I don’t know if you’ve read Conversations with God : An Uncommon Dialogue (Book 1) , but it’s *interesting.*

My three take aways are:

“All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.” — Aristotle

Now there’s a fine question to start you day with, isn’t it? Take heart, this post just might let your inner-kid out to play and make your day more meaningful, in whatever you do.

“It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us fathers and sons.” — Johann Schiller

For this Father’s Day, I thought one of the best things I could do is distill some of the lessons I’ve learned from my Dad.

I saw The Karate Kid (2010) this past weekend. It’s not Daniel-san or Mr. Miyagi or the Crane technique, like the original The Karate Kid. Instead, it takes place in China, it’s got Jackie Chan, and they do Kung Fu. In fact, I wish the title was The Kung Fu Kid.

“Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes.” – Oscar Wilde

A few years back I went on a tour around Microsoft, asking various executives a brief set of questions. I wanted to know what what their day is like, what drives them, and what holds them back. I wanted to know what do they know now that they wish they knew back then, when they first started. Mostly I wanted the benefit of their hind-sight and school of hard-knocks.

I find that when we name or label something, we can store it in our mind easier and use it to draw from when we need it. It gives us a simple way to refer to something and make sense of it. I have a new word now to make sense of flaws and appreciate them … Wabi-sabi.

“Life is not complex. We are complex. Life is simple, and the simple thing is the right thing.” — Oscar Wilde

Simplicity is sometimes elusive, but almost always present. Sometimes you just need to know where to look for it, or how to look for it. Luckily, the sages of the ages have shared lots of thoughts on simplicity in the form of quotes that we can borrow and build on.

“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” — Maria Robinson

He’s big. He’s green. He tries to do the right thing. His name is Shrek.

“Why are you not being everything you can be right now?” – Gabrielle Bouliane

Life’s short. I’ve had enough loss in my life to always remind me you never know how much time you have to make the most of what you’ve got.

I follow the advice of one of my mentors, living each day as if it’s my last, but planning to live 100 years. I never let fear or resistance get in the way. It’s a path of giving my best where I have my best to give, living my values, following my growth, and creating the experiences I want in my life.

I’m 25, and over the past decade, I’ve been in school, university, full time work, freelance work and entrepreneurial work. At the moment, I make my living writing (part-time) and I spend the rest of my time taking a creative writing MA and working on a novel.

These are ten lessons I’ve learnt (often the hard way!) over the past decade:

I’ve been asking people inside and outside Microsoft what their definition is of … the good life. I think it’s important, so you know what it is when you’ve got it, or you know what is is that you’re chasing, so you can make smarter choices.

Some things bounce back, and some things don’t … Sometimes the right metaphor helps us see things in a new way, or just right. In his 30 second speech on work-life balance, Brian Dyson (CEO of Coca Cola) gives us a powerful metaphor for thinking about what bounces back, and what does not:

“Kid, you’ll move mountains! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So…get on your way!” – Dr. Seuss

When I was a kid, Dr. Seuss was a constant source of inspiration for me. His stories filled my head with endless possibilities.

“Life is a big canvas, throw all the paint on it you can.” — Danny Kaye

The Web is a fountain of knowledge, especially if you know where to drink from. This post is a quick tour of some of the main sites I use that make me think.

“If I tell you I love you, can I keep you forever?” – Casper

When you’re in love the birds sing, the sun shines, and the flowers bloom. When you’re broken hearted, the world turns cold and black.

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, I decided to put together a collection of love quotes for your browsing pleasure. I reached far and wide across songs, movies, and famous people to find some of the best quotable quotes.

Editor’s note: Meet Nadia Ballas-Ruta. Nadia is author of the bountiful blog, Happy Lotus, and her super skill is spirituality. She was trained by a Buddhist master and this turned out to be one of her most powerful, life changing events. Nadia fondly recalls this as meeting her Master Yoda, the way Luke Skywalker did in Star Wars.

While working on my latest book, I had more than a few people ask me about spirituality. They wanted a succinct explanation or a simple model. I started going through various definitions, models, and testing what I could find. Here’s what I arrived at …

This is a guest post from bestselling author, Michael Michalko. Michael’s super skill is creative thinking. In fact, he organized a team of intelligence specialists to research, collect, and categorize all known inventive-thinking methods.

To the right is a drawing. What does it look like to you?

“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” — Maria Robinson

A simple way to think about designing your life is — your job, your village, and your hut. These three together shape a large part of your every day experiences. Your job is what you do, your village is where you hang out and who you spend your time with, and your hut is your family and your home.

Movies can be an amazing source of insight and inspiration. They fill our hearts and heads with heroes, stories, songs, and scenes we can draw from.

Maybe you think of the theme song to Rocky when you work out. Maybe you think of “waxing the car” or “painting the fence” while you master your craft. What’s important is that you choose the stories, scenes or heroes that serve you.

Here is a sampling of 16 movies and what they can teach us about life and leadership: