We’ve made leadership about changing the world, but there is no ‘world’ there’s six billion people’s understanding of it. If you change one person’s understanding of it, their understanding of what they are capable of, of how much people care about them of how powerful an agent for change they can be you have changed the world. It’s a simple…continue reading
Learn From Your Heroes, but Believe in Yourself
January 11, 2013 by ·
Jazz saxophonist Stan Getz took a teaching position at Stanford in 1986. In an interview with a reporter about his role there, he put it this way: I’m a strong opponent of imitation. I always tell them that they have to be themselves. That’s hard, because they don’t believe in themselves, they believe in their heroes. And…continue reading
Paul Siple – Eagle Scout
September 21, 2012 by ·
Paul Siple, a nineteen year-old Eagle Scout in Erie, Pennsylvania, was one of thousands who applied to join Admiral Byrd’s expedition in 1928. Byrd asked the Boy Scouts of America to help him select one Scout to take on the year and a half exploration of Antarctica. Local committees vetted applications and forwarded 88 to the national office. These 88 were winnowed down to…continue reading
Inspiring Discovery
September 7, 2012 by ·
Make Me a Boat If I communicate the love of the sea to my people, Soon you will see them diversifying according to their thousand particular qualities: One will weave the fabrics, Another will cut the tree in the forest, Another still will forge nails Someone will observe the stars to learn how to navigate, All will work…continue reading
Within My Power
September 5, 2012 by ·
The following was written by Forest E. Witcraft (1894 – 1967), a scholar, teacher, and Boy Scout administrator and first published in the October 1950 issue of Scouting magazine. I am not a Very Important Man, as importance is commonly rated. I do not have great wealth, control a big business, or occupy a position of…continue reading
Life is understood backwards; but lived forwards..
August 28, 2012 by ·
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced. Søren Kierkegaard - Danish philosopher and theologian 1813-1855. There’s a great divide we cross sometime in our adulthood where we are better able to examine and understand the lives we have…continue reading
Prayer of the Woods
August 22, 2012 by ·
Prayer of the Woods I am the heat of your hearth on the cold winter nights, the friendly shade screening you from the summer sun, and my fruits are refreshing draughts quenching your thirst as you journey on. I am the beam that holds your house, the board of your table, the bed on which you…continue reading
What’s in the box?
August 8, 2012 by ·
We hesitate. We stall or try for perfect or have meetings or polish or avoid the final ‘go’ because we’re afraid that it might not work, that the art won’t be well received, that people will hate it. Here’s the thing: there’s a box on the table. And you need to decide whether or not…continue reading
How to begin to educate a child
July 20, 2012 by ·
How to begin to educate a child. First rule: leave him alone. Second rule: leave him alone. Third rule: leave him alone. That is the whole beginning. D. H. Lawrence
A Conspiracy of Love
July 18, 2012 by ·
Excerpts from Newark, New Jersey’s Mayor Cory Booker’s commencement address at Stanford University: My dad would touch me almost like he was trying to feel my very spirit. He would look at me and he would say in ways that are eloquent, he would impart to me this truth, he would say to me, “Boy, you need…continue reading
A Message to Parents
May 25, 2012 by ·
A Message to Parents If you Respect me, I will hear you. If you Listen to me, I will feel understood. If you Understand me, I will feel appreciated. If you Appreciate me, I will know your support. If you Support me as I try new things, I will become responsible. When I am Responsible,…continue reading
Bernard Sterling Mason
May 3, 2012 by ·
Why? –in a world of matches? Ernest Thompson Seton answered well when a group of ‘practical business men questioned his zest for the rubbing stick fire – said he, pointing to the ground, ‘You are thinking of the fire that is lighted down there,’ and pointing to his breast continued, ‘I am thinking of the…continue reading
It ain’t ignorance
January 12, 2012 by ·
It ain’t ignorance that causes all the trouble in this world. It’s the things people know that ain’t so. Edwin Armstrong , electrical engineer and inventor of FM radio. Sometimes in Scouting tradition and long practice usurp the way things ought to be. We tend to accept things unquestioningly as they are given to us. I am…continue reading
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