Change – Peter Saint-Andre, Philosopher-Coach

The Inner Revolution

One of the key themes of Tolstoy’s War and Peace (which I’m currently reading for the first time) is self-deception. The reader quickly perceives that Nikolai Rostov, Andrei Bolkonsky, and many other characters are fooling themselves about their own worth, thoughts, and actions. There is a connection here to a famous quote from Tolstoy: Everyone thinks ofContinue reading “The Inner Revolution”

Substitutions

Almost ten years ago I wrote a blog post about my “to-don’t list“: the things that I deliberately don’t do, such as watch TV, follow the news, go shopping for fun, or spend time on social media. In my experience sometimes it’s relatively easy to cease such activities, but other times I need to substituteContinue reading “Substitutions”

Live Long and Prosper

Recently I came across a study entitled “Longevity increased by positive self-perceptions of aging” (Levy et al. 2002 – apparently Becca Levy has a new book out entitled Breaking the Age Code, which I have not read yet). The abstract states: “This research found that older individuals with more positive self-perceptions of aging, measured up toContinue reading “Live Long and Prosper”

Cultivating Curiosity

In my drive to hold fewer opinions (or at least hold them less strongly), for a while I tried to cultivate a healthy skepticism about things I believe – for instance, by attempting to question one opinion every week. This didn’t work, at least for me, because it felt too negative. Instead, now I’m workingContinue reading “Cultivating Curiosity”

Cultivating Empathy

If you ask those I work with or mentor what my distinctive personal qualities are, I suspect that on the short list you might find empathy. For instance, I often reach out to work colleagues if I know that they face significant challenges, if their skills aren’t being fully utilized, if they’re not appreciated asContinue reading “Cultivating Empathy”

How Useful Is Philosophy, Really?

It’s a commonplace of research into human behavior that most of what you do is caused by your inborn personality traits, your underlying biology, the society and location and class and family into which you’re born and in which you’re raised, and so on – plus a smattering of luck and chance events. It canContinue reading “How Useful Is Philosophy, Really?”