Five Reasons Why You Should Have a Place of Zen
I’m spending next week at my family home in Merville, British Columbia. It’s where I grew up and it’s my place of Zen. If people are the soul of our communities then our souls also connect to physical spaces that…
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…
Three Ways to Write Your Professional Journal
Writing makes your life better. Fast Company’s Drake Baer has his reasons for why writing cultivates knowledge, wisdom and a powerful personal narrative. For me, writing is the thing that slows down my thinking, sorts out my ideas and goals,…
Three Ways to Evaluate Your Resilience in 2020
Well, it’s been a year. As 2020 winds down, many of us are united in our view that this year can go straight to hell. The global pandemic has taken nearly two million lives and disrupted countless others with unemployment,…
My Potentiality Reflections After 10 Years
For the past 10 years our team has been publishing new articles pretty much every week (1,032 pieces to date to be specific). Beginning this month, I will start scaling back the amount of new content that I produce for…
Build your Giving Muscles
It’s Christmas Day, which is a holiday that is supposed to be synonymous with giving. More likely, if you’re celebrating Christmas today you will be experiencing something that Organizational Psychologist Adam Grant calls “matching” – this is when people give…
Four Ways to Manage Over-Commitment
I’ve have commitment problems. I have the habit of biting off more than I can chew and have a hard time saying “no”. Burnout is common for helpful, engaged folks like me who want to do right by our community,…
Our Year in Review
The end of a year brings with it performance reviews and sometimes even raises. It also gives us a chance review what we said we would do at the beginning of the year. We should be pretty good at taking…
How to Maximize the Art of Reflection
Yesterday was Remembrance Day in Canada. It’s specifically designed for people to reflect on conflict, specifically the First World War, and make meaning of the events of 1914-1918 in the context of our lives today. While somber, I love Remembrance…
Spaghetti Sauce and the Power of Reflection
This evening I made spaghetti for dinner. [Editor’s note: John’s spaghetti is fairly amazing]. As I chopped and stirred and blended and spiced I reflected on the day – as well as the weekend, which was socially busy and did…