When your heart pounds and you’re nervous

Everyone seems to want to work faster, stronger, smarter, better and cheaper. But is that actually what drives optimal performance? Even if it does, do we really need yet another superlative to elevate our pulses and spike our blood pressure into the red zone? Doubt it. In my experience, the force multiplier of human potential is not any of those things. What has far more power is the practice of being present and conscious with ourselves, the other person and...

One of my coworkers was a chronic kick the can down the road personality. She would consistently cancel and postpone our meetings. Three or four weeks in a row. Every time we were due for a check in on our latest project, her excuse was that she just needed got a better handle on things and get some projects off of her plate so she could prevent projects from backsliding and sneaking up on her. Which sounds awful. In fact,...

Here’s a simple trivia question. How do you open the lid of a paint can? Simple. Grab a screwdriver. Place the flat edge between the lip of the lid and the lip of the can. Once the screwdriver is in its place, carefully push down the handle, and the force you exert will eliminate the air tight seal. Next, move to another part of the lid and wedge the edge of the tool again, gently applying force in nudging the...

Playing trivia doesn’t require someone to have a ton of specific knowledge on sports, history, music and politics, although that certainly helps. What makes a strong player is their ability to engage in divergent thinking, which is thought process by which you explore many different solutions to a potential problem. You give an enthusiastic yes to all answers from all team members at the onset, build a bank of possibilities without any judgment, and only then do you narrow down...

According to various personality inventories, my psychological orientation is intuition. That means my artistic, abstract brain is wired to pay the most attention to impressions or the meaning and patterns of the information presented to me. I tend to remember events more as the impression of what it was like, rather than actual facts or details of what happened. Compare that to the opposing orientation, which is sensing. If your brain is wired in that way, you probably to pay...