Showing Up Archives | Dr. Les Kertay

I can barely contain my tears today. Is this the genuine heart of sadness? I wrote that, and much of what follows, this morning in an email to a friend of nearly 50 years. Now I write it for you. All of you. Everyone. Even, maybe especially, those of you with whom I disagree about things that matter When I woke Monday to the news from Las Vegas, I remember feeling first the suffering of all those people injured.…

Life is just too short

Les Kertay

Showing Up

Life is just too short to waste a moment of it. Really. Really, really. Too. Damn. Short. Let’s get this in perspective: if the entire 4.5-billion-year history of the earth were condensed down to a year: Humans (the genus homo) appeared today, about 4 hours, 52 minutes ago Archaic humans (subgenus homo) appeared 1 hour, 10 minutes ago Anatomically modern humans (homo sapiens) appeared 23 minutes, 21.6 seconds ago The average human lifespan in the US, as of 2015, is…

Losing a child – The brief life of Gabriel Liam Kertay

Les Kertay

Showing Up

Every year I tell myself I’m going to write a new post about losing a child. I never do. A couple of years ago, I realized that in this post, I left it all on the table. I republished it with a few minor changes, and today I’m doing it again. Because whether or not it needs saying, I want to say happy birthday to our angel and 5th of our 6 children, Gabriel. What follows is desperately sad, but…

Getting fired sucks

Les Kertay

Corporate Failure, Showing Up

It was official May 31. I got fired. Again. At least, that’s how it felt. Getting fired sucks, even when it’s not personal. Maybe especially then. I’d actually known since the 9th. That’s when the conversational rubicon was first crossed, that moment when it’s spoken aloud that the company perhaps can’t keep your role intact. That you might be consulting part time rather than employed. It’s not personal, it’s business. It’s revenue, or a new direction, or something, anything other…

I agree, let’s make America great again

Les Kertay

Politics, Radical Civility, Showing Up

Because of a website hack that lost the original, I get to repost this article – and it seemed worth it, given the positives I heard and the intensity of current events surrounding the man who made the phrase, “Make America great again” into a “thing.” Here’s the original post: I have a quixotic belief in finding common ground. I insist that there is a way to work together. The phrase “Make America great again” has become a caricature, but I believe…

How to live a happier life

Les Kertay

Showing Up

You can decide that you will live a happier life, starting right now. I think I can tell you how to live a happier life, unfailingly, in less than 900 words. I also believe that you can take this transformative step without medication, psychotherapy, coaching, or anything other than a decision. What’s not to like? There is a continuous cycle between our mindset (our expectations of the world), our behavior (how we act based on our mindset), our experience (how our…

Great service always comes from the heart

Les Kertay

Showing Up

What touches us is genuine connection, speaking from the heart. That it is unexpected, and seems rare, is perhaps the greatest tragedy of our time and describes much that is wrong with our lives. But that it is so powerful, and so easy, can be our salvation.

On being Mindful of the Marvelous Webs We Weave

Les Kertay

Showing Up

Unlike the spider, we are both blessed and cursed with a choice about the meaning we make of our life. We – you, I – have a choice, today, right now. We can lament our lot in life, or we can take it for granted. We can lord our bounty over others, or we can share it, recognizing that our riches are just as fleeting as the spider’s web.

Comfort stunts your growth

Les Kertay

Radical Civility, Showing Up

Yesterday I found this title in my email, and I couldn’t resist: You’ll comment on this story. But you probably won’t read it. If you regularly read what I write, I bet you won’t be able to resist it either. There’s comfort in it. The thing is, comfort is stunting your growth. And maybe that’s not the worst of it. We live in an echo chamber The premise of Shelly Palmer’s article is that we live increasingly in a world…

What I learned from the Perseid meteor shower

Les Kertay

Showing Up

It’s no surprise that heading out to watch the Perseid meteor shower on the night of its 2016 peak gave me a lesson in showing up. After all, for me life is always about showing up. I even named this year “the year of living present” (see this post for more on naming years). Everything, it seems, conspires to invite me, cajole me, prod me, and drag me kicking and screaming into being present. This: looking at the night sky in a really…