Steve Goodier Wisdom: A Touching Moment

In this inspirational article, master storyteller, Steve Goodier, shares a key piece of life wisdom . Enjoy!

Are you meeting a friend for lunch? According to “The Farmer’s Almanac,” if you are American you will probably touch each other twice an hour. If you are English, you may not touch each other at all. If you are French, you might touch each other 110 times an hour, and if  you are Puerto Rican, you just might touch each other 180 times an hour.

There are obvious cultural differences in communication styles, but studies agree that touching is important to human development.  Psychologist Wayne Dennis observed a group of babies in an orphanage where they were given practically no stimulation,  including touch (”New Mind” by Robert Ornstein and Paul Ehrlich; A Touchstone Book, 1990). Most laid on their backs all day in bare cribs placed in bare rooms. They were touched only when their diapers were changed. At the end of one year, the children’s development was about that of a six-month-old. The good news is that, once adopted into nurturing environments, these children quickly caught up to other children their age. Read more

Steve Goodier Wisdom: To Honor Their Souls

In this inspirational article, master storyteller, Steve Goodier, shares a key piece of life wisdom . Enjoy!

Perhaps you have never heard of Katherine Lawes. Katherine was the wife of Lewis Lawes, warden at Sing Sing Prison from 1920-1941.

Sing Sing had the reputation of destroying wardens. The average warden’s tenure before Lewis Lawes was two years. “The easiest way to get out of Sing Sing,” he once quipped, “is to go in as warden.” In his 21 years he instituted numerous reforms - and an important part of his success was due to his wife Katherine. Read more

Steve Goodier Wisdom: Look Upon Them As Wounded

In this inspirational article, master storyteller, Steve Goodier, shares a key piece of life wisdom . Enjoy!

After vaccinating a young boy with an injection in the arm, a doctor wanted to stick on a bandage. “Please put it on the other arm,” the boy pleaded.

“Why do that?” the doctor asked. “This will let everyone know you have been vaccinated and they won’t hit your sore arm.” Read more

Steve Goodier Wisdom: Are You Ready to Be Surprised?

In this inspirational article, master storyteller, Steve Goodier, shares a key piece of life wisdom . Enjoy!

Are you ready to be surprised? Life is full of surprises - to those who are aware.

History records amazing coincidences in the lives of two of America’s founders - Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. You are aware that Jefferson labored for two weeks writing the Declaration of Independence. He showed his drafts to Adams and Benjamin Franklin, who edited it, honed Jefferson’s ideas and refined the document. When it was finally finished, he brought it before the Continental Congress for approval. And America remembers her birth date, of course, as July 4, 1776.

Jefferson and Adams spent the next 50 years debating ideas about how this new nation should govern itself and what it should eventually become. Their administrations argued philosophies and legislation. Sometimes the two men were contentious, but later in life they seemed to develop more of an appreciation for each other. Though they lived far apart, they kept up through correspondence. Read more

Steve Goodier Wisdom: Legacy of Love

In this inspirational article, master storyteller, Steve Goodier, shares a key piece of life wisdom . Enjoy!

A friend once told me of a caring and much-loved school nurse who died. She was well known by the faculty and students, as she had been there 35 years. When the principal announced her death to the children, many of them began to cry.

To help ease their grief, the school counselor had a group of children draw a picture of what the nurse meant to them. One child  filled in her paper with red. “This is her heart,” she explained.  “It’s too big for the paper.” Read more

Steve Goodier Wisdom: Make Your Life an Experiment

In this inspirational article, master storyteller, Steve Goodier, shares a key piece of life wisdom . Enjoy!

Do you experiment with new attitudes and new behaviors? Do you constantly try to improve your skills? Do you make your life an “active science”? It is not hard to see what can happen when we refuse to improve ourselves.

Do you know who set the standard for fine watch-making for most of the 20th Century? If you answered, “The Swiss,” you are correct. Swiss wrist watches dominated world markets for at least 60 years and Swiss companies were committed to constant refinement of their craft. Read more

Steve Goodier Wisdom: Dashing Through the Snow

In this inspirational article, master storyteller, Steve Goodier, shares a key piece of life wisdom . Enjoy!

Dashing through the snow. We sing it every December and we do it all   through the holiday season. And if there’s no snow, we still dash to and fro.

So much to do … gifts to buy and wrap; cards to write and send; decorations to hang; parties and programs to attend; food to prepare. Do you feel just a little too busy? Read more

Steve Goodier Wisdom: You’re Not Alone

In this inspirational article, master storyteller, Steve Goodier, shares a key piece of life wisdom . Enjoy!

“The commonest and subtlest of all human diseases,” a prominent physician said, “is fear.” Fear is an incapacitating, paralyzing disease. We all fear at times, but many carry with them unnecessary  and destructive fears.

We’re afraid of the unknown. Read more

Steve Goodier Wisdom: Great Teachers

In this inspirational article, master storyteller, Steve Goodier, shares a key piece of life wisdom . Enjoy!

I met a great teacher. She lived in a small Costa Rican village where my family vacationed. She was no formal educator, philosopher or person of any renown. Actually, she made chocolate to sell to tourists.

She took us into her small home. It consisted of a single, partitioned room with a dirt floor and a wood-burning stove. Its paneless windows were open to an encroaching jungle that surrounded the dwelling. This house, by my North American standards, might not be considered more than a shack or a hut. Yet it was home to a warm and happy family of four. Read more

Steve Goodier Wisdom: A Laugh a Day

In this inspirational article, master storyteller, Steve Goodier, shares a key piece of life wisdom . Enjoy!

“She who laughs, lasts.” At least that was Theresa of Avila’s philosophy. Theresa, a Spanish nun who founded the reformed order of the Carmelites in 1562, used to look for novices who knew how to laugh, eat and sleep. She believed that if they ate heartily, they were healthy; if they slept well, they were more than likely free of serious sin; and if they laughed, they had the necessary disposition to survive a difficult life.

Abraham Lincoln must have also known that laughter is good medicine. In writing about Lincoln’s Civil War years, author Richard Hanser says that on September 22, 1862, the War Cabinet was summoned to the White House for a special session. Lincoln was reading a book as everyone came in. Secretary of War Stanton later said this of the meeting:”Finally the president turned to us and said, ‘Gentlemen, did you ever read anything of Artimus Ward? Let me read a chapter that is very funny.’” Read more

Next Page »