Friends,

For the past three years, I have been writing the Monday Morning Mojo on a bi-monthly basis to share things that inspire me with a broader community of friends near and far. I did this following a request from some of my former colleagues in Asia, who I used to write to regularly about our day-to-day business. There are a lot of stories, articles, books, movies, advice and knowledge that inspire me, and they often reflect similar topics.

For today’s Monday Morning Mojo (MMM), I am going to touch on the broader themes I feel make up the recipe for a happy life. I have called this “Filling in the CRACKs” because those themes include:

Community

Relationships

Authenticity

Critical Thinking

Kindness

A little bit on each of these.

Community

If you are a casual reader of the MMM, you will know I write a lot about the importance of communities in relation to a feeling of belonging.  I chat with my kids a lot about this topic, identifying the communities they belong to and making an effort to be active participants. As an example, I have about 20 such communities I am actively engaged with, and I feel you “get what you give” as part of these. What communities are most important to you?

Relationships

The wonderful author and Harvard professor, Robert Waldinger, captures the importance of healthy relationships in this must-see Ted Talk I featured in earlier posts. Sharing once more in case you missed this.

“Secrets to Eternal Happiness”

Authenticity

I have alluded to this many times before. One of the core characteristics of being a valuable community member and fostering healthy relationships is being honest and trustworthy. In my humble opinion, trustworthiness comes from being your authentic self, being open to differences of opinion and being mature enough to know there can be many solutions to a problem. We need more authenticity and less insincerity. This is important no matter what profession you pursue.

Critical Thinking

This is more important today than ever before. There is so much fake news out there, half-truths and, at times, ridiculous lies people are prone to believe. I wrote about this before and worry about this a lot. Fake news is now mainstream, and we all must become more critical in our thinking. Here is the post I penned earlier mentioned above.

Critical Thinking For The New Year

Kindness

There is nothing that warms my heart more than “kindness” and random acts of kindness. Random acts of kindness were part of my everyday world when I was younger, and I am hopeful this will return to the way people treat each other in this world. If there is one aspect of my youth I wish for my kids to experience, it is the way neighbors and strangers helped each other.  I have written a lot about these and we just need more.  Such acts of kindness come in many forms. Following on the theme of the Olympics, I was moved by this NBC report, as one example of ways in which people act in kind ways.  Sharing this here.

My daughter, Jackie, also puts kindness into action regularly. She spent her weekend helping people with disabilities enjoy their dream water sports as part of an organization called, “Life Rolls On.” Here are a few pictures from her weekend activity.

In my opinion, Community, Relationships, Authenticity, Critical Thinking and Kindness make up the components of the “CRACKs” we need to fill towards a happy and healthy life.

Introducing the Monthly Monday Morning Mojo

At the kind suggestion of a few friends, I am going to make the Monday Morning Mojo a monthly missive, beginning this week. Today’s post will represent September’s submission, and the future monthly blog posts will be issued on the first Monday of each month.  So, the next post will come on October 7. While I am certain there will be an abundance of inspiring stories to share, I think the time is right for making this a monthly rather than bi-monthly blog.

I appreciate all of you who are part of this community and thank you for your encouragement and feedback over the past three years.  The MMM is not ending, this is just a move to make the content better and less repetitive.

Have a great September! Onwards and upwards.