Mental Magic

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If there’s one thing we can all depend on, it’s the rational, logical human mind.

Hahahahaha.

Just kidding.

If you’re familiar with research on how the brain works, you know that the human mind, despite its magnificent capabilities, is far from a perfect, computer-like machine. In fact, it’s riddled with biases that can pull us away from reality rather than bringing us closer to it.

For example:

All of us are prone to the negativity bias, which makes situations seem more dangerous or difficult than they really are.
Attentional blindness can cause us to miss something that’s right in front of us.
The clustering illusion makes us perceive meaningful patterns in random […]

The Soul’s Pull: 5 Simple Ways Your Spirit Guides You Home

When I was young—long before the invention of things like soup or buttons—I wrote a book called Finding Your Own North Star. In it, I described four “compasses,” metaphorical internal guidance systems that I believe come standard with every human life. If we learn to read these compasses, I said (and still say), we can get highly accurate instructions about how to build the lives we’re meant to have.

In case you’ve never encountered this concept, the four “compasses” are:

The body compass. Our bodies tighten and contract when we move away from our own best interests, and relax and lean [...]

Hidden in Plain Sight: How to keep yourself open to life’s mystery and magic

Here’s an image that recently blew my little mind. It’s called the “Coffer Illusion.” When you look at it, you’ll either see four rows of rectangles or sixteen circles. You probably won’t see both. But the rectangles and the circles are all right there, in plain sight.

When I first saw the Coffer Illusion, the circles were thin on the ground. Absent, in fact. Squinting didn’t help. Crossing my eyes didn’t either. Then my gaze relaxed slightly, and sixteen circles seemed to pop into existence. Then they were gone. The rectangles took over again. But now I knew the circles [...]

Is human coaching still relevant? (My honest answer.)

Lately I’ve been getting quite a few questions about AI… 

Not from skeptics, but from people like you, who may be sitting with the very big decision to join Wayfinder Coach Training. People who identify as Wayfinders and care deeply about helping others, but who may be wondering whether human coaching still has a place in the world that’s emerging.

It’s certainly a reasonable concern. The world is handing more and more of our interactions over to algorithms, chatbots, and endlessly responsive, always‑on digital assistants.

And yet, after more than twenty years of coaching and training coaches, what I’m seeing is that [...]

Wayfinding Begins with the Body Compass

I promised to share with you the first and, I believe, most powerful of the Wayfinding compasses: something I call the Body Compass. 

From early childhood, you’ve been taught to override signals from your body in order to cooperate with other people: sit quietly and listen when you want to squirm, pretend you’re fine when you have a headache, get up when the alarm rings even if you’re still exhausted.

None of this is universally bad—it all helps us work together in groups—but it has one outcome that’s not only problematic, but catastrophic. It makes most people turn off the signals [...]

Your Intuition Knows What to Do: How to See Truth and Act with Purpose

Every day there’s at least one news event that hits my guts like a pinball paddle. My stomach congeals into a tiny ball, then zings up into my throat, then drops through the floor, then rolls around looking for a way out.

Sound familiar?

The headlines these days would set anyone spinning. Political conflict, climate change, and economic instability have always been around, but now they’re reaching bizarre levels. And given deepfakes and AI, we can’t even know for sure what’s real.

How to cope with all this? I’ve heard even the most rational experts encourage us to “trust our instincts” and [...]

Desperate times call for Wayfinders

If you’ve been following my work for a while, you’ve heard me talk about “wayfinding.”

I borrowed that word from an anthropologist, who used it to describe the ancient Pacific Islanders. These incredible voyagers crossed thousands of miles of open sea without maps or compasses, guided by individuals whose ability to “read” ocean currents, winds, stars, and sea life gave them almost superhuman navigational skill. 

Wayfinding, as I use the word, is that same art, applied to the landscape of our modern lives. Wayfinders are able to rely on their own inner wisdom, rather than what they’ve been taught by modern [...]

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