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The Moment Before

There’s a moment that comes right before you say something. A moment when you’re drawing in breath to speak, when you can alter the course of what’s coming next. In that moment, where are you? What are you thinking about? Are you two steps down the road of the discussion you’re having, trying to win ... Continue Reading

Every Bird is Not a Finch

I have recently become fascinated with the birds in our backyard. I hung a little feeder, pulled out some bird books I got from my dad, our family birder, and started identifying the regular visitors. The first bird I confidently recognized was a small brown bird, a finch. I was pretty sure that’s what it ... Continue Reading

Merit Badges for Grown-Ups

When kids are little, we want them to try a lot of things. “How will you know what you like unless you try it?” We say this about foods, clothes, places, and people.  In fact, some activities are engineered toward sampling lots of different things, for example in the Scouts programs. You are encouraged to ... Continue Reading

You Don’t Have to Be a “10” at Public Speaking

Everybody doesn’t need to be equally good at everything. For some tasks and skills, having a basic competence is sufficient—let’s call that a 6. For other skills, where we really make our money and show our value, we need to be a 10. I don’t need to be good at accounting because i have a ... Continue Reading

Kindness, Attention, Respect

I went to a routine medical appointment yesterday. The woman who was taking care of me said, “Thank you for being so pleasant! That’s been in short supply here today.” Her comment surprised me (I think I’m an average amount of “pleasant,” as a person), and I asked what had happened. Without getting into details, ... Continue Reading

Do You Want Me Here, or Just My Money?

Recently I spent the day at an amusement park not too far from where I live. When we arrived, fifteen minutes after the gates opened, there was a long line to get in, even for people who had bought their tickets ahead of time. We spent quite a while in the line, and throughout our ... Continue Reading

Failure and Practice

The moments of recognition of failure are the practice. Sam Harris, a neuroscientist and teacher of meditation, shared that thought. It resonates with me because even though Harris was talking about meditation, he could be referring to any skill we hope to acquire. When your mind is wandering during meditation, you don’t know that your ... Continue Reading

Being Good at It Is More Fun

It’s more fun to already be good at it, whatever it is.  Riding a bike, playing the guitar, sound editing…we want to be able to do it like we’ve seen others do it, effortlessly, gracefully, efficiently.  But getting there is hard work, most of it behind the scenes. And that hard work isn’t always fun. ... Continue Reading

When Your Default Intention Becomes Your Personality

We all have times when our default intention takes charge.  Something happens, and that default intention kicks in. We need to defend ourselves, to prove we’re right, to prevent failure, to let them know they’re wrong, to hide, to make waves, to be heard…the list goes on. But what happens when the fear-based, default reaction ... Continue Reading

Why Is That Chair There?

Make the furniture work for you.  A lot of people take the arrangement of furniture in a conference room or auditorium space for granted, like it put itself there. Most likely, it was either left that way by the people in the room before you, or a team of people arranged it according to a ... Continue Reading