Facing down temptation
June 5th, 2010 by John Creighton in WarmUp
Tags: Leadership, Work
Rough thoughts to warm up on a Saturday morning… Facing down temptation is a human challenge as old as time. Isn’t that what many stories in the Bible are about? Isn’t that one of the purposes of religion… to instill the habits of avoiding destructive temptations? One of the best ways to resist temptation is to avoid putting oneself in a position in which it is possible to act on our temptations. Can’t resist eating ice cream. Don’t buy it. [...]
Read more...Narratives Can Create or Destroy
February 23rd, 2010 by John Creighton in Dispatches
Tags: Education, Leadership, Public Values
Narratives are powerful. The stories we tell ourselves and others don’t just explain the past and present. They shape our future. Indeed, our stories can literally pave the roads we travel not just predicting but creating our life experiences. The movie What the Bleep Do We Know documents scientific theory behind the power of narratives. The person who develops an internal narrative that he is a klutz creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. He imagines in his subconscious that we will, for [...]
Read more...Leadership Lessons: Invictus the Movie
December 15th, 2009 by John Creighton in Dispatches
Tags: Civility, Leadership, Public Leaders, Public Values
I was inspired by Clint Eastwood’s film, Invictus, starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon. The Nelson Mandela biopic was not as gripping as I’d hoped. The pace was slow and some of the characters were dull. My fellow Washington Times Communities blogger, Christian Toto, found the movie “superficial.” I watched Invictus not from the perspective of a film critic. I was curious about what lessons I might learn from Nelson Mandela as portrayed by Morgan Freeman. I find Mr. Mandela [...]
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