Executive Coaching Archives

Thursday Thoughts on Thriving: Life Is About Not Knowing

Last week, I was remembering the very funny Gilda Radner and her late 1970’s SNL character, “Rosanne Roseannadanna.” I was in the high humidity of Florida and my hair grew as big as her character’s…This week, I came across this great quote, “I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t…
Read more

Thursday Thoughts on Thriving: How To Deliver Bad News

Can you imagine receiving a ticket for speeding and actually thanking the police officer? Well, it happens to Elton Simmons in Los Angeles. Amazingly, he has given 25,000 tickets with no complaints. No complaints in twenty years, since 1992! He’s the guy sitting on his motorcycle aiming the radar gun at cars all day. I heard this great…
Read more

Thursday Thoughts on Thriving: The Most Impactful Skill for Negotiating Agreement

In my prior corporate business roles I did a lot of negotiating. Both formal business negotiations with a contract for products and services and less formal negotiations of issues with peers, bosses and teams. In reality, a lot of what we all do comes down to negotiating well! We negotiate to decide what movie to…
Read more

Thursday Thoughts on Thriving: Moving Meetings

Sometimes you can shift into more thriving through a small shift in what you do. One of my favorite small shifts is having a “walking meeting.” Ask your team if they want to go for a walk around the building to talk as part or all of your meeting. Or if you are meeting a…
Read more

Thursday Thoughts on Thriving: Thriving in the Midst of Political Mudslinging

“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you wind up being governed by your inferiors.” – Plato How can you thrive and still participate in the political process, in the midst of all the political mudslinging? Here are some ideas: Mute the TV during those commercials (or skip them with…
Read more

Thursday Thoughts on Thriving: Get More Time by Giving Your Time

Harvard Business Review Management Tip-of-the-day, “Out of Time? Give Some Away,” showed up in my in box this week and I loved reading that there was research done on how to be more “time affluent.” It turns out you can feel less pressured and more relaxed if you do something for someone else when you…
Read more

Thursday Thoughts on Thriving: Negotiating with Escaping Elephants

In my prior “Hearts and Minds” post I explained the importance of understanding the emotional motivations for change along with the logical. In John Haidt’s book,” The Happiness Hypothesis” and he uses the great metaphor of an elephant for our emotional mind and the rider as the logical mind. Chip and Dan Heath borrowed this…
Read more

Thursday Thoughts on Thriving: Post Traumatic Growth

In my last post, “Epiphanies & Shifting Habits” I referred to John Haidt’s book “The Happiness Hypothesis.” I am going back to his book again because I had it top of mind with the memorials of the 9/11 tragedy this week. There is a whole chapter called “The Uses of Adversity” that is full…
Read more

Thursday Thoughts on Thriving: Epiphanies & Shifting Habits

In his book, “The Happiness Hypothesis” Jonatahan Haidt explains the challenge with an epiphany that shifts your outlook or even changes your life. After the light bulb goes off, you are often right back in your prior habits three months later. In order to make lasting change you need to retrain your emotional mind and…
Read more

Thursday Thoughts On Thriving: Hearts & Minds

Our culture is full of “mind over matter” messages that lead you to believe that you can think and rationalize and use brute force or will power to make things happen. Contrary to this belief, there is a lot of interesting research supporting that you need the emotional side of your motivation even more than…
Read more

Categories

Executive Coaching