3 X 5's: Index Card Wisdom from Best of Books

  JUICE FOR LIFE David Schmaltz (2003). The blind men and the elephant: Mastering project work. We need multiple perspectives (6 blind people feeling up the elephant) to achieve a coherent understanding of X (the elephant, whatever it is we're trying to understand), AND we hit a wall (the body of the elephant) because we don't know or are unsure of what we truly want--we need to find out what we WANT, what gives us JUICE to live, enjoy, create, and serve. All of us periodically need to ask ourselves what our true heart's desire is, what gives us the JUICE we need to not just survive but flourish... See if you can find the JUICE in your current situation (employment, school, family, volunteer work...). Can you discover or create an alignment between your heart's longing/desire/need and one or more goals of the organization? The practice here is meditating on describing our JUICE for life, and then finding (perhaps rediscovering) it, drinking it, savoring it, using it...

ORBIT THE HAIRBALL Gordon MacKenzie (1996). Orbiting the giant hairball. Use your imagination to lift off and orbit the giant hairball (whatever organizational rules, people, places... are constraining/limiting), creating a picture of the masterpiece you feel called to create and a coherent and compelling story to go with it. As a professor in the classroom, instead of using the traditional power point presentation in a lecture format (the organizational constraint), i draw a little picture on the white board and tell a story from my personal life that links the picture to the course idea i want students to explore/engage. Anyone communicating ideas can draw little picture and tell a story to engage their audience be that a child, college student, corporate exec, or granny.  

3 X 5's: Index Card Wisdom from the Best of Books Introduction: What are 3 x 5's and how are they related to best of books? 3 X 5's are standard index cards that i've used for over 20 years to keep track of the "best parts of books" that i read...the best parts are bits of wisdom that i integrate into my everyday life. Process: It's a spiritual practice for me (i feel called to do this, and i find joy and satisfaction in the process): integrating the wisdom of teachers (authors of books) into my life in a way to "make life more wonderful" (tipping my hat to Marshall Rosenberg). i also use index cards to track what books i want to read each year for i am a bookaholic. ..i would buy books all year long if not for this method. whenever i get the desire to order a book--from a website, friend, video, another book reference, etc., i write the author, title, and WHY i want the book on an index card. Then, at the end of the school year in May, i go thro...