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Culture is everyone’s job. It’s made up of everyone and every interaction in the company. If it’s happening at the organization, it’s a part of our culture. Whether we like it or not. There is no such thing as nonexistent culture. It’s either intentional or not. Years ago, one of my junior coworkers was bemoaning the fact that our company culture had become unfriendly and overly professional. Pretty standard…

We can’t become mediocre friends with too many people. Because as we grow older, our days go faster than we think, and the fewer opportunities we have to be with those people. The upside is, the knots grow tighter on the ropes that bind us. When we’re apart, we think to ourselves, wow, isn’t it wonderful that we actually want to be friends with our friends? What blessing. The…

Desire doesn’t have to be specific or passionate to be real. It’s okay to want something from a place or simplicity and generality. Just because we don’t check the boxes of white hot longing and obsession doesn’t mean our feelings aren’t legitimate and shouldn’t be honored. The challenge is, we buy into these culturally sanctioned stories about what our desires should look like. Unwritten rules about what’s okay to…

If we’re not connecting with other people in ways that create genuine relationships of meaning and depth, then why are we even here? Those precious connections are the cleanest, most life giving fuel that helps us to meet the demands of reality. These relationships structure our very selves. Those closest to us contribute to making us who we are. But the thing is, these bonds are not free. All…

If it’s true that you can’t love anybody until you love yourself first, then the opposite must also be true. You can’t hate anybody until you hate yourself first. Look around. Anytime you observe someone acting in a hateful way towards others, that’s not an accident. It’s a release valve. They’re trying to pay the pain forward. Because when you hate yourself, the only thing that makes you feel…

My mentor had habit of asking penetrating questions that rocked me to my core. One in particular stuck with me, which he originally asked when I was trying to end an unhealthy relationship. Are you allowing this person to create a future with you that you’re obligated to be a part of? Not an easy thing to ask yourself. But what he was trying to teach me was, don’t…

My mentor use to train his sales and customer service agents to give something called the response before the response. After a customer complained, employees would smile and say, that’s my favorite problem, and I’m the perfect person to help. Jeffrey said this attitude helped diffuse angry customers and set the tone for a positive interaction. What’s fascinating about this strategy is, it also works on ourselves. We can…

Positivity doesn’t increase our success, but it does increase our field of vision, which allow us to better notice the opportunities that lead to success. My experience has proven this time me countless times. And yet, it’s more than motivational rhetoric. It’s been clinically proven. Fredrickson, the professor and social psychologist who teaches positive psychology, did research on what’s called the broaden and build theory of positive emotions. Her argument is…

Doesn’t anybody like anyone anymore? Are we really so busy that we can’t be bothered to rustle up some respect for each another? Apparently not. Everyone is so critical, negative and angry. Our collective inability to find anything good about anyone is downright embarrassing. And at the risk of blaming technology for our interpersonal problems, here’s my theory. Computers make humans meaner. They give us permission to act from…

Here’s a cool paradox. For certain things, we don’t need as much as we think we do. And for other things, we need much more than we think we do. Take the concept of time. The story we’ve told ourselves is that if we only had a few more hours in the day or one extra day in the week, we’d cross off everything on our list. But time,…