Five Ways to Embrace Your Mortality
We are all going to die. But we also avoid thinking about our mortality. And we are likely to reflect on our deathbeds that we didn’t spend time doing on the most important things during our life. I’ve had some near death experiences – tumbled over a waterfall, got...
A Being in Nature Haiku
Connective nature. Peaceful replenishing here.* Get outside today. - A being in nature haiku that reflects how getting outside, especially within trees and near water, improves physical and mental health. -- *Take nature walks Trees solve pretty much every problem on...
Six Critical Thinking Tips from Fiction’s Greatest Detectives
In the world of literature, television, and film, some of the most brilliant examples of critical thinking have come from fiction's greatest detectives. Unraveling mysteries that baffle ordinary mortals, these on-screen and literary luminaries not only entertain us...
Finding Your Values
Work is the purposeful application of energy to complete a task that creates value for a community. The value that we create is different based on the needs of our environment and its people. Finding your values will help you produce better work (and create more value...
Bold Goals for 2022
A new year brings opportunity for reflection and intention-setting. 2021 was one of the most disruptive years in modern memory. 2022 looks poised to get up out of its seat, look 2021 in the face, and say: “hold my beer.” Most of what the year ahead throws at us will...
Three Ideas for Celebrating the Holiday Season
If I’m being honest, there isn’t much to celebrate on the West Coast of Canada these days. The pandemic/endemic is here, restrictions are being implemented, and lockdowns are looming. I feel for everyone who is enthusiastically looking forward to social connections...
Where We Work Should Be Beautiful
When I was in Italy as a member of Vancity’s Co-operative Study Tour we visited a worker co-op called Kilowatt and I fell in love with the space and its people. The organization focuses on consulting, communication and education that serves social innovation, the...
Harmony
I've written about the power of blending work and life. Perhaps what we really need is worklife harmony. There are risks to blending worklife. When we blend our worklife we gain efficiencies by integrating devices and making what we do part of our identity. The risk...
Three Important Leadership Questions
Education inoculates us against disruption. As our communities endure more disruption, especially here on the West Coast of Canada, it is important for leaders to reflect on ideas, models, and frameworks of leadership that will help us help others to grow, thrive, and...
Five Mindfulness Lessons I Learned from Spilling Water on my Laptop
Two weeks ago I my enthusiastic hand-talking resulted in a lidless water bottle toppling its contents all over my laptop. Several tabs, documents and emails were opened when the catastrophe ensued and the screen went very black very quickly. All that was not saved was...
The 10 Qualities of People with Amazing Presence
Amazing leaders have amazing presence. People who possess this simple, but rare quality are naturally able to put their colleagues at ease, take charge during chaos, and instill confidence when things are changing. Based on my own experiences– as well as research from...
Ambidexterity
Ambidexterity means being able to use our right and left hands equally well. It means being able to hold multiple competing perspectives or realities simultaneously. Hybrid work is requiring all of us to be ambidextrous in terms of shifting between modes of work....
How to Establish Team Norms for Hybrid Work
The Great Resignation, which is also The Great Retention, is challenging outdated models of work. The global pandemic has revealed that full-time, office-based, commute-dependent labour is not necessary for knowledge workers. In fact, organizations that are resisting...