Category: ‘Life Lessons’

Good day, team.

This week’s challenge is about something borrowed. To explain, I’ll start with the description of an experience I had this past week.

Early Wednesday morning, I was at the airport waiting for a flight to San Jose for two days of meetings with a client. I was sipping my coffee and checking e-mail, trying to get a few things done before I had to get on the plane. Suddenly, I realized that all three of the diamonds in my engagement ring were gone. My heart immediately started racing. “This can’t be,” I thought. …

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Good day, team.

Yesterday, I learned that our good friends Bennett and Andy lost their dog Aspen to pneumonia. Their wonderful golden retriever finally succumbed to poor health after fighting off lymphoma for a year.

Aspen was just one of those dogs. When she approached, you just had to pet her. There was something about the way that dog was able to make loving eye contact with you that drew you into a strong, intimate connection. At the same time, Aspen had that playful puppy-like energy that always made you want …

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Good day, team.

I’ve been reading a good book called “Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most” by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen, and would like to share some of it with you this week.

Plain and simple, a difficult conversation is anything you find hard to talk about. Whether at work or home, we all face the unpleasant feelings that come up when we know we need to have a difficult conversation with someone.

Here are some great examples:

• Firing or laying off employees
• Letting a client know that the project you bid on will …
  

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Good day, team.

This week’s challenge comes from a Fast Company article sent to me by a client. The complete article, “Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch” by Shawn Parr, can be found here.

The heart of the piece is about the importance of creating a vibrant company culture that everyone from your CEO down can contribute to and relate to in their daily work lives. Parr writes, “It’s not good enough just to have an amazing product and a healthy bank balance. Long-term success is …

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Good day, team.

This past week, I’ve been thinking a lot about the importance of asking good questions. I realized that learning how to ask good questions was not a part of my education. All through school, we were encouraged to come up with the right answers — but not to become experts at the process of inquiry. This sets us up in our lives to always feel compelled to have the answer — and always the right …

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