Why Listening Is Important
Why Listening is Important. In this interview clip, Oprah – who made her living by listening – describes the insight that informed much of her career: The One Question Every Guest Asked.
Mindfulness
IT’S NOT YOU
WHAT JUST HAPPENED? Since mid-March, every conversation touches on the pandemic, at least for a second. But the topic’s been consistently held as a temporary situation. Then last week happened. Plans for return to work in July shifted to year-end 2020. Conferences in 1Q21 started getting the “let’s go virtual!” treatment. Three months is temporary. A full year is, … Read more
Lessons From The Muck
Muck [muhk], noun, moist farmyard dung, decaying vegetable matter, etc.; manure; a highly organic, dark or black soil; mire; mud. From 1200–50; Middle English muc, muk <<Old Norse myki cow dung Say WHAT?? When we moved to a new home in 2016, we inherited a large, reed-infested marshy pond that had been neglected for 30 years. We mostly avoided … Read more
Curiosity Can Conquer Fear
There’s a moment in the movie Frozen 2 when Queen Elsa, haunted by a mysterious voice, decides to shift from ignoring it (out of fear) to pursuing it (out of curiosity). The song, Into the Unknown (watch it here), follows her transition from “I won’t” to admitting, “there’s a part of me that wants to go, … Read more
Slow Down Or You’ll Miss It
This month’s post was inspired by a blog from one of my favorite mentors in the consulting world, Alan Weiss. This short excerpt sets the stage and my thoughts follow: An asteroid three times the size of the Empire State Building shot by the Earth last week, “only” three million miles away and traveling … Read more
Talking About Death and Happiness
Talking About Death and Happiness Death—and its relationship to life—has been pushing onto my agenda in the past month, so much so that when I sat down to write this month’s post, I found it impossible to not write about it. “But Jim, “you are possibly thinking, “isn’t this site about happiness and leadership?” Well, … Read more
More Tiny Wisdoms
My focus on six-word wisdoms last month generated much positive reaction, quite possibly because our attention spans have shrunk to under nine seconds – less time than it’s taken you to read this sentence aloud! Here are a few more, for fun: Ask, “In what ways might I?” You’ve been trained your entire life to … Read more
What Beer Taught Me About Mindfulness
Relaxation, Mindfulness, and Meditation Many of us suffer from FOMS (Fear Of Missing Something) so we approach life as series of manic, highly active episodes thinly sandwiched between inadequate layers of sleep. We continually pump our systems full of adrenalin and cortisol (and when those fail, more caffeine), and when those chemicals build to toxic … Read more