DaveShearon

Great Week Ahead

When you find something you love, do more of it. I love training the skills that help folks bounce back and bounce forward, whether it's with the Army, with teachers using Smart Strengths, or with my fellow lawyers. This week, I get two opportunities! First focusing on strengths in a CLE program sponsored by the Memphis Bar Association on Thursday, then in a joint program with Candice Reed that we are putting on here in Nashville on Friday!  Even with the pressure of finishing up materials and the anxiety of trying out some new approaches, I am excited. I love it. which tells me I need to do more of this in the new year. Roger. Wilco!

A Christmas Song for Albert Ellis

I've just finished reading Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy: It Works for Me - It Can Work for You by Albert Ellis, one of the founders (he'd say THE founder) of cognitive behavioral therapy. Dr. Ellis is recognized as one of the sources for the work on resilience I'm involved in and I wanted to know a bit more about him and his work. Wow! Interesting guy! The book's an easy read and engaging read even if you know nothing about REBT, cognitive psychology, etc. The stories of Dr. Ellis' life were intriguing and engagingly told, and the book does open a window, at least, into the power of deep patterns in our thinking - the beliefs about the world and our place in it - the shoulds and musts. 

Anyway, I know it is a bit weird to connect a Christmas song with a man who was a practicing Jew as a child and a  "probalistic atheist" from 13 on, but this song (1) seems to capture some of REBT, (2) was written by a great guy whom I used to go to church with, Kyle Matthews, and (3) is one of my very favorites.  Hope you enjoy: