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How can you see more beauty?
“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.” ~Confucius I was on the phone with a client the other day, and she was frustrated. At herself. At her team. At the circumstances. She detailed for me what had happened. Long story short, she’d stepped away from work...
What do you plan to do with this one wild and precious year?
There is a quote from the poem, The Summer Day, by Mary Oliver. “What do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Each time I read or hear this quote, it reminds me to pay attention. To value each day. To lean more into Thoughtful Leadership – being more...
The leadership practice of loving life.
"I have found that if you love life, life will love you back." ~Arthur Rubenstein I always cringe a bit when we write about love. It's a four-letter word and especially a four-letter word in the work world. But I think we need more of it anyway, so we write about it...
Your strengths can hurt you
I am a big proponent of 360-degree feedback – gathering the perspectives of your direct reports and staff, your peers, and your higher-ups to become more aware of how your behaviors, attitudes, and actions impact those around you. My own experience with receiving 360...
Sometimes you just have to sing your song
“A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.” ~Maya Angelou A client confided in me the other day that he really wanted to get involved with a certain project at work, but he was afraid to bring it up to his boss. “I might not be...
The keys to thriving hybrid teams: Trust and transparency
I have a client who loves to work from home and feels quite comfortable managing her leadership team remotely. Another client prefers to be in the office and is much more inclined to have frequent in-person meetings with his leaders. The hybrid workplace can be...
Where are you trying to go it alone?
“We cannot climb up a rope that is attached only to our own belt.” ~William Ernest Hocking The other day I noticed that all of my coaching calls seemed to have a theme. Each of my clients shared with me something that was going on for them that was tough. Some had...
A little bit of guilt will help your leadership
I was working through an exercise with a colleague in my Positive Psychology course, and I shared with her something that I heard years ago that I found almost unbelievable and quite life-changing. "If you feel guilty when you do something, it probably means it's a...
We need to fail in order to succeed
“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” ~Winston Churchill I’m not certain if our fear of failure is more nature or nurture. If we’re hardwired that way or if we’ve been socialized to fear what feels like falling on our face in...
How to keep going when you can’t keep going anymore
I was talking with a client the other day. They had a lot going on – at work and at home – and they had been handling it up until then. But even from the very beginning of our phone call, it was clear that my client was done. Done in, in fact. There are times when we...
Why Winnie the Pooh leaves his corner of the Forest
“You can't stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.” ~ Winnie The Pooh (A.A. Milne) Winnie the Pooh is one of my favorite philosophers. He knows so much. I especially love that he is so humble in his...
3 vital Thoughtful Leadership™ skills I learned from my old friends
I've spent the last week catching up with old friends. Friends from high school, college, and my job in advertising too many years ago. So I've spent a great deal of time thinking about how lucky I am to have had, and have now, these people in my life – even the ones...