people saying and doing things that are absurd and contradictory? Why do we feel like basic morality has collapsed and we’re headed the wrong direction? Welcome back for the third blog in […]
Basket-Foot-Golf: How Paradigms Work In our last session, I teased you with some imagery. Imagine walking on an athletic field and seeing a group of people trying to dribble footballs through a sand trap. Take second to really visualize that. To our left, there is a coach talking about the proper golf club selections for […]
Lost on a Low Level Flight Back in the last century, when I was in flight school in the Marine Corps, I was stationed for a time in the vacation destination of Kingsville, Texas. At one point, Mother Nature decided to send a massive hurricane our way. With the hurricane inbound, a young instructor and […]
Not long ago, a group of friends of mine were having an email discussion about a problem facing our nation at the time. They’re all good, well-intentioned and successful people. We all agreed that a certain behavior was deeply wrong, but we had deep disagreements about the nature of the problem and the best solution […]
The college admissions cheating scandal is filling the news lately. I led a college prep high school for 14 years and put three daughters through college myself, so I’ve got some experience in that admissions game. Yes, the college admissions scandal is about cheating. Yes, the college admissions scandal is about wealthy people having a […]