Leaning Toward Wisdom
Modern Tales Of An Ancient Pursuit
Episodes
January 11, 2025 • 51 mins
All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten: Uncommon Thoughts on Common Things by Robert Fulghum was published in 1986. It was quite the rage because it was filled with commonsense life maxims. I read it and appreciated the author's point that even children can (and should) learn how to behave toward others.
We are almost 40 years later, and it seems like a prehistoric work of fiction. When I purchased this book, I had ye...
Mark as Played
January 5, 2025 • 37 mins
I posted this on social media a few days ago.
It's easy to desire improvement, but it's hard to change our habits to bring about improvement.
Each year begins with the hope that 2025 will be better than 2024. Maybe it will. Maybe not.
Our habits are going to determine it.
These 2 sentences are true. Life bears witness to their validity.
Links mentioned in today's show:
• In Thy Paths, a YouTube playlist of sermons
• A TV s...
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December 24, 2024 • 12 mins
Happy New Year, 2025!
In the fall of 1997, I uploaded my first audio under the tagline "Leaning Toward Wisdom." It was my documentary, the journey of a 40-year-old dad desiring to pass along whatever lessons I might. Twenty-seven years later, I'm still unsure how successful the quest has been to lean more toward wisdom and away from foolishness. But life ain't over yet, so let the leaning (and learning) continue.
Thank you for...
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December 21, 2024 • 46 mins
It started with a voicemail from a client. His message said, "I've got a situation - a problem. I could use your advice. Call me back."
The problem? A relationship. A couple of relationships. At some point during my questioning him, for my understanding, he stopped and said, "What I thought was the problem may not be the problem. Guess I'd better make sure I'm solving the right problem, huh?"
That's solid insight - especially ...
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December 6, 2024 • 51 mins
"My ambition didn't allow me to fail," said Jack Barsky, an ex-KGB spy who was a sleeper agent in the United States.
Barsky was quite successful in avoiding detection. Until he was, then no amount of ambition would prevent authorities from moving in. He stayed around his smart spots for years, navigating North American culture to spy for the Soviet Union and his faith in communism.
Barsky might argue that over time, he learn...
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October 17, 2024 • 59 mins
https://randycantrell.com/inside-the-yellow-studio/
The link above is a comprehensive list of the gear inside The Yellow Studio. Assume every link is an affiliate link.
Ironically, I chose to make this an audio, not a video. Yes, that was intentional. I hope you'll click PLAY.
It started in 1997. This podcast. It was a handheld Olympus digital recorder. No SD card. Just built-in memory. It was less than $100 and I'd been using i...
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October 11, 2024 • 14 mins
Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm—but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
- a line in the T.S. Elliot play, The Cocktail Party
It's another episode of Free Form Friday for October 11, 2024. Enjoy.
Links:
Hot Springs Village Inside O...
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October 7, 2024 • 38 mins
“It's a bizarre but wonderful feeling, to arrive dead center of a target you didn't even know you were aiming for.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold
Serendipity. Look for something, find something else, and realize that what you've found is more suited to your needs than what you thought you were looking for. --- Lawrence Block
Travel light and trust in serendipity. --- Mike Brown
Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chanc...
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September 26, 2024 • 42 mins
John Newton said, “I am not the man I ought to be, I am not the man I wish to be. I am not the man I hope to be. But by the grace of God, I am not the man I used to be”.
He was a slavery abolitionist who had once been a slave trader. Perhaps that context provoked his statement.
I can't fully relate to the first 3 statements in the quote...
I'm not the man I ought to be.
I'm not the man I wish to be.
I'm not the man I hope to b...
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September 21, 2024 • 57 mins
I learned early in sports that to be effective - for a player to play the best he can play - is a matter of concentration and being unaware of distractions, positive or negative. -Tom Landry
Distractions destroy...
Creativity
Productivity
Efficiency
Accomplishment
Love
Contentment
Relationships
SUCCESS
HIGHER ACHIEVEMENT
Distractions embraced equals selfishness. Colossal selfishness. Because it's pride that d...
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August 27, 2024 • 32 mins
"It's amazing how someone can break your heart and you can still love them with all the little pieces." -Ella Harper
Mutually desired relationships are likely going to include some heartbreak. I've had my heart broken. I'm certain I've broken a heart, too. Not like you're thinking - I'm hardly a heartbreaker! But I do have the ability, like all of us, to hurt or injure somebody I care about.
Sometimes the heartbreak is because of ...
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August 23, 2024 • 21 mins
H is for home. Since last year, for the first time in our lives, we have split our time between two homes, both starting with "H." Hurst, Texas, and Hot Springs Village, Arkansas. But last night we spent a night in another "H" home - Holiday Inn Express in Hurst, Texas.
Yes, we had a good reason. When you're having knee surgery and your bedroom is upstairs...you improvise. That meant finding a local hotel for at least one night to...
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August 16, 2024 • 57 mins
Let's define "partner" broadly. It could be a spouse, a business associate, a legal partnership, an informal collaboration, a co-worker, or something else. In short, it's a joint venture of some sort. You get to define it the way that best suits you.
My first partnerships were likely being a sibling to my sister who is 6 years older. We may have been too far apart in age to be a real partnership, but aren't all kids with brothers ...
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August 1, 2024 • 43 mins
It starts with an innocuous request, but you notice it's not a request as much as information --- or a subtle command. The person on the other end of the phone is telling you what they're going to do. The problem is that it involves having you do something for them. Something you never agreed to, and something that is an imposition. Worse yet, it's not a close family member. We're mostly ready, willing, and sometimes able to serve ...
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July 19, 2024 • 32 mins
Well, it's not true that how you do anything is how you do everything, but still I'm rather fond of the concept because it works. For instance, do you step over things that need to be picked up? I don't mean snotty tissues or other debris that might be a campground for all kinds of filth. Say you're out walking on a trail and you see a discarded soda can. Do you pick it up or leave it? Some would pick it up and others wouldn't. The...
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July 12, 2024 • 49 mins
Bariatric surgeries have increased over 500% since 1998.
Bariatric surgeries have exploded (that might not be the proper verb) in recent years. Part of the reason is the improved technologies to make it "minimally invasive," but I think it's primarily because people want a fast, easy fix. And now add a new found popularity of drugs like Ozempic ® making weight-loss even easier.
Everybody wants fast and easy. Nobody prefers slow a...
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June 22, 2024 • 52 mins
More specifically maybe...false assumptions about my (our) retirement...
That you must have at least a million dollars to retire.
That you really need three million dollars to retire with security.
That you should delay collecting Social Security until at least 65, and preferably until 70.
That you should travel.
That you should do all the things you've always wanted to do, but never got around to.
That you'll struggle...
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June 16, 2024 • 46 mins
Happy Father's Day 2024!
My dad enjoying the sunshine
The what was crystal clear.
The how was no where in sight.
Casey Neistat is the OG of YouTube, vlogging and social media creation. He's associated with New York, but it wasn't always so. Casey set his sights on NYC knowing he wanted to make it there. Without any idea or plan on how to do it. But he'd grown up hanging on by a thread so he was comfortable.
Casey had two qu...
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June 7, 2024
Kenneth Aronoff is a drummer for John Mellencamp. He's also part of a documentary, The Untold Stories Of Your Favorite Musicians. He talks about the early days with Mellencamp when he was asked to come up with a drum solo of sorts for a new song, Jack & Diane.
When I first heard him say it my mind went into a few different directions.
One, being good under pressure. Not everybody is. How can we improve that skill?
Two, being ...
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May 16, 2024 • 46 mins
On Chris Williamson's Modern Wisdom YouTube show with Tim Kennedy, a Special Forces master sergeant and author, Kennedy was recounting the extensive training of special forces. In the fog of war there is no time to think when bullets start flying. It's all reaction. He details the many micro movements of firing a weapon during a fire fight, emptying the weapon and reloading - all within seconds. It's not a strategic - "I now need t...
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