Executive Coaching to Optimize Business Results AND Create An Inspiring Corporate Culture
Do You Notice When Life Flows?
As I was walking out the door this morning, my sweetheart asked if I had received my 2012 registration sticker from the DMV. When I told him I hadn’t, despite having paid my fees over a month ago, he handed me the payment receipt that I had left on the table near our front door. [...]
Read more »10 Life Lessons You Should Unlearn
Sometimes what we need most is to unlearn things we’ve learned and to let go of beliefs (about ourselves, about others, about the world, about what is possible) that we have taken on. We are meaning making beings. That is, we infuse situations with meaning all the time, and what we respond to is often [...]
Read more »What’s the Real Problem?
What are up to in the world? I don’t mean what tasks and activities fill your days, I mean what are you really up to? What is your life about? What are you committed to? What are you creating? Who are you being? What matters so much to you that it feels like an ache, [...]
Read more »What Do You Value Most?
Have you ever wanted to change something about your life, but somehow felt like you were unable to? Maybe you’ve wanted to quick smoking, or start saving part of your earnings, or get out of debt, or get into a relationship, but felt stymied or stuck every time you attempted? If there’s something you want [...]
Read more »Seek Your Own Approval
Seek Your Own Approval Stop for a moment to think about the things that you love doing. I have clients and friends who love cooking/baking, taking photographs, hiking, playing sports, painting, gardening, dancing, playing music, singing. Think of one thing that you love doing — an activity that uplifts your spirit, feeds your soul, energizes [...]
Read more »The 10 Rules For Being Human
What would it be like to live every day at peace with and respecting your body and your experiences? What would be different about your life if you viewed every mistake as an opportunity to learn and grow and expand? How would today be if you were to fully show up and be present for [...]
Read more »Living From Love
Have you ever wondered what it would be like if people interacted with one another from a place of love and delight — instead of a place of fear or need or hate or greed? I just got home from a walk through town on an beautifully warm summer night. I had just finished a [...]
Read more »Do What Gives You Joy and Reduce or Delegate the Things that Don’t
Are you feeling stressed, overwhelmed and overextended? Do you find yourself often uninspired or avoiding particular things or even people? Do you get sick frequently? If you are experiencing stress in your life, I recommend that you: DO THE THINGS THAT GIVE YOU JOY AND REDUCE OR DELEGATE THE THINGS THAT DON’T! Before you write [...]
Read more »Streamline and Simplify – 3 Criteria for Clearing Clutter
I have always been a believer in the benefits of creating space: in your closet, in your mind, in your day. Space can have a relaxing, peaceful quality to it. Think about how it feels to open your closet or drawers right after having purged items you haven’t worn in ages, things that no longer [...]
Read more »5 Easy Steps to Making the Most of Your Work Day by Working with Intense Focus
Do you ever feel like you spend your entire work day putting out fires and responding to other people’s needs? Do you find yourself drowning in meetings and a never-ending stream of email to the point where you aren’t able to get your most important projects done or to the point of putting off proactively contacting key clients [...]
Read more »Find Your Stretch Zone
I often tell people that I learned to mountain bike by doing a bunch of endos. In case you don’t know, an endo is short for “end over end” and describes the experience of flying unexpectedly over the handlebars of your bike. It’s not pretty, and looks something like this: Part of the reason [...]
Read more »Take Action Now
What are the things that you have been putting off, avoiding, ignoring in hopes that somehow they will resolve themselves and you won’t ever have to deal with them? How’s that working for you? If you are someone who procrastinates, it’s time. Time to face the reality that the project on your to-do list that [...]
Read more »Stop Should-ing On Yourself
I have been amazed by how much of the stress in my life has been caused by “shoulds”. My “shoulds” show up as beliefs about what I should have achieved by this stage of my life, and ideas about what I should be doing right now. I should be more organized, spend more time with [...]
Read more »4 Things To Do When People Show Their Worst
The night before last, I got a phone call from someone in response to a posting I had placed on craigslist to sell my 17″ MacBook Pro. As it happened, I was driving from SF to Southern CA, and I had the laptop with me. I asked him (he said his name was Jeff) if [...]
Read more »Validation: by Kurt Kuenne
Ever think about the power of validation? How about how good it feels to see a smile show up on someone else’s face when you interact with them. I love this film! It’s inspiring and darling and makes me want to remind you of this: Whoever you are, wherever you are, regardless of what has [...]
Read more »What Are You Looking For?
Yesterday, I arrived in San Francisco, and took BART into the city from SFO. I walked from the Embarcadero BART station (in the Financial District) to a bus stop to catch a bus to the place where I was staying. There was more commotion than usual at the bus stop, because there was a commercial [...]
Read more »Do The Most Important Things
There’s a poem I love called Summer Day, by Mary Oliver. I heard her speak recently, at the 2010 Women’s Conference organized by Maria Shriver. And to my utter delight, she read most of my favorite poems, including Summer Day: Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This [...]
Read more »Celebrate Anything!
I have been a San Francisco Giants fan since I first moved to the Bay Area in 1990. It’s been incredibly fun to watch Giants fever take over as people change their work schedules around games, and break out their orange shirts and Giants caps. For me, the best part of having the Giants in [...]
Read more »Learn to Give Without Attaching Strings
I love the feeling I get when I help people. You know, that sweet feeling of being connected to someone and feeling like you’re making a difference all wrapped into one? I watched my mom through years of tireless volunteer work helping Armenian refugees get settled in LA, and aspired to touch people’s lives and [...]
Read more »Words of Wisdom from an Elder
Can you imagine what it would be like to live during three centuries? Walter Breuning was born in 1896. According to Wikipedia, he is the fourth-oldest living person in the world, and the world’s oldest living male. Mr. Breuning turned 114 years old on September 21, 2010. His reflections of memorable events are wonderful. What [...]
Read more »Staying Focused
This morning as I left home to head out on a run, the fog was so dense that I could hardly see ten feet in front of me. I couldn’t see my neighbors’ houses, I couldn’t see the end of the block, and when I got to the place where there is normally a view [...]
Read more »Be A Beginner
My father, who was nearly 95 when he died, used to tell me that the older he got, the less he knew. Before you start thinking that it was the result of Dementia or Alzheimer’s, let me assure you that he was of sound mind until the day he died. Our culture can be so [...]
Read more »What Matters Most to You?
This is a call, a challenge, a plea if you will — for all of us to step back periodically from the frenetic pace of life to reflect on the life we are living. Ask yourself right now: What is it that truly matters most to me? What provides me with a sense of meaning [...]
Read more »Perhaps What You Need Is a Shift in Attitude
Think back to the last time you were somewhere you didn’t want to be — getting a speeding ticket, in the checkout line that seems to be moving the slowest at the store, at the airport after having just learned that your flight has been cancelled or delayed, sitting in bumper to bumper traffic on [...]
Read more »The Four Agreements
It was years ago when I first read the “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz. At the time, I took everything that other people said personally. I cared a lot about what others thought of me and how they responded to me. I looked to others to help me feel okay about who I [...]
Read more »Finding Balance
A friend of mine just called to say that her good friend had a stroke. She’s in a coma now, and the doctors say it isn’t likely that she’ll come out of it. If she does, chances are that the brain damage she’s suffered means that she will never walk or talk again. She’s married. [...]
Read more »Divorce … Happily Ever After
We all want to find lasting love. We all want the happily-ever-after. We all want to feel deeply connected with someone else, to share our life with someone who we know cares, to have someone love us and, perhaps more importantly, to have someone to love. We want someone to be with now and someone [...]
Read more »Appreciating Today
Have you ever found yourself looking at your calendar or watch and wondering how so much time has passed in what feels like the blink of an eye? In our culture, we tend to cram so much into our daily lives that we hardly have a moment to catch our breath. We get so focused [...]
Read more »Uncovering
Intimate relationships require time and energy, love and nurturing. Each of us sees those around us through a particular filter. This filter, created by our life experiences, colors our perception of the people whose lives touch ours. Our filters adjust only if we stay open and curious about who the person before us is, without [...]
Read more »The Invitation
Nearly a decade ago, a friend of mine gave me a copy of this poem, by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. Since then, it has been a source of inspiration, a reminder of how I want to live my life, and a touchstone for me to come back to, time and again. I ache to live my [...]
Read more »Moments
There are moments in life that I’d like to sear into my memory so that I can call them forth whenever I wish. Moments when my heart has felt so full I feared it would burst, moments enrapt in the soft warmth of feeling completely at ease. Moments filled with such excitement that every cell [...]
Read more »Look In The Mirror
Think, for a moment, about a time when you had a very strong reaction to someone. A reaction that somehow seemed more intense than what you think would be appropriate, if you were to look at the situation objectively. One of the beautiful parts of interacting with others – particularly those to whom we have [...]
Read more »Learning To Be
We spend so much of our lives learning facts and skills, and seem to find little time to focus on learning to be. I find that the times when I feel most connected to myself and to the world, and most open to what life brings are times when I remember to stop and breathe. [...]
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