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Lead with courage, Compassion, and Integrity

Four Tips for Mentors

Four Tips for Mentors

If you’re a professional, tradesperson, business owner, a manager, director, or supervisor of any sort, consider lending a hand to a younger or less experienced colleague. Consider mentoring.

Impact Now: When Women Lead

Impact Now: When Women Lead

An announcement. Thanks to the generous support and encouragement of an anonymous donor, I have the privilege of launching a for-impact organization, Impact Now: When Women Lead. Our mission: Provide high quality, affordable coaching and support to women who lead in for-impact settings. R

Goals, Accountability, actions:         3 Things I’m Doing

Goals, Accountability, actions: 3 Things I’m Doing


As we turn the calendar page from 2021 to 2022, it seems like everyone is writing about goals.

So why am I throwing my words into the air? Because I want to go out on a limb, practice integrity and vulnerability, and walk my talk.

5 Cs: Make These Moves When Adversity Strikes

5 Cs: Make These Moves When Adversity Strikes

Adversity. Crisis. Storm. These aren't situations we look for at work. These are not the conditions that any business owner, organizational leader, or family member seeks out. But adversity is part of life. Crises slam into us without warning. No one gets through life...

3 Reasons and 3 Tactics to Take Care of Yourself When Adversity Strikes

Photo by Ekrulila from Pexels “I like to think that I’m someone who cares about the people I work with. But I’m not so sure I do. And when a crisis hits, I don’t pay attention to taking care of myself. After all, I’m a numbers guy. But I can see that needs to change.”...

Courage

Courage

Since January I’ve been thinking a lot about courage. It’s a topic that comes up in the Insight into Action group coaching program. It’s also a topic that underlies many individual coaching conversations.  If you read Brené Brown’s work or listen to any of her talks,...

6 practices to cultivate learning culture

6 practices to cultivate learning culture

"What do you know about developing a learning culture?" This was the question a recently-hired executive of a non-profit/for-impact organization asked me. Her organization was less than four-years old. There were only five employees at the time. While she was...

Three Truths for when you’re afraid

Three Truths for when you’re afraid

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives...

“Because of the unexpected”

“Because of the unexpected”

My good friend Linda Stormes just posted a piece entitled "Because of the Unexpected" on her site. It's a beautiful piece that she wrote on the occasion of her birthday. She notes that the hole in her heart, which she's had from birth, is a metaphor for "embracing...

Standing at the Edge

Standing at the Edge

One of the hardest things we must do sometimes is to be present to another person's pain without trying to fix it, to simply stand respectfully at the edge of that person's mystery and misery. Standing there we feel useless and powerless, which is exactly how the...

The next right thing

The next right thing

Panicked, frightened, confused, and furious, I called my Al-Anon sponsor. My sixteen-year-old daughter had just stormed out of the house in a rage. I don’t remember the inciting incident. I just remember what I felt: worry, anger, fear, and everything in between.  An...

Small Resurrections

Small Resurrections

Five years ago, in 2016, while living in Beni, DRC, I wrote the following reflection. As I reread it recently, I realized I’ve neglected to look for small resurrections this past year. It’s time to open my eyes and my heart again. On Good Friday I began rereading Nora...

Multitasking. Task switching. Interruptions. Oh my!

Multitasking. Task switching. Interruptions. Oh my!

Who hasn’t tried to wrangle the multitasking beast?

You answer a phone call while writing an email. You pretend to listen to your partner while looking for that website tab you accidentally closed. You listen to a podcast while trying to write a proposal (emphasis on trying).

Miracle in the Doing

Miracle in the Doing

It had not been an easy week. Competing needs crowded me like mad shoppers on black Friday, jostling and tugging, refusing to queue up or take a number for service.   Then my computer, which had been suffering some maladies for the previous three months,...

With an Open Hand

With an Open Hand

If there’s anything to learn from 2020, it’s “Hold plans with an open hand.”

Eye Mask, by Denise Levertov

Eye Mask, by Denise Levertov

In this dark I rest,unready for the light which dawnsday after day,eager to be shared.Black silk, shelter me.I needmore of the night before I openeyes and heartto illumination. I must stillgrow in the dark like a rootnot ready, not ready at all.Denise Levertov. Poem...

The Armor of Light, December 2020

The Armor of Light, December 2020

And I need—we all need—truth and hope these days. We also need to assume responsibility and “chase away the works of darkness.”

Small Gifts of Grace

Small Gifts of Grace

It was Saturday evening in Beni, DRCongo.  “Mama Mary,” Maou, our guard, called from down the hall.  “Mama Furaha apeleka huyu” (“Mama Furaha sent this.”). He held out a small black plastic bag. I opened it to find four handfuls of freshly cut, tender basil...

Yes, Gratitude

Yes, Gratitude

Jesse is a spirited, joyful, artistic soul with a broad smile and bold laugh.  I met her about sixteen years ago during a time in my life when I didn’t feel grateful. My heart ached because a loved one’s health and wellbeing were at risk. My mind chewed on worst...

Overwhelmed? Too much to do? Maybe it’s time to stop!

Overwhelmed? Too much to do? Maybe it’s time to stop!

Are you running the time and task treadmill? Running as fast as you can to keep up with work and home? Back-to-back meetings, emails, new projects, and managing staff consume you at work. Family responsibilities, household projects, and the basics of running a...

Me

Me

As in "Me First" and "gimme," the pronoun me has gotten a bad name over the years. It's other people we're told we should be thinking about. It's giving to them. But taken all by itself--just me--there's something rather poignant about it. Only two letters long....

Four Ways to Manage Email Overload

Four Ways to Manage Email Overload

It's Wednesday afternoon and emails multiply like zucchinis in July (I know, because that's what my zucchinis are doing!). How can you handle the onslaught and still be responsive? Here are four things I do: Limit email inbox visits.Respond, discard, or file.Reduce...