Why Your Life Metaphor Matters and What To Do About It

Why Your Life Metaphor Matters and What To Do About It

I'm learning that living life well is so much about expectations; and expectations are shaped by how you view life.  Your mental picture about what life is and is supposed to be really determines your life experience.  If you have a faulty view, you end up with a faulty life.  Your experience matches your picture. 

Why You Must Feel Free to Fail If You Want a Successful Life

I grew up in a fairly traditional religious family.  We took life pretty seriously—not in the sense of being morose or pessimistic; I had a very happy and positive childhood—but more in the sense of always wanting to do your best, to try to get and give the best out of life and not just float along.

The Secret Sauce of Effective Leaders and How to Evaluate Yourself

I was visiting with a leader I had respected from a distance for some time.  As we talked, he kept looking at his watch and glancing around at other people.  He would grunt a few responses and then glance down at his watch or look around again, making eye contact with someone walking by or nodding his head in acknowledgement to them. It didn't take me long to realize this person was not engaged at all with me.  It felt not just disappointing but deeply off-putting--like I didn't count or wasn't important enough to him to pay targeted attention to.

Leadership Isn't For the Faint of Heart: Four Transformational Strategies from the Wizard of Oz

What does it take to be a great leader in an era when the winds of global and local change are blowing in gale force, where the world is so interconnected that when you make a decision someone on the other side of the world is affected? Leadership has never been easy.  There have always been challenges.  But these days, the difficulties seem to be uniquely immense.  Which means leadership isn't for the faint of heart.  It's not just about competence and intelligence.

The Stories You Tell Yourself Matter: Four Steps To Developing An Empowering Narrative

The Stories You Tell Yourself Matter:  Four Steps To Developing An Empowering Narrative

You and I become the sum total of the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, our personal narratives. Here are four steps to developing the right, most empowering narrative.

5 Questions to Ask When You're Banging Your Head Against a Wall

5 Questions to Ask When You're Banging Your Head Against a Wall

We sometimes delude ourselves into thinking that if we just keep on doing something a little bit harder, and a little bit longer, we’ll get the results we’re looking for.  Instead of changing strategies by first evaluating our current strategy that clearly isn’t working, we insist on simply doing more of the same thing but with greater energy. Here are five questions to ask yourself to evaluate whether what you’re doing is the most effective current strategy.

Six Ways to Leverage the Chemistry of Conversations

Did you know that every day we experience approximately 20,000 moments (according to Nobel-winning scientist Daniel Kahneman)? A moment is defined as a few seconds in which our brain records an experience. So, as Dr. Kahneman discovered, the quality of our days is determined by how our brains recognize and categorize our moments — either as positive, negative or just neutral (although rarely do we remember neutral moments).

9 Strategic Questions To Help You Evaluate What Kind of A Culture Architect You Are in Your Groups

There is a lot of conversation these days in the business world that is recognizing the significance of assessing and addressing organizational internal culture. This is long over-due!  Because truth is, culture is one of the most important aspects of an organization that drives everything else--from employee engagement, to productivity, to even the bottom line of financial success.

3 Steps To Identifying Your Most Effective Path Forward and It Begins With Your Why

I do a lot of work with organizations and individuals around the importance of knowing your Why.  When you can boil down the most basic purpose for something you're wanting to do, it helps bring clarity to the Hows that get you to where you want to go.  The Hows are negotiable and dynamic.  The Why is solid.  And it's the Why that inspires us the most. I realized last week that this same principle should be applied to the spiritual life, too.

Give Yourself A Time-out: Why You Need It and How To Do It

When you were a kid, did your parents ever give you time-outs?  Did it work for you?  Well, I imagine it depends on what I mean by "work."  Right? The idea was that a time-out punishment was for the purpose of forcing you to think about your bad behavior--what was wrong about your actions and what you should do differently next time.  You were suppose to take this "facilitated" time to learn some lessons.

How To Talk Your Way To Better Brain Health

I joined Lumosity this year--the web site that has exercises and games designed to strengthen your brain (based upon the latest neuroscience research). I'm at the age (and with some family history) where I'm thinking more about how to be intentional about how my brain functions best and how to keep it operating at maximum efficiency and effectiveness.  As I perform these exercises regularly, I am actually charting my improvement in memory, problem-solving, speed, attention, flexibility.  It's been fun and rewarding.

The Four Most Important Qualities People Look For in Leaders They Want To Follow

The Four Most Important Qualities People Look For in Leaders They Want To Follow

Successful leaders work hard at building environments centered around four qualities that have been proven to be the most transformational for empowering people. Ask yourself whether your leadership influence is contributing these important attributes.