The other day, a comment on TV caught my attention. Lil Jon, the rapper, was talking about feng shui. Seeming out of character, my ears perked up. His next comment was “every home has a vibe”. Apparently, I’ve been out of the loop as his HGTV show now has two seasons!...
Work is full of planning and goal setting. Annual business plans. Monthly plans to meet sales goals. Weekly planning meetings. Daily to-do lists that tie to those goals and plans. Yet, we don’t typically have that same type of planning for our career and our life...
I listened to a recent interview with author, psychiatrist, and ADHD expert Dr. Ned Hallowell. In this interview, he talked about the concept of lilies and leeches. Leeches are the things in your life that waste your time and attention. In contrast, the...
Gallup has a simple metric to measure an individual’s wellbeing. There are two questions to evaluate your present and future life. The scale classifies people as suffering, struggling, or thriving based on the response. Based on the 2023 State of the Global Workplace,...
Many articles have been written about soft skills and life skills that schools don’t teach. The skills can loosely be grouped into the categories below: Home Management – Personal finance, cooking, and cleaning Career as a Business – Job Hunting, Negotiating,...
The goal is to move from overwork and overwhelm to a sense of calm. To find the space in life to do the things we want to do. In theory, this sounds great. Yet the work to get there is difficult and setbacks are all along the route. My Perspective The evolution away...
Before reading this post, please know I do not take work-related burnout lightly. This is an important topic to be discussed and for those with severe burnout please seek professional support. With that said, I do think we are overusing the term burnout for many...
We’ve likely all heard the quote: “You get what you work for, not what you wish for.” - Howard A. Tullman The concept is simple – achieving your dreams takes work. Wishing is the easy part. We can close our eyes and imagine a future filled with achievements and...
Procrastination and accountability are intertwined concepts that impact our productivity. They influence each other. Once the cycle starts, it can be difficult to break. The causal relationship often begins when there isn’t a sense of accountability. Because we lack...
Yesterday, the city of Detroit installed their 10,000th speed hump. This news story caught my attention for two reasons: What is the difference between a speed hump and a speed bump? Could we intentionally create speed humps/bumps in our lives? What’s the Difference?...
When you think about a calm weekday, what comes to mind? This is a day when you aren’t on vacation. It’s not the weekend. Just a normal day. A day without overwhelm. You aren’t “crazy busy”. The day is calm. Productive. Full. Fun. Calm. What does this day look like?...
There is a Japanese structure that can be very helpful in our self-awareness journey - the Ikigai. An Ikigai brings together your passions, beliefs, values, and skills to create our personal reason for being. Once created, we can use our Ikigai to set visions for the...
The CliftonStrengths framework divides the 34 strengths into four categories – Executing, Influencing, Relationship Building, and Strategic Thinking. While we may or may not have strengths surface in these four areas, we all need to do these four activities in our...
Over the last couple weeks, the concept of research mode vs. focus mode keeps crossing my path. In a meeting, this quote came up. “Output before Input” Dawn Dawn’s perspective was that she needs to produce some output before taking in more information. Resisting...
The last few weeks, process and systems have been on my mind. At work, departments often have processes so that the approach to the work is consistent. These processes should also make the work quicker over time because the process to do the task becomes familiar....
Sometimes in work or life we find ourselves “down a rabbit hole”. What we mean when using this metaphor is that we started on one project or piece of research, got sidetracked with some additional information and then started to explore other connections and related...
Sometimes our perception of time speeds up and other times it slows down. There has been a lot of research on why this happens. Our emotions, priorities, and age all factor into the equation. Here are a few examples of speeding and slowing time. When we...
Today is National Read a Book Day. Books are educational. Offered in an abundance of topics and formats. Relatively inexpensive. Can be enjoyed by anyone of any age. Reading books improves our memory and concentration. Enhances our imagination. Stimulates our brains....
Lately, I’ve been thinking about small delights. Three books that introduced more delight in my life include: Joyful – Pushed me to think about what brings me joy and how to discover joy in the world. The Artist’s Way – Demonstrated how “Artist Dates” and a “little...
I came across a note I had taken from a book or podcast that said this: “Paths (career/education) pull you back, while passions and purpose propel you forward.” Unknown The quote intrigued me and tied to the long-standing debate around following your passions. A...
In late May, Seth Godin had a blog post titled "Stevie and Marvin”. The lesson of the post was that Mavin Gaye’s charisma “was a skill and not something he was born with”. This was an interesting statement to me. I always felt that charisma was something some people...