Danny Brown's Blog, page 10
October 4, 2016
Why Do We Continue to Be So Unoriginal?
People are hungry creatures by nature.Hungry to be liked; hungry to be loved; hungry to be respected; hungry to be successful.
That’s good. Without hunger, we have no drive. Without drive, we have no goals. Without goals, we have no yardstick to base our success on. And so the circle comes back around.
The problem is, people are more often than not getting speed hungry. They want the like, the love, the respect and the success yesterday.
So they buy the success books; the audio tapes; the DVD...
September 27, 2016
The Old Man and the Boy
The old man and the boy spent a lifetime sharing tales
Of days when the man was not so old and he’d ride on the backs ofwhales
The boy listened closely, held in awe, to the stories that heheard
And when he saw the glint in the old man’s eyes the boy didn’t doubt aword
On a sandy beach the two would walk, the man’s dog by their side
Throwing pebbles out to the sea, racing against the tide
Like guardians the two would stand wit...
September 23, 2016
Assume Others Are Good Until You Know Otherwise
Looking around us, whether it’s on the news or our various social networks, you’d be forgiven for thinking the only things happening in the world are bad ones.
The rise of radicalized terrorism, whether home-grown or otherwise. Racial tensions. Increases in hate crimes.
These, and more like them, would suggest civilization is on an irreversible downward spiral from which there is no return.
But that thinking would be missing the bigger picture.
Yes, times are hard. Yes, people are broken. Yes...
September 20, 2016
Without Context, Any Old Shit Can Be Viewed as True
There’s nothing so absurd that if you repeat it often enough, people will believe it. ~ William James.
When you want to believe something is true, often you look for the validation of numbers to make the case for your argument.
After all, the more someone says something, and the more people add their voice to the chorus of that belief, eventually it has to be true, right?
No smoke without fire, and all that.
The problem is, if we subscribe to that line of thinking, then pretty much anything c...
September 13, 2016
If We Encouraged Everyone to Be Leaders In Their Own Right
Take a moment to ask yourself these two questions:
How are we encouraging hope in those around us? How are we helping to grow the leaders of tomorrow?Like it or not, we’re all acting in a role of leadership with every action we do.
Our reactions to situations and people around us shape the mindset of today’s kids – tomorrow’s leaders.
We swear; they swear. We smoke; they smoke. We do drugs; they do drugs. If we’re not setting the example, how can we expect our kids to?
How we work with col...
September 7, 2016
This Borrowed Life
Today was a fairly big day for me and my wife. And, I guess, our two kids – but they seemed to be less perturbed about it than we did, so they don’t really count…
As of today, both our son Ewan and our daughter Salem are at school. The “big school”. No more daycare – these days are gone.
Instead, Ewan began grade one, having finished senior kindergarten before the summer break, and Salem started junior kindergarten (JK).
Two big steps in their ongoing evolution from our babies into young chil...
September 2, 2016
How Change and Persistent Vision Can Help You Find What Matters to You
In his book Tribes, Seth Godin talks about Chris Sharma, an American rock climber who forever changed the way climbers looked at scaling a cliff.
Instead of the normal left-right, left-right approach of hand over hand, Sharma jumps (known as a dyno).
It’s a leap of faith at its purest, since a fall while rock-climbing can be a long way down.
Seth’s analogy is that because of Sharma’s vision, the status quo needn’t be the norm, and experimenting with how far you can push the limitations of the...
August 23, 2016
Belief, Ego and Remarkability
Everyone has greatness in them. The challenge is how we express it. We can push ourselves to rise to the challenge, or we canencourage others to greatness.
By doing this, we can encourage ourselves at the same time.
Everyone also has an ego.
Some are kept in check – some are left to rage uncontrollably. Some have a happy medium in-between.
Are our ego’s stopping us from being remarkable?
Often we don’t like to admit we don’t know something. We want people to think we’re invincible, that their...
August 18, 2016
Forever Chasing Shadows
From the moment we can, until our moments are no more, we’re forever chasing shadows.
As children, we chase the shadow of ourselves that the streetlight throws in front of us.
As teenagers, we chase the impossible date with the most popular boy or girl.
As adults, we chase the dream job that never happens, or the pot of gold we never reach.
We know – subconsciously or otherwise – that some shadows can never be caught, and yet we chase them anyway.
And the damage is catastrophic.
People chase...
August 13, 2016
Dear Internet Hate Mob
Earlier this year, we saw the tragic news that a silverback gorilla named Harambe had to be shot dead when a toddler fell into the gorilla’s enclosure at Cincinnati Zoo and was dragged by Harambe around the enclosure.
Officials at the zoo made the heartbreaking decision to shoot Harambe, noting their belief that the boy was in danger.
“It’s easy to say things should have been done differently after the incident was over and the child was safe, but people making those criticisms don’t underst...
