Ugly Fruit and the Art of Holding Judgment
The mind is amazing in its ability to process information and also the speed at which it reaches conclusions. The problem is: such conclusions are often based on judgments or attributions that are inaccurate. We see things only from where we sit, filtered – often unconsciously – through all kinds of biases based on past […]
“It’s Nothing Personal” by Lisa Husseini
“Taking life personally, whether you’re aware you’re doing it or not, is a lose-lose situation. Either you’re blithely unaware that you’re deep in victim mode and taking it out on the world around you, or you’re highly aware that you are trapped in an emotionally torturous box of your own making.” -Lisa Husseini Let’s say […]
Dancing With Surprises
Several years back I had the opportunity to work with a co-op founded by a group of artists who had all formerly experienced homelessness. I was invited to facilitate a strategic planning meeting involving the entire co-op membership. We met in their rented warehouse on Skid Row in Los Angeles. One key question facing these […]
Seven Principles for Fostering Resilience in the Face of Challenge
You may be impressed to know that in my senior year I was my high school’s #1 tennis player. You will be decidedly less impressed to learn that our team was the bottom ranked in the league – every year I played. It’s safe to say we were the “underdogs”. My school, which was located […]
Anxiety and Our Three Brains
I received a number of appreciative emails about my recent blog (on the ways we can calm unproductive anxiety about the future) and was inspired to share a tool that might prove useful when you find yourself in a downward spiral of unproductive worry. The tool was developed by Due Quach (pronounced Zway Kwok), social […]
Four Ways to Calm Your Worries about the Future
The future has never felt more uncertain. How much time do you waste on excessive and unproductive worrying? I define “unproductive worry” as the downward spiral in which we take stock of the unknowns and convert them into worse case scenarios. We then fixate on those worse case scenarios and let them fuel anxiety and […]
Four Ways to Relate to Past Disappointments
When I revisit the past I often feel disappointed – in myself and in others. I fixate on ways I didn’t measure up to expectations or how I felt let down by those I trusted. The past, or more precisely stated – our relationship with the past – can provide a mountain of wisdom or […]
ON MY MIND: Good Design Has No Victims. Same Goes for Good Leadership.
I recently spent the afternoon at Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art. One of the exhibitions featured a 10-foot high poster created by Rick Griffith of @MATTERdesign entitled: “An Introductory Ethic for Designers.” As I looked up at the massive manifesto and reviewed its 17 principles, it struck me that the word “leader” could easily replace […]
ON MY MIND: The Wisdom of Chickens
Chickens? Wisdom? Give me a chance to explain. When I’m working with leaders I often find myself coming back to three words of advice inspired by author Greg McKeowen – “protect the asset.” He wrote: The best asset we have for making a contribution to the world is ourselves. If we underinvest in ourselves, and […]
FROM MY BOOKSHELF: Think Again by Adam Grant
The old saying, “seeing is believing” doesn’t really describe how we operate as humans. If you’ve spent any time with me in a workshop, you’ve probably heard me tell a favorite story that challenges this conventional wisdom. There’s this elderly couple. The wife Ethel becomes concerned that her beloved husband Joe is losing his hearing. […]