“What if no one has ever broken your heart, but they broke your expectations. What if when they broke your expectations, they helped you get closer to your heart.” Kyle Cease I ran across this quote, and it made me pause. Really, this is all that ever happens with regard to our expectations. It could be the weather, our own…
Handling conflict. It’s not a pleasant thought. When things happen, and they go poorly, what we do and don’t do determines the lasting reality. Yesterday, we had a delivery to our house go poorly. We have a sign at the top of our long driveway saying “please no large trucks.” Neglecting to see the sign, the delivery people drove down our long…
In yesterday’s blog, I talked about being surprised by grief and how I thought my experience with my son’s teacher was unique. I found out at her celebration of life that it wasn’t. Her commitment (and masterful ability) to impact people that many disregard and judge was so significant it was overwhelming. She took her own traumatized learning experience and catalyzed it to change the world. She confidently told people…
You just don’t know. I was caught by surprise recently at the celebration of life for a significant teacher in my son’s life. She died in March having lost her dance with cancer. I hadn’t seen her in years, my son’s work with her ended 10 years ago, but we’d stayed loosely in touch, and I was shocked learning she’d died. I’d…
Sometimes you just know. In fact, when you’re attuned in life, it’s most often the case. Therein lies the problem. A majority of the time, most of us are not dialed in enough to access the messages from our intuition, let alone to trust our gut. This is why we rely on our heads and the clutter between our ears, when we could…
Adding people to your team brings complexity. It’s exponential. If you hire one person, you’ve made a 50% increase in headcount. Yet it results in a 200% increase in complexity. Add just one more person, it’s a 100% increase in headcount and a 500% increase in complexity. If it seems more complex, you’ve got it right. Your job as a…
No such thing as a perfect “10” on a scale of one to ten? Tell that to Quan Hongchan who at 14 years of age who won the gold during the platform diving competition with two perfect 10 dives and a third dive with 10s and one 9.5. Often, with leadership teams, I’ll hear teams rate each other as a nine because…
I love the Olympics. To imagine focusing on one thing, one discipline for years on end for sometimes a single minute of opportunity…wow. The sacrifice, the pressure, the excellence and the competition. Being judged while competing against the other people with the perseverance to do as you’ve done and seeing how few make it to this level. It’s inspiring and…
Some people talk with you in their free time and some free their time to talk with you. If you don’t learn the difference, you’ll think they are the same. They are not. Who frees their time for you? Who do you free your time for? Do you make it matter when you’re together?
Sometimes the right setting can inspire the best in you. Do you need the hustle and bustle of people, pets and things happening around you? Are you better in silence with stillness surrounding you? Do you need music? What kind of light? What brings out the best of who you are and how you think? Your environment contributes to the mood,…