I ran into an old friend and was talking about my new book Grounded. As I was talking about the historical shipwrecks and my incident in 1979, he said to me, “I was in a ship accident, sort of.” What? Tell me more! It turns out, he and his wife were passengers on the Carnival […]
Tag Archives: life lessons
Releasing Your Lifeboat
I got home early from an out of town business trip, and we decided to catch a movie (a genuinely Grounded person finds unexpected ways to delight their spouse or significant other, an impromptu “date” is one that my wife especially likes …). We decided to see The Finest Hour, an incredible tale of a […]
Aboard the Schooner Freedom
Today, I took my Dad on an afternoon sailing trip in St. Augustine, Florida. My Dad is 89 this year, and he is in amazing physical shape for someone his age. His memory is not what it used to be, but he’s still pretty sharp. We sailed on the Schooner Freedom (http://www.schoonerfreedom.com/) and I really like […]
Can “Good Luck” be a Warning?
I was in a business office today and took a break from the meeting to find a restroom. Just as I was opening the door to the men’s room, I heard the receptionist say loudly and somewhat sarcastically, “good luck.” I stopped with the door halfway open. What was going on in the men’s room? […]
Grounded In Regard for Others
What does it mean to be Grounded In Regard for Others? Well, it is this simple: don’t be selfish! We live in an age that seems to be all about “me, me, me.” Depending on when you were born, and how grounded those around you were when you were growing up, your idea of regard […]
Grounded In Thoughtful Response
What does it mean to be Grounded In Thoughtful Response? Well, being thoughtful means that you are thinking about the problem and internally brainstorming potential solutions. It means that you are paying attention to other variables, like what is happening around you, non-verbal clues, and your past experiences and interactions with the person or situation. […]
Grounded In Calm Focus
What does it mean to be Grounded In Calm Focus? By calm I mean keeping your cool and not panicking. The more you keep your emotions under control, the more likely you are to experience a positive outcome. Similarly, there are situations in which a gesture or utterance could mean the difference between life or […]
3 Positive Anchors
Okay, so what are the three positive “Grounded In anchors? We need to be: 1. Grounded in Calm Focus 2. Grounded in Thoughtful Response 3. Grounded in Regard for Others I’ll explain each of these in greater detail in future posts. But consider this: we do not inherently have these three positive anchor traits. They […]
Grounded Positively
How can we be “Grounded” in a positive way? When I talk about being “Grounded” in the positive sense, I mean exhibiting those traits that keep us mentally and emotionally stable, admirably sensible, realistic and unpretentious. We are not born “Grounded.” Over our lifetime, we either are surrounded by people (i.e., parents, teachers, coaches, mentors […]
3 Anchors, 3 Ships
Three anchors played a role in three shipwrecks across two centuries: the Grafton, the Invercauld and the Alacrity. The Grafton and the Invercauld wrecked on Auckland Island in the South Pacific a few months apart in 1864. The Alacrity, a ship on which I was a crewmember, wrecked on an unnamed cay in the Bahamas […]