How is it that two people can see the same thing and have a completely different understanding of what happened? Two leaders can look at the same numbers, hear the same news or face the same challenge ...

A few years ago I climbed over a gate and found myself gazing down at a valley. After I’d been walking for a few minutes, looking at the fields and the sky, there was a shift in my perception.

Recently I noticed a rash of attention-getting headlines in the newspaper and on the Internet about attacks on various ethnic, racial, religious and political groups. Whether it’s a hate crime in ...