Four Ways to be Resilient When You Feel Like Crap
This past weekend was brutal for my physical health. Food poisoning and a nasty flu bug took away my bodily fluids and ability to sleep. In the grand scheme of things this was a minor setback and I was able to recover and perform at an acceptable level as a dad by the...
Tension: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How it can Realize a Community’s Potential
My Tension Tension happens in work and life all the time. Recently, I found myself in situations where tension was both palpable and enabling. The first instance occurred during the planning of an important event. Initially, there was considerable confusion and...
Four Tips for Work Appropriate Halloween Costumes
It's Halloween! If you're in one of many workplaces that celebrate this spooky day, you may be invited to come in costume and celebrate in style with the usual staff costume photo set to be pasted all over the organization's intranet or social feed. Halloween costumes...
What Needs to be in Your Next Corporate Retreat
According to the Internet, most corporate retreats suck. After all, many senior leaders aren't even great at running effective meetings, so why would a group of us be awesome at designing and delivering what is essentially a multi-day million dollar business meeting...
The Definitive Community Love Evaluation Framework
Today is Valentines Day and love is in the air. But how much love, exactly? To figure this out, I created a simple tool that helps me evaluate how much I love different parts of my life. I call it the Definitive Community Love Evaluation (Copilot tried to call it "The...
Three Creativity Lessons from Kindergarten
I’m learning a lot about kindergarten. A novel part of COVID worklife for my wife (who is her own woman) and I is that we get to teach our oldest son kindergarten. Feeling swells of exhaustion, inspiration and humility each week is becoming commonplace as we stand in...
Empathy is Harder than Math
Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. It involves perceiving and connecting with their emotions, fostering understanding, and often responding with compassion and support. Mathematics is the language of patterns and relationships in...
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...
2024 is About Investing in Caring
To ring in every year, I like to share some ideas and tactics for reflecting and goal setting. From habit building to interrogating the sustainability of gym memberships and dry Januarys, setting intention for career aspirations and healthy relationships is an...
Five Tips for Setting Strengths-Based Goals this Year
For many of us, a new year brings opportunities for improving skills and building resilience through goal setting. We call such goals “resolutions” and human beings are notoriously bad at achieving them. In fact, over 90% of us will not follow-through on our...
Five Adaptive Planning Strategies from Die Hard
Die Hard is one of the greatest Christmas movies of all time. The iconic action film starring Bruce Willis is not just a festive classic that includes holiday outfits and Christmas carols, but it is also a masterclass in adaptive planning. Beyond the explosive action...