The ability to pivot and see opportunity is probably the single greatest skillset an entrepreneur can have. Mark Sisson, interviewed by Lewis Howes, episode 827 Life provides us opportunities to question what we are doing and why. The bigger the thing we are trying to accomplish, the more frequent the universal tests. You often have […]
Accepting Positive Feedback
Much of the conversation around feedback centers around negative feedback. How to receive negative feedback without getting angry or beating yourself up. How to give negative feedback in ways that don’t trigger the receiver and allows the receiver to make positive change. However, many of us struggle to receive positive feedback. Especially those of us […]
Leveraging External Feedback
In a recent conversation with a dear friend, I was telling him about a current volunteer effort. I will be helping my local Toastmasters chapter move from an older curriculum (Legacy) to a new, online-based curriculum (Pathways – the “engine” is Cornerstone OnDemand). Our chapter has a number of veteran Toastmasters who are working on […]
Perfectionism as Addiction
Perfection develops as an adaptation or a survival strategy for a number of different reasons. The most common one is to compensate for a sense of inadequacy and not being good enough, and over functioning to meet external standards is one way to offset those feelings of inadequacy Deany Laliotis, LICSW in the National Institute […]
You Will Never Measure Up
You will never meet expectations. You will never get everything done. You will not be number one. Why not? Because you are now competing with over 7 billion other people. You are now measured against instantaneous satisfaction. You are now bombarded with opportunities and things that you MUST do in order to succeed. You are […]
What is Your Relationship to Your Environment?
I find that there are 4 dominant approaches: Appease the Environment – The assumption here is that the environment is hostile and unpredictable. The best way to cope is to appease whatever “God” controls your environment. (ie: your boss and/or other people in a position of power; any higher power – gods, goddesses, spirits, etc) […]
We are ALWAYS Learning
The discussion of “Learning Organizations” and their various consultant-defined flavors is starting to get to me. We are ALWAYS learning. Each time I talk to a person, I am learning something. Each time I step into a meeting, I am learning something. Each time I enter an environment, I am learning something. But am I […]
Building a Container
For those of us who find ourselves in “informal” positions of leadership (trainers, project managers, team leads, event organizers, etc) – it’s important to understand that we, too, are responsible for building a supportive container for the teams and people we work with. I purposefully use the concept of “container” because we are often trying […]
Thinking in Containers
What does it take to create a culture? What does it mean to design an environment that facilitates culture? A recent project provided an opportunity to explore these questions. In this project, I needed to create an environment where a group of relative strangers would feel safe exploring potentially sensitive changes. Some questions surfaced as […]
The Myth of “Fearing Change”
I hear so much noise about how “people fear change” and “people don’t want to change.” I don’t think that’s true. They just don’t want to be herded through YOUR change. They don’t want you inflicting your change onto them. The people you are trying to lead aren’t stupid. When I hear resistance, I hear […]
