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INSPIRATIONS
Thoughtful Readings for Personal Transition and Transformation
At Cornerstone Wealth Advisors, Inc., we believe that skillfully applying the financial planning process can make a significant contribution to helping you achieve your life’s goals. But we also realize that this alone is not enough. For most of us, achieving our life’s goals also requires some combination of clear vision, life-long learning and personal courage – whether you’re pondering that change to your career which you’ve always dreamed of pursuing or wondering just how in the world you can make your retirement the meaningful and rewarding experience you’ve always wanted it to be.
While our expertise does not extend to these areas, our own experiences and those of our clients have shown us that fostering personal growth is a key element in the pursuit of the life goals. In other words, it isn’t just about the money. Or to quote Albert Einstein, “Some things that count can’t be counted.”
We have been fortunate to be introduced to the writings of some outstanding thinkers and practitioners that have great abilities to assist us in these key areas. Some have been shared by clients, some by professional friends around the country and some discovered by us.
Below is a list of these resources. To our knowledge, all remain in print. If you know of others that should be here as well, please let us know. May these writings provide some inspiration to you at just the right time as you pursue your life’s goals. Dig in!
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
How do we know if we're following our true callings? How do we sharpen our senses to cut through the distractions of everyday reality and hear the calls that are beckoning us?
Callings is the first book to examine the many kinds of calls we receive and the great variety of channels through which they come to us. A calling may be to do something (change careers, go back to school, have a child) or to be something (more creative, less judgmental, more loving). While honoring a calling's essential mystery, this book also guides readers to ask and answer the fundamental questions that arise from any calling: How do we recognize it? How do we distinguish the true call from the siren song? How do we handle our resistance to a call? What happens when we say yes? What happens when we say no?
Drawing on the hard-won wisdom and powerful stories of people who have followed their own calls, Gregg Levoy shows us the many ways to translate a calling into action. In a style that is poetic, exuberant, and keenly insightful, he presents an illuminating and ultimately practical inquiry into how we listen and respond to our calls, whether at work or at home, in our relationships or in service. Callings is a compassionate guide to discovering your own callings and negotiating the tight passages to personal power and authenticity
As Levoy says, you may be called to do something or to be something (or both, of course). This book is not just useful for those who are questing for a different occupation – it is also very useful for those who are questing for a different way of being in our current occupations and lives. He beautifully weaves in stories, mythology and religion. It’s like a hearing aid for those who want to listen better to their hearts.
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
The lure of this book's promise starts with the assumption in its title. Possibility--that big, all-encompassing, wide-open-door concept--is an art? Well, who doesn't want to be a skilled artist, whether in the director's chair, the boardroom, on the factory floor, or even just in dealing with life's everyday situations? Becoming an artist, however, requires discipline, and what the authors of The Art of Possibility offer is a set of practices designed to "initiate a new approach to current conditions, based on uncommon assumptions about the nature of the world."
If that sounds a little too airy-fairy for you, don't be put off; this is no mere self-improvement book, with a wimpy mandate to transform its readers into "nicer" people. Instead, it's a collection of illustrations and advice that suggests a way to change your entire outlook on life and, in the process, open up a new realm of possibility. Consider, for example, the practice of "Giving an A," whether to yourself or to others. Not intended as a way to measure someone's performance against standards, this practice instead recognizes that "the player who looks least engaged may be the most committed member of the group," and speaks to their passion rather than their cynicism. It creates possibility in an interaction and does away with power disparities to unite a team in its efforts. Or consider "Being the Board," where instead of defining yourself as a playing piece, or even as the strategist, you see yourself as the framework for the entire game. In this scenario, assigning blame or gaining control becomes futile, while seeking to become an instrument for effective partnerships becomes possible.
Packed with such examples of personal and professional interactions, the book presents complex ideas on perception and recognition in a readable, useable style. The authors' eclectic experience in music and painting (as well as family therapy and executive workshops) infuses their examples with vibrant color and sound. The relevance to corporate situations and relationships is well developed, and they don't rely on dry case studies to do it. Indeed, this book assumes the emotional intelligence and desire to engage of its reader, promising access to the rewards of that door-opening notion--possibility--in return. --S. Ketchum
The Answer to How is Yes: Acting on What Matters
By Peter Block (2003)
Editorial Reviews
From BooklistThe new approach to change management that is presented here will completely flummox control freaks. Block posits a refreshing series of truths that, if adopted, will transform workplaces into journeys of meaning. The best-selling author of Flawless Consulting (1981) and Stewardship (1993) insists that we ask the wrong question about accomplishing the important things in our lives, particularly in our place of employment. We too often ask "How?" which focuses too closely on the practical way of getting something done and is actually a subconscious expression of society's emphasis on control of people, time, and cost. Instead, our concentration should be focused on "Why?" In other words, we need to pay attention to what really matters to us personally, from heart-felt commitments in our private lives to the creation of projects in the workplace. To be able to act on what matters, explains Block, we must reclaim specific qualities, such as intimacy and idealism. Then we can tackle purposeful work as if we were social architects seeking engagement and change. Provocative and stimulating reading. Barbara Jacobs
“This is a journey of self-discovery much like the Inward Morning of Thoreau and in spirit not unlike the Confessions of Saint Augustine and Jean-Jacques Rousseau—cast in the contemporary mold of organizational culture. [Block’s] charm lies in his engaging style, seducing you to listen, mesmerized, as did the Sultan to Scheherazade. Here are the brilliant and sensitive ruminations of a wanderer on a journey in search for his voice, only to discover that it is the voice of everyman and everywoman speaking through him.” —Peter Koestenbaum Philosopher, Consultant, and author of The Inner Side of Greatness
“This is the most important book Block has ever written, and we need to take him seriously (although he is, as always, quite witty.) If enough people say ‘Yes’ to the teachings in this book, we'll be able to stop floundering toward the future and create lives and work that are meaningful contributions to each other and to the future. Please say ‘yes.’” —Margaret Wheatley, author of Leadership and the New Science and Turning to One Another
The Active Life: A Spirituality of Work, Creativity and Caring
by Parker Palmer (1999)
Review by Jonathan Guyton
How do I bring the benefits of introspection, reflection and gut instinct to enhance my whirlwind life that can seem focused exclusively on ‘getting things done’ and ‘making it happen’? For many of us, it’s like the age-old question in the mold of “doing the right things” versus “doing things right”. And like most of the truths life teaches us, it’s not ‘either-or’; it’s ‘both-and’.
Parker Palmer writes compellingly about the necessity of a balance between contemplation and action. Our tendency to live our lives as ‘human doings’ rather than ‘human beings’ is a key roadblock to achieving the productivity and meaning we all seek. No feel-good, pop psychology here. Palmer (a Mid-Westerner at heart!) writes with the kind of gentle authority that can only be gained from practicing what you preach and being a student of life.
Between laughing at yourself and marveling at his insights (as if Palmer actually knew you!), you will gain valuable skills that will enhance the depth, perspective and wisdom you are able to bring to your already active life.
Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work As a Pilgrimage of Identityby David Whyte (2002)
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Readers who accept poet and Fortune 500 consultant Whyte's invitation to enter into "an imaginative conversation about life and work" are likely to be challenged as well as delighted by the beauty of his writing and the expansiveness of his views. Gracefully using the metaphor of a sea voyage to depict the journey through the world of work, Whyte views work not only as a means of support, but as a means for interacting with the world and developing self-expression and identity. While he draws on the philosophical underpinnings of the self-help movement aimed at finding one's "inner compass," Whyte doesn't offer the step-by-step pragmatism of other books. Instead, his approach is subtler and more organic, presenting an abundance of provocative ideas, especially on one's relationship with time and daily ritual, on the importance of dignity and ethics and on honoring the labor of one's ancestors. Interwoven with and undergirding Whyte's philosophy are passages of memoir, detailing his unique experiences as a naturalist in the Galapagos Islands, for example, together with poetic references from Whitman, Spender, Dickinson, Rilke, Wordsworth and Whyte's own works. Even Whyte's friends are wise, as evidenced by a monk who tells him that the antidote to exhaustion is not rest but "wholeheartedness." Thoughtful readers will wholeheartedly savor this book.
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Strikingly different from most business books--it opens and closes with a pair of very powerful black-and-white photo essays, for example--A Simpler Way lays out a fascinating and productive reexamination of the traditional tenets of organizational behavior. Internationally known consultants Margaret J. Wheatley (Leadership and the New Science) and Myron Kellner-Rogers focus on the basic themes of play, organization, self, emergence, and notions of coherence to explore how people really systemize their existence. The authors draw upon science, poetry, philosophy, and other unconventional corporate resources to suggest a completely original method of working together. "There is a simpler way to organize human endeavor," they write. "It requires a new way of being in the world. It requires being in the world without fear. Being in the world with play and creativity. Seeking after what's possible. Being willing to learn and to be surprised." While A Simpler Way may appear too New Age for some readers, this beautifully produced book hits the mark by bringing together an array of unexpected ideas as the authors look anew at established theories of human behavior to propose a decidedly unique way of promoting organization and achieving success. --Howard Rothman –
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
"During the past few decades, modern technology, with radio, television, air travel and satellites has woven a network of communications which puts each part of the world into almost instant contact with all the other parts. Yet, in spite of this world-wide system of linkages, there is, at every moment, a general feeling that communication is breaking down everywhere, on an unparalleled scale."
The question of how we can communicate better is at the heart of On Dialogue. This revised and expanded edition is the most comprehensive documentation to date of best-selling author David Bohm's dialogical world view.
About the Author
The late David Bohm, one of the greatest physicists and foremost thinkers this century, was Fellow of the Royal Society and Emeritus Professor of Physics at Birkbeck College, University of London. Lee Nichol is a freelance writer and editor, and part of the David Bohm Seminar group.
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