#BlogElul 11 – Trust
Today’s word is Trust. Trust is another one of those multifaceted words – so many different meanings. In past years, I’ve mused on repairing broken trust, and whether the Universe is a friendly place....
View Article#BlogElul 12 – Forgive
Today’s word is Forgive, a word we use repeatedly in the High Holy Day liturgy, asking G-d to give us a chance to make things better in the new year. Looking back at my posts from 2012, 2013 and 2014,...
View Article#BlogElul 13 and 14 – Remember and Learn
So, it happened. Friday was a crazy day, we spent three hours at IKEA (but we found what we wanted, mostly), I had to cook and I was tired and the blog didn’t get written before Shabbat came in. In a...
View Article#BlogElul 15 – Change
Newsflash: Change is hard. OK, now that you’ve picked your jaw up from the floor at that astonishing revelation, let me elaborate. Having change thrust upon us is hard, of course. If somebody takes...
View Article#BlogElul 16 – Pray
Today’s verb is Pray. In my two previous blog posts on this subject (here and here), I mused on the thought that prayer is a good thing to do whether you believe there is Anyone on the other end of the...
View Article#BlogElul 17 – Awaken
Wow. The obvious metaphor for awakening this time of year is the shofar, but I think I’ve written enough about that. Who or what else awakens during the month of Elul? It’s September. School will be...
View Article#BlogElul 22 – End
Well, that was a gap. But today’s word is End, and today I’ve chosen not to end my BlogElul series prematurely, despite its imperfection. For some reason I got completely stuck on the word Ask, and...
View Article#BlogElul 23 – Begin
So I went to look at my old blog posts about this verb, and I had to laugh. September is clearly the new January here, here and here. So many cycles end and then begin this time of year. For me, this...
View Article#BlogElul 25 – Intend
Well, it’s not hard to figure out how my intentions for this blog post series have not been working out very well. But today I will follow through on my good intention and post! One might say it was...
View Article#BlogElul 28 – Give
Today I had the immense pleasure of reading a book called “The Art of Possibility”, by Benjamin Zander and Rosamund Stone Zander. I was stunned to discover that the book is 15 years old – where have...
View Article#BlogElul 1: Prepare
It’s here! It’s here! Today is the first day of the Hebrew month of Elul, and once again, Rabbi Phyllis Sommer has generously provided us with a template for reflection and growth. The High Holy Days...
View Article#BlogElul 2: Act
Action is a very odd concept. We take action every day of our lives (at least, if we get out of bed), and yet it is something we often struggle with. Committing to a course of action can be both...
View Article#BlogElul 3: Search
The word “search” implies intentionality. A searcher is not merely wandering through life, marvelling at the serendipity of things. A searcher is on a mission, trying to find something specific. The...
View Article#BlogElul 4: Understand
Understanding is the Holy Grail for us personal development junkies. We might call it wisdom or enlightenment or whatever, but in the end, what we really want is to create a human pattern that makes...
View Article#BlogElul 5: Accept
Accept – now that is a hard one. We don’t want to accept things. We want to be the masters of our fate, we want to have the illusion of control. The truth of the matter is, we have much less control...
View Article#BlogElul 6: Believe
Belief is one of the biggest issues an entrepreneur struggles with, and especially a network marketer. You have to believe in your product, in your leadership, in the industry as a whole, and in...
View Article#BlogElul 7: Choose
The abundance of choice is both the blessing and the curse of the self-employed life. When we are employees, we dream of being the masters of our own time; when we are answerable to no one but...
View Article#BlogElul 8: Hear
I love listening to podcasts, and just recently I heard a great one by Jeffery Combs, on becoming a master listener. What is a master listener? According to Jeffery, it is someone who can hear what is...
View Article#BlogElul 9: Observe
“You see, but you do not observe.” Such a famous quote from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories. What does that mean for someone who is trying to grow themselves? In the original story,...
View Article#BlogElul 10: Count
This blog post was supposed to have gone out yesterday, on the 10th day of Elul. But it’s OK, nobody is perfect, especially me. I am determined to make it count anyway! Making things count is a matter...
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