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Articles from William Cottringer | Selfgrowth.com
- TWO PATHS TO KNOWING - by Submitted on Oct 04, 2008 from William CottringerTWO PATHS TO KNOWING By Bill Cottringer “A good photograph is knowing where to stand.” ~Ansel Adams A few years ago, my youngest daughter Abigail asked for some help writing a research paper as a requirement for transferring credit from her Epistemology class to a new high school for ...
Views: 957 - FROM KNOWING BETTER TO DOING BETTER - by Submitted on Sep 30, 2008 from William CottringerFROM KNOWING BETTER TO DOING BETTER By Bill Cottringer This title is a logical progression from the last article—“Decreasing Uhappiness To Increase Happiness.” Before we can do this, we need to learn how to move from knowing what to do and how to do it, to actually doing it. And, the ...
Views: 911 - DECREASING UNHAPPINESS TO INCREASE HAPPINESS - by Submitted on Sep 28, 2008 from William CottringerDECREASING UNHAPPINESS TO INCREASE HAPPINESS By Bill Cottringer “There is only one cause of unhappiness: the false beliefs you have in your head, beliefs so widespread, so commonly held, that it never occurs to you to question them.” ~Anthony de Mello. More and more people are ...
Views: 925 - Is It Important To Have An Accurate View Of Reality? - by Submitted on Aug 28, 2008 from William CottringerIs It Important To Have An Accurate View Of Reality? By Bill Cottringer “How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.” ~Abraham Lincoln. I suppose some people would pose slightly different versions of this title question: ...
Views: 1035 - GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED: - by Submitted on Aug 25, 2008 from William CottringerGUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED: Maneuvering Through The Self-Improvement Overload “The more you know, the less you have to say.” ~Jim Rohn. I was very encouraged to read some recent research on the younger post-MTV consumer generation. The good news is that this younger generation is fed up with ...
Views: 1353 - NO-NONSENSE “P” POINT MANAGEMENT - by Submitted on Aug 24, 2008 from William CottringerNO-NONSENSE “P” POINT MANAGEMENT By Bill Cottringer "A shortcut is the longest distance between two points." ~ Annonymous. Management information, like everything else today is on overload, so here is a quick system of No-Nonsense “P’ Point Management to help you accomplish a lot by ...
Views: 843 - Trust: The # 1 Issue In Living, Relating, Working & Even Sleeping. - by Submitted on Aug 21, 2008 from William CottringerTrust: The # 1 Issue In Living, Relating, Working & Even Sleeping. By Bill Cottringer “Trust is the secular version of religious faith and faith is the growing belief and comfort in the truth and certainty of something you can’t see or otherwise prove.” ~The author. Why is trust such an ...
Views: 1188 - THE MORE PLAN B’S AND C’S THE BETTER! - by Submitted on Aug 19, 2008 from William CottringerYES…THE MORE PLAN B’S AND C’S THE BETTER! By Bill Cottringer “Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.” ~Henry David Thoreau. This is an interesting quote unless you have read an even more interesting one by Søren Kierkegaard. He maintained that “Life has to be lived ...
Views: 854 - How to Have a Near-Perfect Marriage Or Not. - by Submitted on Aug 10, 2008 from William CottringerHow to Have a Near-Perfect Marriage Or Not. By Bill Cottringer “The happiest marriages are 75% right selection and 25% effort; choosing the right person and devoting the rest of the time being the right person.” ~The author, with the right person, being the right person. Let me begin by ...
Views: 894 - What We All Want and The Simple Game We Play to Get It - by Submitted on Aug 02, 2008 from William CottringerWhat We All Want and The Simple Game We Play to Get It By Bill Cottringer “Life is very simple; men insist upon making it complicated.” ~Confucius. It has taken me 4 decades of self-improvement giving and receiving, but I think I finally understand the penetrating meaning of the above ...
Views: 853 - Undoing The Things In The Way Of Successful Reality Repair Rx - by Submitted on Jul 31, 2008 from William CottringerUndoing The Things In The Way Of Successful Reality Repair Rx By Bill Cottringer “What we call reality is an agreement that people have arrived at to make life more livable.” ~Louise Nevelson. What life is all about is successful reality repair—fixing the realities we don’t like and ...
Views: 788 - 25 Self-Development Truths You Can Take To The Bank Or I Don't Know Anything - by Submitted on Jul 28, 2008 from William Cottringer25 Self-Development Truths You Can Take To The Bank Or I Don’t Know Anything By Bill Cottringer "The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it." ~John Ruskin. Here are 25 self-development truths I am certain of through firsthand experience ...
Views: 895 - Thinking Away The Crap - by Submitted on Jul 27, 2008 from William CottringerThinking Away the Crap By Bill Cottringer “Keep writing. Try to do a little bit every day, even if the result looks like crap. Getting from page four to page five is more important than spending three weeks getting page four perfect.” ~Alan Dean Foster. I am not going to apologize for ...
Views: 1192(1 vote) - Understanding The Violence of Rape - by Submitted on Jul 26, 2008 from William CottringerUnderstanding The Violence of Rape By Bill Cottringer “Liberty without love is destruction; love without liberty is despair.” ~Thomas Troward. Earlier in my career as a prison administrator, when I was just beginning my learning curve on understanding the hard core problems of life in ...
Views: 765 - Why Is It So Hard To Talk About The Elephant In The Room? - by Submitted on Jul 16, 2008 from William CottringerWhy Is It So Hard To Talk About The Elephant In The Room? By Bill Cottringer “Two cows were talking in a pasture. One says to the other, “Are you worried about catching mad cow disease?” “No” said the other, I am an elephant.” ~Bad joke. A work colleague of mine, Bob Bennett, is quick to ...
Views: 992 - Finding Your Mental Sweet Spot - by Submitted on Jul 09, 2008 from William CottringerFinding Your Mental Sweet Spot by Bill Cottrigner Sitting in two overgrown cedar rocking chairs watching the South Fork of the Snoqualmie River go flowing by in quiet North Bend, WA, two people—one intellectual and the other very practical—were just talking about troublesome life ...
Views: 1229 - The Central Conflict That Spills Over Into Everything Else - by Submitted on Jul 04, 2008 from William CottringerThe Central Conflict That Spills Over Into Everything Else By Bill Cottringer After decades of studying and experiencing personal conflicts in a variety of work and domestic relationships, there is one that is more bothersome and difficult to talk about than any other. The strong ...
Views: 693 - A Mother of a Problem For Reality Repair - by Submitted on Jul 02, 2008 from William CottringerA Mother of a Problem For Reality Repair By Bill Cottringer A central challenge in life is for us to learn how to become experts at reality repair. We frequently find ourselves as part of undesirable realities we need to fix or create new and better replacement ones we think we want. ...
Views: 764 - People That Bother You Most - by Submitted on Jun 26, 2008 from William CottringerPeople That Bother You Most By Bill Cottringer “Like the herd of animals we are, we sniff warily at the strange one among us.” ~ Loren Eisely Our success quest in life involves the paramount challenge of learning how to get along with other people. However, the reality of people being unique ...
Views: 1255 - The Secret In The Way of The secret - by Submitted on Jun 25, 2008 from William CottringerThe Secret In The Way of The Secret by Bill Cottringer I have to admit I am both a fan and a skeptic with all the hype this past year or so about “The Secret.” My “fan” perspective is a feeling one. I feel the fundamental truth of the Law of Attraction and power of positive thinking is ...
Views: 768 - Reality Repair Questions - by Submitted on Jun 23, 2008 from William CottringerREALITY REPAIR QUESTIONS By Bill Cottringer "I wouldn't give a fig for the simplicity that comes on the near side of complexity, but I would give my left arm for the simplicity that comes on the far side of complexity." ~Oliver Wendell Holmes. I just finished writing another book, Reality ...
Views: 881 - Firefighting - by Submitted on Jun 18, 2008 from William CottringerFirefighting By Bill Cottringer Are you part of an organization where everyone is in a perpetual firefighting mode, spending most of their day scurrying around putting band-aides on ruptures? As the direct Dr. Phil would ask, “How is that working for you?” Not very well I would imagine. I ...
Views: 1067 - THE TREADMILL TRAP: Keeping Up With The Speed Of Change - by Submitted on May 14, 2008 from William CottringerTHE TREADMILL TRAP: Keeping Up With The Speed Of Change By William Cottringer, Ph.D. What is faster than a nanosecond? Whatever it is, it is upon us! Right at this moment I am both crying and laughing about the impact of Karl Fish’s “Shift Happens” I-Net and U-tube “Fishbowl: Did You ...
Views: 896 - REALITY REPAIR: With Stress-less Success - by Submitted on Apr 30, 2008 from William CottringerREALITY REPAIR: With Stress-less Success By Bill Cottringer “Reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in touch with it.” ~Lily Tomlin. This is my 7th book and I am trying something entirely new this time around. I am starting out with a definite title to my book in mind; ...
Views: 1110 - ANY RELATIONSHIP CAN GO SOUTH QUICKLY - by Submitted on Apr 17, 2008 from William CottringerANY RELATIONSHIP CAN GO SOUTH QUICKLY By Bill Cottringer “Assumptions are the termites of relationships.” ~Henry Winkler. Great, good or ghastly relationships can go South in a New York second if they are not prepared ahead of time for the Big “S”—the inevitable stress that challenges ...
Views: 799 - WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN? - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2008 from William CottringerWHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN? By Bill Cottringer “Adam and Eve are like an imaginary number, like the square root of minus one... If you include it in your equation, you can calculate all manners of things, which cannot be imagined without it.” ~Philip Pullman. I have been ...
Views: 2626 - WHEN TO FISH OR CUT BAIT? - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2008 from William CottringerWHEN TO FISH OR CUT BAIT? By Bill Cottringer “Adopt the pace of nature; her secret is patience.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson. One of the hardest places to locate intellectually and emotionally is getting to the comfort zone where you can make the right decision to fish or cut bait—to continue ...
Views: 2424 - SEVEN HELPING PILLARS - by Submitted on Apr 12, 2008 from William CottringerSEVEN HELPING PILLARS By William Cottringer, Ph.D. “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.” ~Dr. Seuss. We are all born with an innate desire to be successful and help others. There is wisdom in the saying, “you can best help ...
Views: 883 - Walking to Success - by Submitted on Apr 10, 2008 from William CottringerWalking to Success by Bill Cottringer “Slow down you’re doing fine. You can’t be everything you want to be before your time.” ~Billy Joel. There is too much hype about thriving to success and way too many hits about that “race” on the I-net (only 360 million!). Even the most simple, ...
Views: 785 - A SIMPLE BUT PROFOUND LIFE-CHANGING CHOICE - by Submitted on Apr 06, 2008 from William CottringerA SIMPLE BUT PROFOUND LIFE-CHANGING CHOICE By Bill Cottringer “The difficulty in life is the choice.” ~ George Moore Several years ago one of my best friends had a small piece of granite on his desk with some words that impressed me so much I made mention of the object several times. He ...
Views: 1002 - COLLABORATIVE LEADERSHIP - by Submitted on Apr 06, 2008 from William CottringerCOLLABORATIVE LEADERSHIP By Bill Cottringer “A leader is a dealer in hope.” ~Napoleon Bonaparte. And so the opening question is when have we needed hope more than today, if it is just help to be more optimistic in seeing past the ornery information overload that is burying us all? ...
Views: 1180 - PRETZEL MANAGEMENT OF THE VICIOUS CIRCLE OF UNHAPPINESS - by Submitted on Apr 05, 2008 from William CottringerPRETZEL MANAGEMENT OF THE VICIOUS CIRCLE OF UNHAPPINESS By Bill Cottringer “Life probably gets annoyed at us for thinking too much. It’s like going to a great theatre production on Broadway or music concert at Carnegie Hall with virtual earphones, books, cell phones and DVD’s.” ~ The author. ...
Views: 1069 - PRETZEL MANAGEMENT - by Submitted on Apr 03, 2008 from William CottringerPRETZEL MANAGEMENT By Bill Cottringer “Pretzel Management is when you stop trying to figure out when one thing ends and another starts. You just spread some mustard, take a healthy bite and enjoy it.” ~ The author. I don’t think it’s just me but I sense management is getting tougher ...
Views: 866 - The Most Important Thing To Know - by Submitted on Mar 26, 2008 from William CottringerTHE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO KNOW By William Cottringer, Ph.D. “My quest has taken me through the physical, the metaphysical, the delusional and back...~John Forbes Nash. I am sure you all remember the powerful move, “A Beautiful Mind” (a great movie and book title!) in which the Aussie ...
Views: 947 - Reality Repair: Mostly Mind Over Matter? - by Submitted on Mar 24, 2008 from William Cottringer“Reality is hard to see, harder to talk about and hardest to agree upon.” ~The author. It has taken me awhile, but I think I have finally figured out something very important. We all spend a great deal of time trying to repair broken realities we don’t like and trying to create new and ...
Views: 703 - CAREFULLY CRAFTING CHANGE - by Submitted on Mar 23, 2008 from William Cottringer“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” ~Maria Robinson. As managers today, we are being challenged to use and teach one skill more than all the others in our toolbox—adapting to and teaching change successfully. Just pause a moment ...
Views: 816 - THE 3 C’S OF A GOOD RELATIONSHIP - by Submitted on Mar 10, 2008 from William CottringerTHE 3 C’S OF A GOOD RELATIONSHIP By Bill Cottringer We are probably all getting far too overloaded with how-to advice on being successful at things like relationships; and the last thing I want to do is contribute more to the overload. I just want to clarify a few important things I have ...
Views: 12164 - TEACHING RESISTIVE OLD DOGS NEW TRICKS - by Submitted on Mar 10, 2008 from William CottringerTEACHING RESISTIVE OLD DOGS NEW TRICKS By William Cottringer, Ph.D. “The best way to teach something is to share a story of your own failure, tell what happened to help you get past it, and offer some helpful hints to succeed.” ~The author. A common problem in management and training is ...
Views: 982 - The Ego Diet - by Submitted on Mar 09, 2008 from William CottringerThe Ego Diet By Bill Cottringer “Learning that just increases self-importance and autonomy, isn’t really learning at that point, it is over-nourishment of the ego, just like too much food causes the body to become obese.” ~The author. We pretty well understand the importance of ...
Views: 1660 - MANAGING THE OVERLOAD - by Submitted on Mar 07, 2008 from William CottringerMANAGING THE OVERLOAD By Bill Cottringer “Offices, desks, drawers, attics, basements, table tops, backyards, closets, medicine cabinets, garages, mailboxes, minds…all getting full of clutter and spilling over.” ~The author. Everything I read, see, think, talk about, and experience these ...
Views: 838 - REALITY INSTRUCTIONS FOR KIDS - by Submitted on Mar 05, 2008 from William CottringerREALITY INSTRUCTIONS FOR KIDS By Gandpaw Bill “One generation plants the trees; another gets the shade” ~Chinese Proverb. My oldest granddaughter, Hannah Banana form Metropolis Illinois (the real home of Superman, no joke!), reminded me (and I have to remind her she did this) that nobody ...
Views: 959 - SUCCESS IS A BELIEF SYSTEM - by Submitted on Mar 05, 2008 from William CottringerSUCCESS IS A BELIEF SYSTEM By Bill Cottringer “Success is what you get from doing what you are doing to get it.” ~ The author. By now most of us realize we have moved into total overload—too much to know and do and too little time to get it all done. One special area of overload with ...
Views: 1484 - Reality Repair Rx Book Outline - by Submitted on Mar 04, 2008 from William CottringerReality Repair Rx Book Outline By William Cottringer, Ph.D. In writing books or articles it is always good to stop now and then to question the importance and value of your writing topics and what your truest intentions are. I made a door sign some time ago that reads, “Dr. Cottringer, ...
Views: 1136 - HELP FOR REALTY REPAIR Rx? - by Submitted on Mar 02, 2008 from William CottringerHELP FOR REALTY REPAIR Rx? By Bill Cottringer I am currently writing a book called "Reality Repair Rx: Making Things Better," which I feel is very important today given the extent and scope of the problems we are all currently facing (total overload). I recently published “Do What Matters ...
Views: 779 - THE REAL SOURCE OF CONFLICT WITHIN ANY CONFLICT - by Submitted on Feb 28, 2008 from William CottringerTHE REAL SOURCE OF CONFLICT WITHIN ANY CONFLICT By William Cottringer, Ph.D. “Differences in thinking about problems and solutions cause great conflicts; but the way we communicate about these differences is the source of continuing the conflict.” ~ The author. Conflicts are a frequent ...
Views: 1044 - ESSENTIAL REALITY REPAIR Rx: - by Submitted on Feb 26, 2008 from William CottringerESSENTIAL REALITY REPAIR Rx: Fixing Broken Realities & Creating Better Ones. By William Cottringer, Ph.D. “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” ~Arthur Schopenhauer. I believe I may ...
Views: 852 - Seven Simple Reality Repair Rules - by Submitted on Feb 24, 2008 from William CottringerSeven Simple Reality Repair Rules By William Cottringer, Ph.D. “Reality is what persists and accumulates when you finally see past what you think you are looking at.” ~The author. The modern science of quantum physics have proved a remarkable paradigm-shifting truth that has enormous ...
Views: 928 - TRANSFORMATIONAL THINKING: Healing The Crack In The Cosmic Egg - by Submitted on Feb 24, 2008 from William CottringerTRANSFORMATIONAL THINKING: Healing The Crack In The Cosmic Egg by William Cottringer, Ph.D. “You can’t solve a problem with the same type of thinking that created it.” ~Albert Einstein. My Native American Totem is the deer. What this means for me is that the deer spirit is here to ...
Views: 1683 - The Terrible Twins Within: Our Psychological vs. Moral Consciences - by Submitted on Feb 17, 2008 from William CottringerThe Terrible Twins Within: Our Psychological vs. Moral Consciences By William Cottringer, Ph.D. “The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience.” ~Mahatma Gandhi. We start out and end up at the same place in finding and knowing ...
Views: 801 - WRESTLING WITH THE ULTIMATE CONFLICT: CONTRADICTORY PARADIGMS - by Submitted on Feb 14, 2008 from William CottringerWRESTLING WITH THE ULTIMATE CONFLICT: CONTRADICTORY PARADIGMS By William Cottringer, Ph.D. “The only way you become aware of the intrinsic paradigms that guide your thinking are when they come in open contact with their opposites.” ~The author. I am sorry but I am not going to ...
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