Be Where Your Feet Are

I recently heard actor Jamie Leigh Curtis repeat the mantra that helped her through recovery from addiction and that she still uses every day: Be where your feet are. It’s a simple and elegant way to remind yourself to be present. There are a couple of ways we forget to be where our feet are. … Continue reading Be Where Your Feet Are

How To Give Better Criticism – and Take it Better from Others

In a terrific article by Arthur C. Brooks for The Atlantic, he talks about how we humans love to criticize but hate to receive criticism. In other words, we love to dish it out, but can’t stomach receiving it. I believe that’s why internet forums are so popular and so toxic; we can hide behind … Continue reading How To Give Better Criticism – and Take it Better from Others

Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way

In a previous post, I introduced the Smalley Personality quiz, a quick take on personality types in the workplace. The types are categorized as animals: Lion, Otter, Golden Retriever, and Beaver. Otters tend to be energetic, optimistic, and enthusiastic, especially about new, shiny ideas. They’re team players and the team cheerleaders. Beavers, on the other … Continue reading Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way

When Too Many Otters is a Bad Thing

Nancy Pulciano is a producer and the CEO of Silent Crowd, a clothing company based in San Diego. She’s a manager with experience in Hollywood as a producer and in the action sports and restaurant industries, so she knows a thing or two about managing creative, diverse, and sometimes difficult personalities. Writing for Rolling Stone … Continue reading When Too Many Otters is a Bad Thing

The Case for Ambition

Jeff DeGraff Ph.D., writing for Psychology Today, says that somewhere along the way, ambition turned from a virtue to a vice. “Once a cornerstone of the American ethos—synonymous with self-reliance, upward mobility, and personal agency—ambition is now more often associated with selfishness, power-hunger, or hollow striving. We’re suspicious of those who want too much, push … Continue reading The Case for Ambition

Acceptance is Your Leadership Superpower

American-Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross first wrote about the five stages of grief in the 1960s. They were designed to help people cope with loss by giving them a checklist of human reactions to terrible things. First shock and disbelief (this can’t be happening to me), then anger (I don’t deserve this), then bargaining (if I … Continue reading Acceptance is Your Leadership Superpower

You’re a Liar. It’s OK; I am, too.

Pamela Meyer thinks you’re a liar. It’s nothing personal; she thinks we’re all liars. And the science bears her out. Her 2011 TED Talk “How to Spot a Liar” has been viewed over 23 million times. She says studies have shown that strangers tell 3 lies to each other, on average, within the first 10 … Continue reading You’re a Liar. It’s OK; I am, too.

The Intense Perfectionist

Perfectionism can be a power for good; it can also make the perfectionist and everyone around them miserable. That’s according to Katherine Morgan Schafler, who has written The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control: A Path to Peace and Power. In it, she frees up perfectionists to lean into their perfectionism as long as it’s working … Continue reading The Intense Perfectionist

Get the Respect You Deserve

Scott Mautz is a popular speaker, trainer, and LinkedIn Learning instructor. He’s a former senior executive of Procter & Gamble, where he ran several of the company’s largest multi-billion-dollar businesses. He is the author of ”The Mentally Strong Leader: Build the Habits to Productively Regulate Your Emotions, Thoughts, and Behaviors.”  Writing for CNBC online, he says that … Continue reading Get the Respect You Deserve

Have you ever been guilty of Fauxductivity? This post is for you.

A recent study by Workhuman has revealed that managers are more likely to be guilty of faking productivity—or fauxductivity—in the workplace than their employees. (Cue the disbelief from the cubicle farm.) The 3Q Global Human Workplace Index survey reached out to 3,000 managers in the UK, U.S., and Ireland. The drop in actual – as … Continue reading Have you ever been guilty of Fauxductivity? This post is for you.