by ken winston caine

We’re always told to think outside the box. But it’s about time someone spoke up for the box. Because, paradoxically, thinking inside a box can spark creativity, not squelch it. So maybe you don’t need to think out of the box. Maybe you just need a new one to think in.
– Dan Heath and Chip Heath, December 2007 Fast Company

Reconsider the absolute boundaries.

Define them.

Reconsider the ultimate objective. The ultimate objectives for all concerned.

And set a goal to vastly and remarkably improve upon the status quo.

Define cool.

And, based on that, redefine your box.

Once you know the rules, find new (more…)

by ken winston caine

Towns and cities could cut electricity use significantly — simply and painlessly.

Almost overnight.

All they have to do is to commit to quit trying to light up the night as though it is day.

Turn off, or turn down, street lighting, building lighting and after-hours electric signs on businesses. (This was decreed by President Nixon as national policy during the first oil embargo in 1973, alongside more drastic measures such as gas rationing and a national 55 mph speed limit.)

Cutting street lighting has been shown to CUT crime. (More on that in a moment.)

Bring back the night.

Bring back the stars.

If cities would turn off just every other streetlight, on alternating sides of the street, immediately they would cut streetlighting energy use in half. And cut the cost of streetlighting in half.

Why is no one thinking like this at a time when greenhouse gasses produced by coal-and-other-carbon-fuel-fired power plants are destroying the planet’s equilibrium and by extension, our current and future quality of life … and simultaneously, world-wide, we are facing an energy shortage?

Instead, power companies are calling for more power plants and, at the same time, (more…)

by ken winston caine

The questions you ask and choose to explore shape the outcomes you achieve. The trick is to ask powerful questions.

They cut to the chase. They move you forward quickly and smartly.

Asking powerful questions is at the heart of “coaching” as it was developed by Thomas Leonard. And I’ve been collecting lists of powerful questions, or coaching questions, for 11 years — ever since I was first exposed to Leonard’s approach.

But simply being armed with a mile-long list of powerful questions does not make one a good coach. Or guarantee you magnificent, rapid, sustainable personal success. The good coach and the smart achiever know how to ask the right type of question at exactly the right moment.

Better, I think, to understand what a powerful question is, so that you can instinctively pose one when it is needed, than to have a long list of questions to sort through. (Though a list is valuable.)

So what is a powerful question?

The best explanation I have come across comes not from the world of life coaching or business coaching or corporate coaching, but from pioneers of The World Cafe process, Juanita Brown and David Isaacs.

They write, on their website, that a powerful question has eight defining characteristics: (more…)

Mr. President:

Three years ago you declared “Mission Accomplished.”

Two years ago we were in “the final throes of the insurgency.”

Last year we “re-deployed to secure Baghdad.”

None of these proclamations proved to be true. None of these efforts proved to be effective.

Now, we are told, you are proposing we escalate this war that you committed us to enter under the false (more…)

Humankind is extraordinarily engrossing, enlightening and … uplifting. A perfect combination.

It may be the best newsmagazine-style show on NPR. Or maybe on the planet.

No offense, Terry Gross.

Find out when it plays on a public radio station near you. Or listen to it on the web. Or download whole programs as MP3s.

It will make your day. It may change your life.

You’ll find the complete archive at (more…)

Diamond Jul, a co-founder of the online community, PowerfulIntentions.com, has amassed an e-library of classic success literature. Download any titles you like for free.

You’ll find more than 60 public domain classics in the realms of:

• Abundance thinking
• Spiritual formation
• New Thought
• Motivation and success
• Purposeful living
• Self-help
• Right livelihood
• Natural healing
• Spiritual healing

  … and more.

On her (more…)

I’m testing a new free teleconference service. (That’s a “bridge line,” to you coaches out there.)

It lets me host up to 100 callers at any time — no advance reservations needed.

Immediately after the call, I can download a digital recording of it.

Pretty cool.

Could you use this? Would you like free access? Read on:

The recording can be posted on a webpage or burned to CD or sold as an e-program or given away as a bonus product with some other offer. Or edited and cleaned up and added to a larger recording. Would love to hear other ways YOU use teleclass recordings. (Share by clicking the ‘Comments’ link below.)

How can they afford to give this away?

Will this service be free forever?

How long is forever? This is the Web, after all.

The company hopes to etch out a profit by upselling satisfied users and corporations to its toll-free-dial-in premium conference service — which costs the host from 4 cents to 6 cents per minute, depending upon which pre-pay plan you buy.

Want your own free, 24/7 teleconference line — with free recording capability? Takes less than 30 seconds to set up. Visit this link: (more…)

The Cultural Creative Web Directory - Whispy.com’s Cultural Creative Web Directory is an open web directory index of cultural creative resources on the Net.

It’s an exclusive, hand-edited, searchable web directory focusing on health, lifestyle, leisure, family, personal interests and offering the most comprehensive, cultural creative web search on the Internet today.

Find cultural creative & conscious living resources, life tools for self-actualization, spiritual transformation, self-expression, ecological sustainability, women’s issues and more! Features details on the top areas of interest and a searchable database.

Next couple weeks I’m going to be focusing on commercializing Mind Body Spirit Journal, which is long overdue. Believe I’ve got enough editorial categories started to give me something to work with.

This site really doesn’t work until it begins offering useful self-help products and opportunities that readers are eager to hear about and invest in. And until it begins drawing folks because it delivers really useful and valuable offerings. When the site is clearly a vibrant marketplace as well as an inside information source and community, it will instantly command the kind of respect I expect it to grow into and deserve. And I’ll be able to easily draw big names from the greater world of Mind Body Spirit for interviews and online workshops and meetups and other cool (more…)