May you create, share, and savor powerful moments
in the coming year and beyond.
[Watch this week’s recommended video toward the end of this post!]

While sitting in an Austin hotel room at the end of May 2010, I wrote my first post for this blog. At that time, I had three goals:

• Experience a new (for me) aspect of social media
• Develop and flesh out new ideas
• Provide something of value—not just another cyber rant.

I believe I have accomplished the first and the second. It is up to you whether I have accomplished the third. My blog posts contain videos, book recommendations and summaries, questions to ponder, and always a takeaway to apply immediately to life.  I have remained true to my commitment to publish one blog post per week. This post marks the 449^th consecutive week.  And I know that I am #alwayslearning!

Since that first post, this blog has had more than 75,000 visits and evolved into www.thegrowthandresiliencenetwork.net. Thank you!

Thank you for reading, commenting, and sharing.  I would love to hear what you find of value on this blog. And, please feel free to share any ideas you have for future posts.

As has now become tradition for this blog, this last-of-the-year offering lists each of the previous week’s posts I added this year. Along with each title, you will find a teaser about each. Perhaps a nugget or two will provide inspiration. I have linked each title to the actual blog should you want to read it, re-read it, or share it. Thank you for your continued support and comments.

I also have included (1) top five blog posts (by number of views/visits) since I started this journey in 2010; and (2) the top five blog posts for 2018.

*Top Five All-Time Posts on this Blog (Since 2010)* 

1. (#194) Honor the Past. Celebrate the Present. Embrace the Future.
2. (#86) A Model for Critical Thinking
3. (#18) Crab Pot Mentality
4. (#93) SQ4R: Strategic Reading Strategies for the Classroom and Beyond
5. (#219) The First Day of Class: People Before Paper!

*Top Five 2018 Posts on this Blog*

1. (#194) Honor the Past. Celebrate the Present. Embrace the Future.
2. (#86) A Model for Critical Thinking
3. (#416) A Safe Place to Land
4. (#18) Crab Pot Mentality
5. (#426) It’s Easy to be Left Behind

*2018 in Review*

1. We Are Where We Are * “We are where we are, however we got here. What matters is where we go next.”—Isaac Marion
2. Inappropriate or Authentic * Feedback is powerful. Evaluated feedback carries more weight.
3. Do We Live In A Post-Fact World? * Perhaps we live in a time when the question to ponder becomes, “If a fact is offered and it is not ‘liked,’ is it a fact?”
4. Improv Leadership * Incompetent and fear-based managers rely on rigid scripts.
5. Over Your Head * The exceptional leaders take their moments of vulnerability and build on them.
6. Create Your Own Story Or Someone Else Will * It may be too late.
7. Risk, Empty Spaces, and Self: Lessons from the Stage. * There is no failure in result; there is only failure in process.
8. Communication or Statement? * Are we listening to others—and ourselves?
9. Purpose and Authenticity * Mortality salience often leads you to ask questions about the meaning in your life.
10. Are You Just Doing Stuff? * We can easily get caught up in the “noise” around us if we allow that to happen. The wrong things end up pushing the right things to the side.
11. Self-Evaluation * Narrow the focus and help yourself understand what does or does not serve and nourish your soul.
12. More with Less or Less with More? * If the “more-with-less crisis” is followed by another “more-with-less crisis” and yet another, simple arithmetic indicates with each “more” there is a lot “less.” And then that becomes the norm.  
13. Your Backstory * Who are two people who have had the biggest impact on your life?
14. Perhaps, A Human Good Citizenship Test? * If only we treated our fellow human beings (citizens of the world) with the same dignity as the CGC expects of its participants.
    
    
15. Choices: Where Do You Choose To Be? * Once we choose who we want to be, people grow “to the way in which they have been exercised.”
16. Don’t Figure It Out * Leave room…develop the concept…be free…listen.
17. Come Together: Food, Friends, and Family * The food might have brought us together; the bonding kept us coming back.
18. Does the Disturbance Disturb You? * We limit our own growth and spiritual development.
19. A Safe Place to Land * I kept hearing about the connections between congregants and neighborhood, congregants and congregants, as well as congregants and their own souls.
20. Gratitude * Simple acts of gratitude offered, received, and witnessed.
21. Helping a Village Find Its Voice * Listen and respect one another. Find your voice. Use your voice. Pursue your rainbows.
22. What if It Were All Gone * We allow ourselves to get overwhelmed by the “stuff” of life. We end up taking a lot for granted. We may even have GDD.  Gratitude Deficit Disorder.
23. Trust as a Core Value * Everyone has a story and our job is to listen.
24. Step Out, Stretch, and Experience * You make your partner look good. The scene is never about you….
25. Ask. Listen. Act. * Noise abounds as people tell us what we should and should not. Perhaps we do the same to others.
26. Poverty * When communities build walls to separate their people (due to a poverty of understanding or compassion), the lack can seem insurmountable.
27. Connections * How often do we stop to remember the grace others have added to our lives?
28. A Community of Mentors for Music, Hope, and Rainbows * Neighbors entertaining neighbors while enjoying the company of other neighbors.
29. It’s Easy to be Left Behind * “Aging in place” may describe what the residents were doing but not who they wanted to be.
30. Someone Must be the Grown Up in the Room * The leader helps us see what is possible, especially when we do not have that vision in our experience.
31. What Does Success Look Like to You? * Is success a noun? A verb? An adjective? Does it have to be connected to the common good?
32. Everything Is Up for Revision * Considered evaluation can alter, broaden, and strengthen our belief system.
33. Reality? Question the Buddha * Everyone talking or interrupting and not much listening. People speaking what they want to hear. Ignoring all else.
34. Pay Attention to the 360° View * If we gaze in one direction, toward the subject and the toward the subject only, we miss the full spectrum.
35. Compassion * “That which is hateful to you, do not do to another. That is the whole Law. The rest is commentary. Now go and learn.” -Rabbi Hillel
    
    
36. Verifying the Truth * You won’t find a step that says evaluate a source based on what “my group believes” or “who tweeted the most” or “how much I dislike a source.”
37. Wisdom * The opportunities to appreciate wisdom exist all around us. Are we mindful? Are we paying attention?
38. Community Requires Respectful Communication * You better think.
39. Facing the Worst. Preparing for the Best. * Once the conversation started, no one was going to stop it.
40. Your Meeting Deserves a K.I.S.S. * Keep It Simple and Short.
41. You May Not be the Gift in the Room * Effective collaboration rests on the ability to share the stage.
42. Are You Paying Attention to the People in Front of You? * Collaboration does not come from telling, yelling, or selling people. It comes from considered conversation.
43. What Matters Now? * When you set your goals you said to yourself, “These matter to me.” As you review where you have been and where you want to go, ask yourself, “What matters now?”  And then act on it.
44. It Means Something to Somebody * It got me thinking about those missed moments when we think something isn’t “worth it.”
45. Community Building: Beyond Why to How * The question, in my mind, moves beyond why we need community to how we go about building and sustaining it.
46. Why Did We Form This Band? * There are some things that really matter, like a shared vision. If the singer wants to be a star, the guitarist wants to play a different style and the bassist and drummer are in it to smoke weed and jam…might not work out.—Crucial Eddy Cotton
47. Mouths and Ears * Discourse. Dialogue. Debate. Diminished?
48. Endings. Beginnings. Beginnings. Endings * How will the ending affect your beginning?
49. What Serves as Your Fuel? * W.A.Y.D.T.G.W.Y.W?
50. Resistance Bubbles * How do we get the two groups to the table to capitalize on
    the 10% they agree on—to start a conversation and maybe educate one another to each resistance bubble’s beliefs and core values? Is this a worthy goal—and, is it possible?
51. Flexibility * “The age of a person is not determined by his years but by his flexibility.”~ Attributed to Yogi Bhajan
52. A Blogger’s Retrospective: 2018 in Review *
     

    ---

Video Recommendation for the Week.

This video still has legs. I filmed it on New Year’s Eve seven years ago.  Who and what do we allow into our lives? Why do we allow people, thoughts, issues, and events into our minds that we would never invite into our homes? Feed your mind. Create your life.  Happy New Year!

For more about community building and sustainability,
look for my new book,
Community as a Safe Place to Land,
due out the beginning of 2019. More information to come.

<b>Make it an inspiring and grateful week and <a style=”color: #0066cc;” href=”http://stevepiscitelli.com/programs/htrb&#8221; target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>H.T.R.B.</a> as needed.</b>

F<i style=”background-color: transparent; border-image-outset: 0; border-image-repeat: stretch; border-image-slice: 100%; border-image-source: none; border-image-width: 1; color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, &font-size:16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0; border: 0 none #444444;”>or information about and to order my most recent book, Stories about Teaching, Learning, and Resilience: No Need to be an Island, click here. A few colleges and one state-wide agency have adopted it for training and coaching purposes. Contact me if you and your team are interested in doing the same.

<strong>The paperback price on Amazon is now $14.99 and the Kindle version stands at $5.99. Consider it for a faculty orientation or a mentoring program. The accompanying videos would serve to stimulate community-building conversations at the beginning of a meeting.</strong>

My podcasts: <a href=”http://stevepiscitelli.com/media-broadcast/podcast&#8221; target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>The Growth and Resilience Network®</a> (<a href=”http://stevepiscitelli.com/media-broadcast/podcast&#8221; target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>http://stevepiscitelli.com/media-broadcast/podcast</a&gt;).

My programs and webinars: <a href=”http://stevepiscitelli.com/programs/what-i-do&#8221; target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>website </a> (<a href=”http://stevepiscitelli.com/programs/what-i-do”>http://stevepiscitelli.com/programs/what-i-do</a&gt;) and (<a href=”http://stevepiscitelli.com/programs/webinars”>http://stevepiscitelli.com/programs/webinars</a&gt;).