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April 10, 2015

ICYMI — 28

John headshot Nov 2014Greetings, dear readers, from Seattle, Washington. I’ve been hanging out with my oldest daughter in the Emerald City, drinking coffee, eating seafood, listening to the grunge music. It’s such a beautiful part of the world here. But that’s not what you came here to read — this is no travel blog. You want the links!

Never fear. Here’s this week’s list of interesting things I found while looking around:

Dr. Travis Bradberry has figured out 15 body language secrets for successful people. This reminds me of this TedTalk by Amy Cuddy that Hal and I mentioned on a recent podcast.

I love honest writers who refuse to pretend that things like parenting, relationships, and faith are easy. Anne Lamott has been one of my very favorites for years. Her most recent essay appears here, and my favorite quote is this one: “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”

Speaking of people who refuse to pretend life is easy, Ashford Evans learned an important lesson about this as it relates to raising her daughter. We like to say, “It’s not our job to protect our children from the world; it’s our job to prepare our children for the world.” Sometimes this job is harder than others.

It’s become popular in some circles to rail against parents who insist in being friends with their children. People love to bang their fists on the table and shout, “Be their parent, not their friend.” Okay. I get it. A little. Kids don’t need their parents to be their friends; they need them to be the adult in the relationship. But would it hurt to be a little more friendly with our kids? In fact, at some point in time I have to stop filling the authoritarian role for them and begin an adult-to-adult relationship, and that’s going to involve friendship at some level, right? Phil Watt explores this a bit more in his article for Elephant Journal. It’s definitely worth a read.

Finally, for those of you who didn’t get much of a Spring Break this year, you know what it feels like to need a holiday. Just for you, here’s the video of Madonna performing her classic song “Holiday” with Classroom Instruments on Jimmy Fallon’s show.

Okay, that’s it for now. Go on and tell me what I missed.

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