Personal growth: Confucius on the self-improvement of leaders September 21, 2017
Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Concept of personal growth.Tags: Confucius, inspiration, life, philosophy, psychology, self-actualization, self-improvement, writing
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If we aspire to being a good example to others within our sphere of influence, particularly if we are in a position of potential leadership, we obviously need to develop an overall personal character worthy of receiving respect.
Confucius teaches this lesson in The Analects by referring to the behaviour of rulers and the consequences of their behaviour.
“A ruler who has rectified himself never gives orders, and all goes well. A ruler who has not rectified himself gives orders, and the people never follow them.” (1)
If we look at the idea of rectifying oneself from a personal behaviour point of view, Confucius would have us correct ourselves by working at removing the erroneous or faulty aspects within our patterns of behaviour.
(1) As translated by David Hinton in his book, The Four Chinese Classics.
—Dennis Mellersh
Personal growth: Creative writing tips from a renowned author September 18, 2017
Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Personal Development and Creativity.Tags: 60 Minutes, inspiration, John le Carre, life, personal development, philosophy, psychology, self-actualization, self-improvement, writing
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If your self-improvement program includes improving your creative writing skills, try using adverbs and adjectives less frequently and “let the verbs do the work.”
This is one of a number of excellent writing tips given by renowned author David Cornwall, better known by his pen name, John le Carré , during an interview with the CBS News program 60 Minutes.
The interview was conducted by well-known 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft.
If for some reason you are unable to access the videos, the accompanying article on the 60 Minutes website summarizes the tips by quoting le Carré.
Here’s the link if you are interested in pursuing this further:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/john-le-carre-rules-of-writing-from-an-international-best-seller/
Even if creative writing is not a major goal of your personal growth program the act of writing can improve your overall communications skills, provide a sense of creative accomplishment, and refresh your mind for other aspects of your self-actualization process.
Writing down your thoughts can be an important tool for self-discovery.
– Dennis Mellersh
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