Last month Rick and I celebrated our anniversary with a trip to Kauai. One evening he stepped out onto the lanai in our hotel room and asked, "Are you ready to head downstairs for our anniversary dinner?" Unfortunately I wasn't quite ready as I had fallen into the trance of self-criticism. What's worse, it was the kind of self-criticism that generated shame.
Read MoreCuriosity is a strength we're born with. The world is new to us! We want to understand it, so we test the waters, question, experiment and learn. But it can easily take a backseat as we get older. That’s unfortunate, because curiosity is a great tool to help us come back into the present moment—where we can view a situation from multiple angles and perspectives, putting us in position to make more optimal decisions.
Read MoreI recently completed a breakthrough offsite for a client whose leadership philosophy includes "trust, transparency, open communication, and collaboration." There's a good chance those four attributes appear in your organization's philosophy, too.
Here's my question: if you picked one of those four attributes to focus on upleveling, which one would you choose?
If you are:
Seeking practices and inspiration to lead during this time of constant change
Wrestling with a tough decision that will have a major impact on your team
Wanting to focus everyone on ending the year with momentum
I have an awesome podcast to add to your queue!
Read MoreDid you know that in addition to 1:1 executive coaching and Breakthrough Offsites, I also provide recovery coaching? It's a specialized form of coaching designed for people rearchitecting their life after hitting the wall due to addiction. Because of that coaching -- and openly sharing about my own recovery journey -- I often hear from friends, colleagues, and clients when they're concerned about someone in their life. As you might imagine, those calls are usually a mix of frustration and fear with a big amount of hopelessness.
Read More"I'm kerfuffled."
That's the first thing a client shared at the top of a recent coaching call. As I probed more I learned she was unsettled -- unsettled about transitions happening on both the work and home front. My reply? "Me, too."
A client recently asked me to develop a series of 10 minute Ted Talk-like presentations to be shared over a six month period with several hundred leaders from throughout their organization. I love that assignment, and I really love the theme of the series: creating positive mindset shifts to better navigate sustained periods of change and uncertainty.
Read MoreEarlier this month I facilitated a Breakthrough Offsite for 24 leaders in an organization undergoing profound change. In addition to change, the other key theme was new: new people in new roles in new team configurations.
All of that new presented an interesting challenge: how to help these leaders have meaningful interactions with their colleagues -- the kind of interactions that lead to "I'd love to grab more time and keep this conversation going."
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