Author: Overcoming Adversity | Buteau’s Odyssey

King Erysichthon, so the ancient Roman legend goes (Ovid, Book VIII), was arrogant and contemptuous of the gods, for which he was severely punished: He was made to experience a voracious hunger, a “hurricane of starvation” (Hughes, 1997). All he could think about was an uncontrollable desire to procure food. “In the midst of feasts, he craves other feasts” (Marder, 2025). For Erysichthon, “food calls for food…” (Mandelbaum, 1993). There is much more to this myth, and it does not end well for the king (Karasu, 2018). For purposes here, though, Erysichthon’s total insatiable preoccupation with food, though admittedly with…

“Directed/co-written/produced by Rod Blackhurst (NIGHT SWIM, AMANDA KNOX, HERE ALONE) and starring Fabianne Therese, Seann William Scott, Ethan Suplee, Max the Impaler, DOLLY unleashes terror in the woods and embraces gritty craftsmanship, practical effects, and a sense of place that bleeds into every frame, as it follows Macy who is faced with a deranged, monster-like figure —making it a deliberate nod to the legacy of homemade horror born in the woods.” DOLLY Releases In Theaters on March 6

My daughter came home from school the other day, talking about having to go get Valentine’s Day cards. Ugh, oh yeah… that time of year again. I’ll need to get my wife a card as well, I suppose. I know how that “I suppose” might sound, but it’s not what you think. My wife actually thinks they’re a waste of money. The card is more for the kids than anyone. I’m quite lucky in the sense that my wife sees no value in Valentine’s Day. Her practical mind says if you want to put money into something, put it into…

When Lisa contacted me to discuss concerns with her 11-year-old daughter, Lilly (names in this example have been changed), she described her as highly anxious. Lisa’s call resonated with what I hear from many other parents of children and teens. Yes, generally speaking, they are anxious. But when I meet with these kids, the most striking specific struggle I see is that their minds won’t shut down. That’s not a good mental state for a child or teen. Scanning for Certainty, Stuck in Worry These kids’ overthinking brains keep scanning for certainty. They keep replaying “What ifs?” about past and…

Another stellar retrospective from the series that keeps on givingI’m at that age where I usually have to push myself to sit through a new 90-minute horror movie — but I don’t have a problem binge-watching a six-and-a-half-hour documentary about obscure, straight to video genre movies from 1995.Hence the innate appeal of the “In Search of Darkness” series. After several volumes exploring every nook and cranny of eighties horror, the franchise turned its attention to the 1990s in a duology spanning a mere 13 hours or so. The most recent addendum to the ISOD anthology covers 1995 through 1999, which…

Horror movie fans love a good reveal. But what if that reveal leads to an off-the-rails craziness that lasts throughout the remaining runtime? That’s extra points in our opinion, especially if that pace continues to the end credits.  If a film has a setup time of over 30 minutes, chances are you won’t get much action until about the last 15 minutes. The films below waste no time getting to the point, and once they do, chaos ensues.  So buckle up, and give the seven movies below a watch, then, and remember your sanity is intact even if the filmmaker’s…

Forty years ago, on January 28, 1986, “exactly 73.621 seconds after liftoff at 11:39 a.m., the space shuttle Challenger exploded, killing all seven persons on board. With the destruction of Challenger, America’s dream for a quick and easy conquest of outer space died. A more obvious casualty of the Challenger disaster, the reputation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was severely tarnished. NASA’s aura of invincible professionalism was suddenly replaced with an image of bureaucratic bungling and institutional fallibility” (Harrison, 1993, 161). The presidential commission to investigate the disaster (Rogers and colleagues, 1986) concluded that the disaster was…

I used to think my work was practical. I teach leaders how to listen, really listen. I coach people to say the hard thing. I help teams slow down long enough to notice bias, power, and patterns before defensiveness takes over. I encourage people to take walks during the workday, to ask better questions than the ones they’ve been rewarded for asking, and to choose curiosity over certainty. For a long time, I thought of this as skill-building, leadership development, and even emotional intelligence. Lately, I’ve come to see it differently. This work is subversive. We live inside systems that…

According to Psychology Today, attachment is the “emotional bond that forms between infant and caregiver, and it is how the helpless infant gets primary needs met.” Attachment develops through repeated interactions between caregivers and children and can be understood as a match or mismatch between a child’s emotional and physical needs and the responsiveness of their environment. When we receive what our nervous system craves—comfort, acceptance, predictability, or control—we experience safety. But when there is a mismatch between our needs and the environment’s responsiveness, distress can arise, along with fears of abandonment or rejection. This can occur even in the…

Tom Izzo didn’t sugarcoat his disappointment. After No. 7 Michigan State narrowly avoided a disastrous upset loss to Rutgers, the Spartans head coach was blunt about his team’s performance.”We got our butts kicked most of that game,” Izzo said. The Spartans (19-2, 9-1 in the Big Ten) trailed the Scarlet Knights (9-12, 2-8) for the entire second half until Jeremy Fears found Divine Ugochukwu for a game-tying corner 3-pointer. Michigan State pulled away in overtime for an 88-79 victory. Fears finished with a career-high 29 points, scoring 27 in the second half and overtime, and the Spartans received contributions from multiple players…