Tuesday Morning Focal Point

Do you find yourself reacting at all these days, perhaps in ways that are unusual or are just more emotionally loaded than you are accustomed to?  If you do, you’re not alone.  More and more I seem to be having conversations with people about their emotional responses and reactions that they are not proud of. …

I hear all kinds of comments about emotions from, “I am not emotional,” to, “my partner’s emotions are irrational “and “My kid’s emotions don’t make sense”.  I find that emotions (and the related emotional qualities) in our western world are not well understood or valued. What are emotions? First, everyone has emotions.  Emotions are wired…

Have you ever wondered what it means as a leader to have emotional intelligence?  Have you wondered what qualities you possess that lead to your emotional responses? Do you know how they impact your ability to lead effectively?  Do you notice that sometimes your emotional responses don’t seem to make sense, and even aren’t always…

The importance and value in slowing down to better manage speeding up in business and leadership.

Last week I was discussing business with a founder of a company in the aviation industry. He is now a primarily hands-off owner, having brought in a CEO to run the company. The richest part of our conversation was related to his competition. This businessman talked about the ways his company’s competition has helped them grow…

Often when I facilitate workshops on resilience and building resilience, attendees offer a definition of resilience as the “ability to bounce back.”  I don’t think this is a perfect definition, but let’s go with it, simply because it is a common response from workshop participants. Therefore, it must matter. Miriam Webster’s dictionary defines it as…

Sometimes during the summer months, I think back at times to childhood summer camps.  I always loved the campfires in the evening and thoroughly enjoyed singing the great campfire songs.  One of the ones I think about is the classic “Goin’ on a Lion Hunt.”  The song talks about the hunt and running into various…

I happened to have been one of those kids that couldn’t keep my hands to myself.  In fact, truth be told is that if way back then they were diagnosing kids with ADHD, I would likely have been the classic case.  This revealed itself when as a child I was in a store.  Mom would…

Where is the acute stress coming from? What a year 2020 has been – one that will be remembered forever.  COVID-19 has had such a major impact on many elements of business.  Leaders have been stretched and challenged in ways they could not have predicted, with pressures and acute stress unlike they’ve ever experienced before….

This book has been on my want to read list for a while and I figured the current economic climate set the stage for now being the right time to do so. Ability to easily see different perspectives The author, Ben Horowitz, had a unique upbringing having communist grandparents while living in New York. In…