Strengthen Your Core

What’s occupying my mind lately—racially motivated tragedies, war in the Ukraine, economic hardships (especially where I grew up in Sri Lanka)—also quells my optimism. Before my mind does its ‘auto-balancing act’ to replace bleak thoughts with comforting images (about all the things that are going right in the/my world), I want to explore this discord…

I was blown away this week by the example set by Elizabeth Bonker. At 15 months, she was diagnosed with nonverbal autism. Last Sunday, she gave the valedictorian speech at Rollins College. Her speech and her journey are inspirational. Encouraging her classmates to use their voices, she said: “God gave you a voice. Use it.…

Underdog … long-shot … outsider. Commentators used these words to describe a horse that replaced one that scratched the day before the Kentucky Derby. Given the odds of 80:1, this last-minute entry – Rich Strike – astounded everyone by winning this prestigious race.  That got me thinking about brilliant leadership, and how leaders look at…

Thanks for the Feedback, by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen, reminded me that feedback surrounds us 24/7 when we pay attention. Thinking about this took me back to when I hired my first coach. It was the year after my sister died and I decided to make a major career change, moving almost 5,000 miles…

I feared failure for much of my childhood and did my best to avoid it by aiming for perfection. It wasn’t until my early adulthood that I started noticing something wasn’t working. The more perfect I tried to be, the more upset I became with the outcomes. I realized that I needed to cut myself…

If you were to pick up one of the books in my library, you would find them filled with highlights and notes written in the margins. Over this past month, I’ve been revisiting them, curious about what I was thinking when I originally read them.   Five stars were next to a passage from Think…

These past months have me thinking a lot about how we handle crises and what it takes to operate successfully during turbulent times. What makes the difference between being an ordinary versus an extraordinary leader during a crisis? Extraordinary leaders do not keep their distance from events and people that need their leadership. Leaders I…

My best varies daily.  Some days I’m able to “save the day” and solve complex problems, and other days I spend 15 minutes looking for the phone that is safely encased in my back pocket. Over time, I’ve come to understand that my value doesn’t diminish on the days I don’t think I’m performing at…

During our seven-month home renovation, my husband, Doug, and I had a key contractor abruptly leave the job. After the initial shock of discovering he wouldn’t be with us until the end, I panicked. My stomach was in knots and my mind raced with ways to figure out how to “fix” the problem. I tried…

I was browsing a friend’s Facebook posts and came across “Word of the Day is ‘spuddle’ (17th century): to work ineffectively, to be extremely busy whilst achieving absolutely nothing.” ‘Spuddle’ seems the perfect word for this phenomenon. I’ve been finding myself ‘spuddling’ a lot lately. I start the day with a “to do” list, and…