The Thoughtful Leaders™ Blog

Get off your butt

Posted by Lisa Kohn on May 16, 2013

It is true that many of us sit for hours each day. According to Nilofer Merchant, in this short and powerful TED video, most of us sit for over nine hours in a day, more than we sleep. And it is true that sitting that much can cause a health crisis – sitting has been linked to cancer, diabetes, and heart disease, to name a few.

To address our sitting epidemic, Nilofer offers us her revolutionary idea – schedule meetings over walks. Nilofer shares her personal experience that walking for her meetings helped her to think differently, brainstorm more effectively, and find better answers and better results.

We’ve been coaching our clients for years to get out of their offices. Meet someone in person, we counsel. Find somewhere (and some time) to think, plan, and reflect before you open your office door and your computer, we offer. Get away from your normal places and thinking patterns and imagine, solve, and resolve, we advise. All these steps yield great results, and Nilofer’s suggestion takes our suggestions one step further.

How much better would it be if we moved our bodies along with our minds? If we reaped not just business benefits, but also health benefits? If we made moving part of our life and our leadership – moving through issues, moving past challenges, moving away from our habit of sitting our lives away? Watch Nilofer’s TED talk (it’s just over three minutes long – something you can sit through) and then schedule a walk-and-talk with someone. Get out of the office and out of the box – and off of your butt.

Click here to share how walking and talking might work for you.


For support in walking the talk, and walking while you talk, contact Lisa at lkohn@chatsworthconsulting.com.

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2 Responses to “Get off your butt”

  1. Yuki Yang says:

    Love this Lisa, thanks for sharing. It’s health & fitness week here so yesterday we took a team walk, followed by a healthy potluck breakfast and a team meeting. Everyone was awake, engaged and focused.

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Stop taking yourself so seriously

Posted by Chatsworth Consulting Group on May 14, 2013

We often find that we, and our clients, take ourselves so seriously – way too seriously. And this seriousness often causes us problems and snags along our path.

With this in mind, we invite you to read Rule #6 – a short excerpt from The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander. It cautions us not to take ourselves too seriously – in a way that we can most likely all remember. A great reminder for the slower days of summer.
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Is being liked a leadership strength?

Posted by Robyn McLeod on May 9, 2013

You work hard and get good results from your team, yet the vibe of the office is not very positive and upbeat. You wish you had the kind of team that your colleague, Stacey, has. Her team seems to genuinely enjoy working together, raves about her style of managing, and is consistently recognized for their stellar work. “She really lucked out with the folks she inherited and hired,” you think to yourself. But in reality, it may not be luck at all. Stacey may understand the importance of likability in leadership.
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Are you truly listening?

Posted by Chatsworth Consulting Group on April 29, 2013


“Genuine listening means suspending memory, desire and judgment – and, for a moment at least, existing for the other person.” Michael P. Nichols

The other day I was ‘listening‘ to my colleague. We were in the midst of a heated discussion, and it was her turn to share. I knew how to listen – I teach listening skills after all. I kept my mouth shut and allowed her to speak her piece…biding my time until I could jump in with my retort or, in my mind at least, my incredibly stronger argument.
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Where are you derailing your effectiveness?

Posted by Robyn McLeod on April 25, 2013

Recently on the way home from school my daughter recounted an incident where a classmate hit another student, and then said that it was a reflex to having her hair touched. My daughter shared that this “reflex” was out of her classmate’s control and an unfortunate consequence for the hair-touching culprit. “That is a reaction,” I said. “Not a reflex. A reflex is an automatic impulse that we do not have control over, like kicking your leg when your knee is tapped in just the right way. Hitting someone because they touched your hair is a reaction. A reaction that you in fact have complete control over.”
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You can laugh more

Posted by Chatsworth Consulting Group on April 22, 2013


“A good time to laugh is anytime you can.” Linda Ellerbee

I can be very intense. Ask anyone who knows me. I can get caught in the seriousness of a situation, the meaning of a moment, the dilemma of a debate. I can work very hard to find value in each encounter and search for the hidden significance under every comment. And it can bog me down.
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Five tips to navigate the currents of conflict

Posted by Lisa Kohn on April 18, 2013

It was not the first time my son said “No” to my “Yes” that day. It felt like the umpteenth, even if it was maybe only the third. I felt like I was slogging through sludge to get anywhere with him, to get anything done. And so I stopped. “I give up,” I said. “This feels as if I’m swimming upstream and I am not a salmon looking to spawn, so I refuse to swim upstream. I’m done fighting.”
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Are you getting honest feedback?

Posted by Robyn McLeod on April 11, 2013

It’s said that the only way to truly grow as a leader is to have access to candid feedback about what you are doing well in leadership and where you need to improve. There are certainly processes that have been established in many organizations to get some of that – annual performance evaluations, 360° feedback, employee opinion surveys, executive coaching – but what steps can you take on your own to ensure that you are getting honest feedback?
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Stop swimming upstream

Posted by Chatsworth Consulting Group on April 1, 2013


“By yielding you may obtain victory.” Ovid

Just the other day I was about to tear my hair out because of my 3-year old son. All I needed to do was get out the door to run a few errands. And I swear, when I have an agenda, something I need to get done, it’s like he smells it. And he pushes equally hard in the opposite direction. I find myself screaming (at least inside) at him – and then I lose it even more because I know that that’s not the way I want to parent.
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Don’t go with the flow

Posted by Chatsworth Consulting Group on February 25, 2013


“Going with the flow is a euphemism for failing.” Seth Godin

We are often told to go with the flow. To take things in stride. To not let anything upset our apple cart. But what if going with the flow is hurting us?
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