The picture above was shared with me from Mahtab over a year ago. As I read the questions, it seems to have captured the essence of what it takes to make everyday count, quarantine or not. This simple recipe isn’t good only in crisis, it’s good every day. Imagining a world where every person began their day using this template makes me believe we…
When it’s an emotionally challenging time I remind myself, this is nothing new. We’ve lived through difficulties, death, trauma, tragedy and conflict before. Certainly, it seems like it’s painfully exaggerated by the pandemic. Yet, when I turn to writing, music and art, I find comfort. Nature helps, exercise and self-care work. Laughter, relationships and conversation make it feel better. Ensuring I find goodness and connection when it’s hard is the path forward. It’s not easy, but we’ll get…
A friend posted this last week and it was one of the best reframes I’ve seen for those of us on the journey to consistently and incrementally get better every day. I took some liberties and edited for language I believed to be more forwarding, but the message remains intact. It made so much sense, I had to share. May we all follow a…
This struck a chord for me as I think of our world (and specifically Minneapolis) right now. It’s not about any one thing, it’s about so many things. For many of us, we are grieving. In a collective, heavy and solitary way. As I read this poem by Patricia McKernon Runkle, it offered direction for me. I’m certain someone needs to hear this as well: WHEN YOU MEET SOMEONE DEEP…
Changing behavior is challenging. When your habits have lead you to success in various forms as a direct result of those habits, they’re doubly hard to break. When I think of being productive, it’s in my nature to use as many minutes of my waking hours as possible to create results. This leads me to push myself and work harder…
Finding peace these days isn’t easy for me. As a privileged person, I’m tired. Those friends around me are tired. And yet, when I look at a still, calm lake reflecting the images of the sky and it’s surroundings, I am at once still and at peace. How can I bring that experience to others? To clear enough space in myself to witness what’s real for them and…
As I was experiencing some grief recently, I reread this beautiful story and thought it worthy of sharing. May it also lead you to a softer place in your own life. “At 40, Franz Kafka (1883-1924), who never married and had no children, walked through the park in Berlin when he met a girl who was crying because she had lost her favorite doll. She…
Thinking I know better has gotten me in trouble. As we forge ahead in 2021, I find myself hearing consistent messages I’ve either resisted or thought I had a better answer for. The good news: the messages get louder and are offered with a frequency I can’t ignore. I refer to them as a 2 x 4 smacking me between the eyes.…
Shortcuts don’t work. If you’re looking for the easy way, the hack to the system, the cheaper, faster and less laborious way to a qualitatively superior result, stop now. Anything excellent, ANYthing, requires effort, tenacity, discipline, persistence and patience. I know that’s about as sexy as oatmeal, but it’s true. Quality doesn’t happen randomly or easily. It can be simple, and often is. It’s just not easy. If it was, everyone would be living…
It’s amazing to me how otherwise great leaders diminish their opportunities to build trust by withholding feedback until it’s too late to correct the behavior. Time and again, I’ll be working with a leadership team and one or more people will wait until the end of our full day meetings to offer constructive feedback that would have changed our day and our experiences for the better. As teams learn, grow,…