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Wait a minute, you’re telling me that the best way to elevate my value at this company is to elevate my team first? Absolutely. This approach is what separates the employees who satisfy the most basic expectation, from the company leaders who exemplify the best the team can realistically hope for. And naturally, it feels easier to operate selfishly within our little silo, in the hopes of beating out…

When people are intensely anxious, overly neurotic, aggressively opinionated or highly impatient, my default response is to double down on calmness. And not to chill others out and set an example of unflappable stoic peace and pass judgment on other people’s behavior. The calmness is more of a boundary allows me to tend to my own wellbeing. And to acknowledge and sit with whatever feelings people are having, but…

There are an endless number of defenses mechanisms we can hide behind to keep our true selves at bay. We can hide behind our sense of humor, our mask of indifference, our façade of nonchalance, our precious way of thinking, our false front of humility, our proven history of right beliefs, our constitutional incapability of not shutting the hell up, they all get the job done. Each of these…

All of our emotions are part of the beautiful, ever changing sensation of being alive. And each of us should be proud of having our own feelings about the world. It’s one of gifts we bring to the table. But we should also remember that while our feelings are perfectly legitimate, they’re also completely transitory. Feelings, no matter how strong, do not prove that something is factual or valid….

The problem with a lot of employee engagement surveys is, they’re too narrow. They fail to make a certain empathetic leap and consider the whole person. If want to create an atmosphere worth coming to and a culture worth passing on, then the onus is on each team member to think in three dimensions and consider the holistic impact on their work on the entire organization. Here’s a compilation…

Taoists believe that because nature lacks any goals, it can never fail to succeed. And because nature is never in a hurry, it accomplishes everything. This is extremely difficult for humans to comprehend. Because we have been conditioned to believe that there is some enchanted destination to be reached where we will find happily ever after. Not to mention, that we need to find all the express lanes and shortcuts along…

Lebowski says that at some point, we all have to decide whether we will love humanity or hate it. Whether we will husband this world with care or manhandle it with violence. Both options are readily available and intensely attractive, but there is one main difference between the two. Energy. Because it’s so tiring hating the world. Forget about the moral and ethical implications of hate, when we become…

 Carlin, in his posthumous autobiography, writes extensively about his changes as a comedian. About how in the late sixties, he changed everything from his routines to his appearance to his management team to his audience. But he explained that he was the kind of person who needed those changes to happen in a natural, organic and timely fashion. Nature works very, very slowly, the comedian said. Even a volcano,…

Management consultants have been preaching for decades that our goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. Here is my argument against all five of those qualities, and what you might try instead. SPECIFIC This sounds like the ideal firs step for setting goals. But what happens when events beyond your game plan throw a wrench into the mix? Your precious little goals betray you. And specificity…

Here’s a page out of the middle manager’s handbook. They call you into their office and ask you to shut the door and have a seat. And instead of responding dramatically, they calmly, sadly and regretfully tell you that you’ve really let them down. Their hopes were high, but you failed to deliver, so get ready for the kiss of death, that dreaded ominous phrase, they’re disappointed in you….